I hadn’t seen the game. The question wasn’t really a point I was making more than, well, a question.

I was the biggest proponent of starting CC in game 4 on three days rest. I was wrong, and Wedge made the right choice. This is one of the biggest reasons I have not been critical of Wedge this year.

Wedge smarter than Dale Sveum. Woo hoo!

There is just a simple grasp-of-math thing here.

There are two kinds of risk associated with a short-rest start. One is injury and long-term effectiveness. The other is the pitcher’s effectiveness that day — to me, it’s common sense that there’s a much greater chance the pitcher will simply get hammered that day, not so much because of “rest” as in exertion as because of not having the right feel for his pitches and control. Granted, I may be overly influenced by that Colon start in the 1999 Division Series.

But the point is that there is always risk, and just like a sac-bunt, the best you can hope for is that it’s a marginally good move. But in this case, it’s three starts on short rest — more than triple the risk — just to try to get the marginal benefit that is usually conferred by pushing just one start on short rest. And that is where it’s simply, over-the-top, can’t-believe-these-guys-aren’t-just-spectators stupidity.

I’m talking about amateurism.

Yes, there was a pretty well-written chapter in Baseball Between the Numbers on the benefits of a working 4-man rotation (they are numerous). The question was, can one work beyond theory? The author seemed to conclude that yes, it should work, for some of the stuff you’ve already cited (innings don’t matter, it’s pitches under stress, etc etc). It was pretty much also a study in Pitcher Abuse Points.

As far as data points go, the most recent sample size the author used was whichever Royals team of the early 2000s used a 4-man rotation for a while. Most of the starters fell apart by the end of the year, but his conclusion was that the breakdown was a result of really high pitch counts and not an abnormal amount of rest.

All in all the author concluded that 4-man rotations would eventually take over because they just made too much sense and he didn’t see the risk. He opined that it would take a while to make the shift. You’d have to see changes from the minor leagues up, but it would be worth it. Just like you, I don’t have the book in front of me or I would quote it. I do remember being impressed with his conclusions and even wrote a Fanpost about it well over a year ago.

I do remember one thing: The author was Keith Woolner, who was then hired by the Indians as Manager of Baseball Research and Analytics. He’s the same guy who invented VORP. Does that mean I think we’re going to see the Tribe pioneer a return to a 4-man rotation in a couple of years? Absolutely not. But if I ever ran into Mark Shapiro I’d probably want to ask if he’d ever consider it.

As an aside, I recall reading over at BP about the White Sox using in effect a near four-man rotation in the past few months by simply skipping the fifth starter as much as possible due to a string of consistently having one off day a week (which is typical for most of the season for most teams) The days of rest remain the same for the starters but you are getting more starts for your top four pitchers than your fifth starter. Of course you have a rusty fifth starter, but a team in theory could pack its AAA team with fifth starter types and simply play the call up/send down game as long as the season schedule provides it.