Our Texas Rangers against the Oakland A's 9/2 -9/4

[Windingmywatch]

I see him as the LR for this team

IMO ... that's a waste on a team with 3 - 4 SPs who reliably go 6.0+. IMO ... TEX doesn't need a LR.

 

[Windingmywatch]

[/U][/I][/B]

if you can't expect to get at least 25+ starts out of any one of them then it hurts the team because then you have to play musical starting rotation. look at this year with the exception of Darvish & Holland no one we expected to open the season with has given us any consistency and we were forced to open the season with Tepesch and Grimm. they pitched well for a while and then it caught up with them

Scotty ... "With the exception of Darvish & Holland ... (everyone) ... we expected to open the season with" was on the DL. Hardly possible getting consistency from a guy on the DL (Colby, Harrison, Ogando) ... so not sure what you are trying to say.

Sure its great to get 25+ GS from all five SPs. Doesn't happen often though. TEX 2011 all five SPs had 25+ GS (Wilson 34, Lewis 32, Holland 32, Harrison 30, Ogando 29). In 2013 only DET and OAK SPs will all get 25+ GS.

BOS, TBR, NYY, KCR, SEA and HOU will have four SPs with 25+GS.
BAL and CLE will have three SPs with 25+GS.
TOR, MIN, CHW, TEX and LAA will have two SPs with 25+GS.

Sure musical chairs happen: DET has used 6SPs, OAK 7SPs, NYY and KCR 8SPs, TBR and CLE 9SPs, MIN, CHW, LAA, SEA and HOU 10SPs, BOS and TEX 11SPs, TOR 13SPs, BAL 14SPs.

So its logical ... you don't have injured SPs ... your SPs make more starts ... and you use fewer SPs. (DET, OAK this year ... TEX in 2011).

Going into 2013 TEX only had 4SPs with Colby not expected to be back any earlier than May so he doesn't count ... Tepesch won the #5 in camp when Perez was injured. Harrison and then Ogando went out ... leaving only Darvish and Holland. Hard to get starts and consistency if you have only a 25yo vet, a second year emerging star, a 25yo rookie, a 24yo rookie and a first time SP as your rotation. But that rotation held up enough that with the BP they had the AL best ERA for much of the first half (now they are #3).

My point in saying in 2014 the #5 competition will be Ogando, Tepesch, some old guys JD hires to compete for the spot plus a couple of guys from AAA or AA is that is okay. Might even be healthy if there is a spot to be competed for. I'm okay with the #5 spot being a proving ground. That's where you find out what you have and a musical chair in that spot actually helps strengthen the top 10 SPs that most teams will end up needing to compete and win.

Expecting 25+ starts out of the #5 happens rarely.

 

[Jbear]

Go figure, Astros win the game against OAK. They had a rough 8th inning but 9th inning was not too bad. Maybe Astros can snake out another win in this series. It would be great.

 

[Windingmywatch]

Go figure, Astros win the game against OAK. They had a rough 8th inning but 9th inning was not too bad. Maybe Astros can snake out another win in this series. It would be great.

missed you JB ... we were all over on the TEX @ LAA thread. We've pretty much abandoned this horror show thread

 

[scotsman1948]

Scotty ... "With the exception of Darvish & Holland ... (everyone) ... we expected to open the season with" was on the DL. Hardly possible getting consistency from a guy on the DL (Colby, Harrison, Ogando) ... so not sure what you are trying to say.

Sure its great to get 25+ GS from all five SPs. Doesn't happen often though. TEX 2011 all five SPs had 25+ GS (Wilson 34, Lewis 32, Holland 32, Harrison 30, Ogando 29). In 2013 only DET and OAK SPs will all get 25+ GS.

BOS, TBR, NYY, KCR, SEA and HOU will have four SPs with 25+GS.
BAL and CLE will have three SPs with 25+GS.
TOR, MIN, CHW, TEX and LAA will have two SPs with 25+GS.

