Here's a Crazy Idea

Latest in a long line of Crazy Ignorant Ideas: 6 Starter Rotation for the 2010 season!

If we are all being honest that the Jays don't have a chance in 2010, and the idea is to do as much development as possible, why not just go with it. With 5 starters in the rotation if a starter takes all their regular turns they get somewhere around 32 starts. If you put it to 6 that drops to around 27. This allows for 3 positive things:

1) You are letting one more pitcher get a chance to start at the major league level, rather than sit in the bullpen or make starts in the minors instead. Let's be honest here, there are probably going to be at least 6 starters at the end of spring training that a non-contender should seriously let start. At my count there are already Marcum, Morrow, Romero, Cecil and Rzep who all should be given the chance to start regularly next season, unless they prove otherwise this spring. If McGowan is actually healthy why shouldn't he get a chance too? Why should he push one of those guys to the bullpen, or get pushed there? And it's not likely that McGowan will be the only guy in that situation either. What if Drabek, Jenkins or Stewart are lights out? What if Purcey finds his way? Why is Dana Eveland even here?

I'm not saying here that the Jays are going to have some awesome list of starters to pick from at the end of spring training. What I think we are looking at here is a pretty currently mediocre bunch that some good things can develop from. But giving as many of them as much chance as possible is a good thing and what you should be trying to do.

2) It keeps the number of innings these guys rack up down, while letting them pitch a whole season. Is there really any starter this team is going to throw out there who you want to pitch more than 200 innings? Romero, Marcum and Morrow would seem to have jobs sewn up, but Romero is the only one I would even think about it with, and even then what would the point be? None of the other apparent options have probably come anywhere near 200IP in a season except McGowan, and again why would you want to press your luck with him even if he's going great. And I'd rather see everybody pitch every 6th day right through the season rather than have somebody pitch until early september and shut it down and then try and mix new guys in in the last couple of weeks.

3) To be completely ruthless about it, the larger the rotation is, the more competition there is and the more openings there for other guys when somebody gets hurt or sucks, which is going to happen. If the pitchers know that 2011 the rotation is going back to 5, and maybe some free agents might be coming in to take some of those spots, well the more guys you have competing for those 2011 spots the better the competition.

If you have 6 starting pitchers and somebody gets hurt or starts to suck, you can stay at 6, giving a 7th guy a chance. If you start at 5 starters and that happens you will still only have given 6 guys a chance when you bring in the replacement. And on it goes through the season. Having 6 starters also gives you one more guy as an option to be replaced when somebody gets healthy or earns there way back from the minors.

There are some arguments against this of course. When pitchers are going good of course they'd like the ball more often. And if you don't ever let your pitchers start 30games a year then they never will. But if this is a 1 season plan then i think there's a lot of merit to it. I doubt at the end of the 2011 season anybody will look back and say the reason the jays didn't compete is because they didn't have enough guys who could pitch 200 innings.

And it's not like you can't go back to 5 if there are any problems.