Without actually playing on the field, a baseball team’s manager has a big impact on whether a team wins or loses. His job is to make all the team’s roster decisions, including any substitutions, the batting order, positions players play, and who starts and sits out for a particular game. The pitcher is meanwhile the most important player on the field at any time, since the importance of a team’s offense is split evenly between nine players, but a team’s defense is primarily determined by one man – the pitcher.
First and foremost, the manager always does what’s best to help his team win, and the pitcher understands that. At the same time, once a pitcher or any other position of player is subbed out, they can’t return back into the game under baseball’s rules. So it’s the manager’s job to make that decision, whether or not it rubs the player’s pride and ego the wrong way sometimes. But he takes an array of strategic elements into account to make a cold, hard decision.
Right now we’re going to dive into what those decisions have traditionally been based on and the major changes that have come about recently.
Traditional Factors
The signal when a pitching change has been made is when the manager walks out toward the mound and takes the ball from the pitcher. Everybody finds out at once, so it usually causes an audible reaction in the bleachers. Here are the main things traditionally used to make this decision as well as in sport betting.
Performance
This is the first and obvious thing that gets people to want a pitching change usually. When the guy can’t throw a strike, is walking batters, is beaning them, or is lobbing up balls that hitters can’t get enough of and they’re roping them left and right – you need a change. Sometimes even in the first inning.
Fatigue
Every pitcher’s stamina is different, especially when you compare pitchers adapted to starting roster positions versus relief pitchers. That said, after 90-100 pitches, they’ll get tired, especially if they throw in some sidearm or submarine style or throw in a way that’s physically demanding. Older pitchers don’t tend to last as long either. Managers also watch for declining ball control and slowing pitch speed. If they start off throwing at 95 MPH and then it goes down to 90, it’s shown right on the outfield sign.
Matchups
Baseball is a game of situational chess, and batters hit different pitchers with different levels of success. Their head-to-head history is posted even on TV whenever a batter and a pitcher face off. Some players hate the cutter but love the high-heaters. Others hit at a .330 batting average and hit 35 homeruns a year but can’t handle a knuckle ball (a common one, though knuckle ball pitchers today are rare).
Besides that, right handed pitchers fare better against right handed batters and vice versa. So when a pitcher is nearing the end of his outing, a great time to take him out is against a batter he doesn’t match up well against.
Game Situation
When a pitcher isn’t inspiring much confidence, and he finds himself in a sticky situation, this will affect who substitutes in for him. Relief pitchers are signed onto teams that are specialists in specific situations. Some of them are great and force ground balls. This is good when the team doesn’t want to allow another run but there are runners on 3rd and 2nd with zero or only one out to prevent a sacrifice fly. Then there are pop-out specialists and closers. You also need long relievers, since many specialists only last a short time.
Bullpen Availability
Speaking of the relief pitchers, these guys’ stamina has to be measured too. Who gets put in is affected by how much they’ve been subbed in lately and how gassed they are. Managers also have to consider which relievers he needs to save for future games. This game might not be as important as the next.
Analytics
Analytics has completely changed pitching over the past two decades. There is now impeccable technology that tracks all sorts of facets of a pitcher’s performance:
Fielding independent pitching
Expected FIP
Elevated walk rate
Poor strike-out-to-walk ratio
On-base plus slugging splits
Effectiveness versus right-handed or left-handed hitters
Beyond season-long stats, technology now tracks every pitch in real time. Managers can see if a pitcher’s spin rate has suddenly dropped, a sign of fatigue or a mechanical issue. Exit velocity of balls in play is another warning flag: even if outs are being recorded, a rising average exit velocity may signal that hitters are squaring the pitcher up and a breakthrough is imminent.
The Tampa Bay Rays are the poster child of analytics, and everyone else joined.
The End of the 300-Win Pitcher
There are prestigious statistics that fans have loved to gush over – for instance, strikeout league leaders, shutouts, and wins. A great milestone of many hall of fame pitchers is reaching 300 wins. That milestone is now going to be a thing of the past. San Francisco Giants pitcher Justin Verlander is the only and probably the last pitcher who may reach that height, and that’s because he’s old, and racked up many wins before analytics took over the league.
That means that we likely won’t be seeing any cool shutouts by a single pitcher, nevermind any more no-hitters or perfect games such as those pitched by David Wells and David Cone. Also, no starting pitcher is likely ever to threaten Nolan Ryan’s strikeout record. They simply won’t get enough innings under their belt. That said, this conservative strategy is also partially designed to protect starting pitchers from injury, who cost their clubs tens of millions of dollars a year and are more likely to get injured when trying to overcome fatigue.
Famous Pitching Changes
Some have made baseball history. The ones that worked out went down as genius, the others looked idiotic. With the Rays’ Blake Snell dominating the Dodgers after more than innings, in Game 6, Cash pulled him after only 73 pitches, since his performance usually declined after that many pitches. The decision backfired right away and unfortunately for Cash, they came back and won the title.
