LOS ANGELES — As a 22-year-old, second-year major-leaguer, Mark Prior pitched 234⅔ innings over 33 starts (including the postseason) for the 2003 Chicago Cubs.
He averaged 113 pitches in his 30 regular-season starts, threw more than 120 pitches nine times and more than 130 three times in September then again in his first postseason start. Over his final six regular-season starts and three postseason starts, he threw 1,125 pitches. The majority of his starts (including two of the three postseason outings) came on four days of rest.
If Prior let any of his charges as the Dodgers’ pitching coach do any of those things now, it would probably qualify as malpractice.
“I don’t really wrap my head around it and wish anything was different. I think that’s a slippery slope when, as a former player, you start going down that road (and say), ‘I wish we did things this way. I wish we did things that way,’” said Prior, who threw his last pitch in the major leagues at age 25 due to shoulder injuries. “You play in the era you played. That was the era I played in. That’s what was expected. Hopefully – as it should – the game evolves and changes.”
The Dodgers have tried to be at the forefront of those changes in the way starting pitchers are handled.
Since Andrew Friedman took over the Dodgers’ front office for the 2015 season, their starting pitcher has had more than four days of rest in roughly two-thirds of all regular-season games. This year, they have been even more aggressive about the rest and recovery aspect of the starting rotation. Only one pitcher (Bobby Miller on April 10) has started on as little as four days of rest – the standard “normal” rest for decades. Extra off days on the early-season schedule (compensation for the trip to South Korea) have helped with that.
Only one Dodgers starting pitcher has thrown as many as 100 pitches in a start – Tyler Glasnow has done it twice, topping out at 101 in eight innings against the New York Mets on April 21. Only six times in the season’s first 39 games has a starter completed seven innings.
“You look at it, the industry trend skews very heavily towards injuries early in the year. We’re doing our best to avoid that,” Friedman said. “We haven’t done a great job of that. Neither have a lot of teams. We’re at a loss for what the answer is. But we’re going to continue to make our best efforts.”
Those best efforts will occasionally include – bullpen games.
The Dodgers have already resorted to the tactic three times in the first six weeks of the season, using them as spacers to spread out the starting rotation. Friday’s game in San Diego is the first of 13 consecutive games before the Dodgers’ next off day and Manager Dave Roberts has already hinted at dropping in a bullpen game during that stretch to make sure the starting pitchers continue to get their rest.
“I think the main thing for us is we’re all aligned that we have to protect our starters and one way we can do that is to get them extra rest,” Roberts said.
Bullpen games have been a more than viable option for the Dodgers. They have gone 13-6 over the past three seasons (2-1 this year) in what could be characterized as bullpen games.
“I do think if you talk to hitters and you talk to offensive coaches – it’s hard for them,” Prior said of the challenge bullpen games create for opponents. “You’re not seeing a guy for two, three times through the order. A lot of our offensive success is because we wear starters down and get into their bullpen early. That’s hard when you’re just running out different arms.”
The Dodgers dismiss the idea of simply going with a six-man rotation as impractical primarily for roster reasons and the way it would shorten the bullpen options – even as they essentially operate with a six-man rotation with bullpen games and off days filling the role of the sixth starter.
“It is a different way of doing it,” Prior said. “Now, is the bubble going to burst on that at some point too? There are questions. Either you have to go to a six-man rotation to create these rest periods and if you are going to go to a six-man type rotation or five days of full rest are you going to allow your guys to throw more? If you don’t allow them to throw more, then you’re taxing your bullpen guys more.
“Eventually the rubber is going to meet the road. You can’t have it all. I do think rest is great. But also with days off you get into guys’ routines and can they stay sharp? I don’t know if we know the answer. It’s just the world we’re working in right now.”
It’s the world the Dodgers intend to live in, probably all season.
Walker Buehler has returned, pushing Landon Knack back to Triple-A. Miller could return soon, Clayton Kershaw in July or August, Dustin May (in a best-case scenario) in August or September. All of that would increase the Dodgers’ inventory of starting pitchers, giving them the flexibility to continue limiting regular-season workloads – with bullpen games mixed in as needed.
“It’s sustainable as long as we need it to be sustainable,” Prior said. “In all honesty, a lot of that is predicated on Yamamoto’s schedule (pitching once a week in Japan) and making sure he gets acclimated to our schedule. And also, Tyler has had a history of some health stuff too so we want to be cautious of that. Obviously Bobby Miller is hurt now. Emmet (Sheehan) has been down. There’s a lot of situations that are lending themselves to where we want to give guys extra rest. We’ve had a bunch of off days to where you can get those as well.
“This is not a plan that got formulated on March 15. This is something where once the Yamamoto thing (contract) got finalized I think this is a plan that our front office has been preparing for and building the depth to make sure we can handle that and allow guys to pitch at their peak performance when they need to.”
As the Dodgers often point out, they most need their starting pitchers to be at their peaks in October for a postseason run. But their pitching strategy is not as simple as sacrificing their best chance to win games now in exchange for stronger, healthier starters in October.
“Not even in October. You can just say 162 (games),” Friedman said. “We think in totality we will win more games by having our good pitchers healthy and taking the ball more often over that time span. But we also acknowledge that we don’t have the answer. We don’t pretend that we have the answer. We’re doing everything we can.”