D-backs @ Nationals Discussion

Posting this a little later, give Snake Bytes time to breathe. Besides, it’s not as if anyone reads these. 🙂 Bratt Summer continues, and we’ll see if he can perhaps pitch long enough to get a decision – he has yet to reach five innings in any of his three starts so far. But at least he did throw 84 pitches over 4.2 innings last time, so should be more or less fully stretched out. He does need to improve his K:BB ratio, which is only 7:6 so far. But we also need to remember he only turned 23 years old earlier in the month. The last time a player made more than one start for us in his age 22 season or younger, was Archie Bradley in 2015.

I do wonder if it’s time for the five-inning rule to be changed. It came in for the 1950 season, when starting pitching was a very different animal. There were almost a thousand complete games thrown that year (997, to be precise), compared to last season when there were… twenty-nine. And that was in almost twice as many starts, because there were only 16 teams in the majors at that point. So, we’re talking about a 98.5% reduction, and it’s likely more this year, with a mere eleven complete games. In 1950, there were only 570 starts shorter than five innings, about 23%. Last year, there were 1,410, about 29%.

The standard now should really getting an out in the fifth for a decision, rather than completing it. Last year, there were 1,159 of those, which is as close to 23% as we can get. Might not seem much, but that would be 251 more chances given to starters to get a win. I’m sure Randy Vasquez would be in favor, as he had nine starts last year in that 4.1-4.2 inning range. Among D-backs, Brandon Pfaadt had four such games. Though in none of those would the rule change have affected the decision. The two non-decisions Pfaadt got, were both because the bullpen took the L, rather than due to the five-inning minimum. So maybe it wouldn’t make much difference.