Tanner Roark, Image by Lorie Shaull

The Blue Jays off-season acquisitions of starting pitchers Chase Anderson and Tanner Roark should bring conflicted emotions for fans: they are dependable innings eaters and provide the Blue Jays with durable starting pitching. On the other hand, Anderson and Roark aren’t exactly “good” pitchers on a contending team.

In 2019, Anderson posted a very pedestrian 4.21 ERA (4.83 FIP), with a 12.5 K-BB% in 139 innings pitched, while Roark had a 4.35 ERA (4.67 FIP) and a 14.8 K-BB% in 165.1 innings pitched. Anderson and Roark are both likely slotting in to be the number 3 and 4 starters for the Blue Jays in 2020. But what if they weren’t starters? And what if the Blue Jays didn’t have a “Five Man Rotation”? While a mid-4 ERA back-end of the rotation starter is perfectly acceptable, I believe that both Anderson and Roark’s best possible deployment would be by utilizing an opener on days they pitch, then letting them pitch two-times through the order starting in the second inning. In other words, utilize them as Bulk-Men out of the bullpen who pitch 5+ innings per game.

There are numerous reasons for my thinking. First, the best hitters in the league are at the top of the order. Better hitters batting earlier may seem like common sense, but there is evidence to back it up:



Spot in Order wRC+ K-BB% OPS Hard Hit % 1st – 3rd 111 11.8 .807 39.2 4th – 6th 103 14.6 .777 38.7 7th – 9th 81 17.4 .692 35.2 A.L. Hitters (2019), Source: Fangraphs

Hitters that are in the top third of the order are 11% better than the average major league hitter (wRC+). Allowing Roark and Anderson to avoid facing the top of the order three times in a game will let them not only pitch 5+ innings in a game but do so as effectively as possible. Being able to better matchup pitchers against the most dangerous hitters on the opposing team, while not overworking the bullpen, would be an incredible advantage for the Blue Jays. This brings me to my second reason for utilizing an opener for their starts: Anderson and Roark are less effective when facing an order for the third time:

Anderson

Time Through Order IP K% BB% ERA FIP xFIP 1st 57.1 21.4 8.2 4.40 4.64 5.55 2nd 56.0 20.1 8.8 3.86 4.87 4.95 3rd 15.2 16.4 7.5 4.60 4.81 5.82 Source: Fangraphs

Roark

Time Through Order IP K% BB% ERA FIP xFIP 1st 64.0 25.8 6.8 4.36 3.53 3.68 2nd 65.1 20.3 5.8 3.31 5.34 4.60 3rd 35.0 17.8 9.8 6.43 5.59 6.03 Source: Fangraphs

Looking at Anderson and Roark’s splits when facing an order for the third time, you can see significantly worse results, especially in K% and xFIP. This makes sense for two reasons:

By the time any pitcher faces an order for the third time, they will be doing so with a much higher pitch count, being much more fatigued. Batters will have seen their pitches two times already, and will (more or less) know what to expect. Especially considering that Anderson relies heavily on a 3-pitch mix of Four-Seamers, Changeups, and Curveballs, while Roark does not have one positive p-val pitch. Their lack of a strong arsenal makes it easy for good hitters to adjust and take advantage of by the time they have faced either pitcher three times.

A K% drop may not seem like an incredibly big deal, but it is. Strikeouts are a way to track how effective a pitcher is at any point in the game. This is because it is one of the three true outcomes (Strikeout, Walk, Home Run) and is independent of park factors, fielding, and luck. A dropping strikeout rate signifies that hitters are figuring you out, and your performance is decreasing.

For reference, here are the same splits for Hyun-Jin Ryu in 2019:

Ryu

Time Through Order IP K% BB% ERA FIP xFIP 1st 68.0 26.5 3.5 1.46 2.39 2.97 2nd 63.1 19.4 4.4 2.42 3.48 3.82 3rd 48.0 20.1 2.0 3.38 3.76 3.23 Source: Fangraphs

Though Ryu is not a strikeout-heavy pitcher, a stable K% between his 2nd and 3rd times through the order shows why he is among the league’s best pitchers: he keeps hitters guessing even after they have seen him twice in a game. Noone should be expecting Ryu-like performance out of Anderson and Roark, but the predictability and correlation between K% and in-game pitching performance helps to draw a clear-line in who should be a starting pitcher and who should be a bulk-man.

You may be asking: why not just start them but pull them out of games earlier? Letting them come into games in the second inning would mean they would be facing the fourth or fifth batter, thereby giving them a much easier workload and ensuring that no matter the scenario they do not face the top third of the opposition’s batting order three times. Allowing Anderson and Roark to be bulk-men rather than starting pitchers could let them each pitch 160 innings (32 games x 5 IP/start) while contributing higher performance. Two successful implementations of the bulk-man strategy can be seen in the Rays’ Ryan Yarbrough and Angels’ Felix Pena.

Yarbrough

Situation Games IP K% ERA FIP Team Record Starter 14 85.2 20.9 4.31 3.59 7-7 Reliever 14 56.0 20.6 3.86 3.50 10-4 Source: Fangraphs

Pena

Situation Games IP K% ERA FIP Team Record Starter 7 28.2 19.4 5.34 5.38 3-4 Reliever 17 67.2 27.2 4.26 3.78 9-6 Source: Fangraphs

Felix Pena’s role as a bulk man for the Angels in 2019 was incredibly successful. Having dropped his ERA by over a full run and FIP by 1.5, Pena should be seen as a best-case scenario for a bulk-man. For Yarbrough, his IP/game was significantly lower in games he did not start in (4.0IP/gm), but this was likely because of the increased flexibility the team gained in having a reliever pitch until the 5th or 6th inning by not letting him face the order a third time. Even though his splits were marginally better as a reliever when compared to a starter, the added flexibility he provided to the Rays in the games he acted as a bulk-man was invaluable, with the Rays having a record of 10-4 in games he acted as a bulk-man.

While Yarbrough’s deployment as a bulk-man was successful for the Rays in 2019, the same could not be said for his teammate Yonny Chirinos, who had significantly worse results when deployed out of the bullpen (the Rays still went 6-2 in games he was a bulk-man). Even though this shouldn’t have been the case, it was. Baseball is a human-played game and even though a concept is sound on paper, in practice the human-factor can take over. That isn’t to say the Blue Jays should not at least attempt to deploy Roark and Anderson as bulk-men out of the bullpen (they very much should), but they should not be expecting Yarbrough or Pena-type results right away. Anderson and Roark both have not had to consistently come out of the bullpen in a long time, and there would most likely be a significant transition period for both of them. I believe that if the Blue Jays are serious about playoff contention, the evidence shows that both Anderson and Roark should not be starting pitchers in 2020, but rather should be bulk-men out of the bullpen.