Sure musical chairs happen: DET has used 6SPs, OAK 7SPs, NYY and KCR 8SPs, TBR and CLE 9SPs, MIN, CHW, LAA, SEA and HOU 10SPs, BOS and TEX 11SPs, TOR 13SPs, BAL 14SPs.

So its logical ... you don't have injured SPs ... your SPs make more starts ... and you use fewer SPs. (DET, OAK this year ... TEX in 2011).

Going into 2013 TEX only had 4SPs with Colby not expected to be back any earlier than May so he doesn't count ... Tepesch won the #5 in camp when Perez was injured. Harrison and then Ogando went out ... leaving only Darvish and Holland. Hard to get starts and consistency if you have only a 25yo vet, a second year emerging star, a 25yo rookie, a 24yo rookie and a first time SP as your rotation. But that rotation held up enough that with the BP they had the AL best ERA for much of the first half (now they are #3).

My point in saying in 2014 the #5 competition will be Ogando, Tepesch, some old guys JD hires to compete for the spot plus a couple of guys from AAA or AA is that is okay. Might even be healthy if there is a spot to be competed for. I'm okay with the #5 spot being a proving ground. That's where you find out what you have and a musical chair in that spot actually helps strengthen the top 10 SPs that most teams will end up needing to compete and win.

Expecting 25+ starts out of the #5 happens rarely.

maybe so but you go into the season thinking that's what you will get from the 5 starters. no one expected more than 2 of our starters to do that when the season started

 

[Windingmywatch]

maybe so but you go into the season thinking that's what you will get from the 5 starters. no one expected more than 2 of our starters to do that when the season started

Read couple of years ago that JD was quoted as saying that at a minimum you need to always have 10 ML-ready SPs to compete for the entire season. Thinking you are going to get +25 starts from every member of your rotation is unrealistically optimistic. Rarely happens. Losing more than 2 SPs happens often.

Even OAK who had 5 SPs project for +25 starts got only 5 starts from Bret Anderson before he went on the DL so it wasn't immune either.

Fact that on Sep 6th that TEX and OAK would be in MLB's tightest race was not something many of us thought would be the case when Darvish was the old man in the rotation at 26yo back in the spring with Tepesch, Grimm and Lindblom alongside him and Holland. But it happens more often than 5 SPs making 25+ starts.

 

[scotsman1948]

Read couple of years ago that JD was quoted as saying that at a minimum you need to always have 10 ML-ready SPs to compete for the entire season. Thinking you are going to get +25 starts from every member of your rotation is unrealistically optimistic. Rarely happens. Losing more than 2 SPs happens often.

Even OAK who had 5 SPs project for +25 starts got only 5 starts from Bret Anderson before he went on the DL so it wasn't immune either.

Fact that on Sep 6th that TEX and OAK would be in MLB's tightest race was not something many of us thought would be the case when Darvish was the old man in the rotation at 26yo back in the spring with Tepesch, Grimm and Lindblom alongside him and Holland. But it happens more often than 5 SPs making 25+ starts.

But I doubt JD or Nolan viewed Tepesch or Grimly as MLB ready opening day

 

[Windingmywatch]

But I doubt JD or Nolan viewed Tepesch or Grimly as MLB ready opening day

TEX named Tepesch its #5 starter (see link) taking the job from a number of other pitchers during camp. If he wasn't ML-ready then another pitcher would have been named #5. If he wasn't ML-ready then why did TEX clear a 40-man roster spot for him when they brought him up for his first start. He went on to make 16 starts.

Nick Tepesch named Rangers' No. 5 starter; Jurickson Profar sent to Triple-A | texasrangers.com: News

When Harrison went out in early April TEX turned to Grimm who promptly went out and won his first two starts after a ND and won AL Rookie of the Month for April.

If JD and Nolan did not view them as ML-ready and have confidence in them both ... they never would have been brought up to start. Would TEX management have preferred Colby and Harrison healthy in the rotation instead of pushing Tepesch and Grimm? Sure ... but as JD has said ... you got to have a minimum of 10 ML-ready SPs to complete the season ... and Tepesch and Grimm were in the 10.