The Angels and their manager Mike Scioscia have rested Mike Trout and Albert Pujols on the same day in back-to-back weeks, yesterday being the second such instance. The result has been a lineup that left a lot to be desired. That’s Jett Bandy in the 5 spot and Andrelton Simmons leading off. It’s not a thing of beauty. Predictably, the Angels managed just 2 hits and lost the game 4-1. But, that’s OK; the Angels probably weren’t really trying to win the game anyway. The Angels are 62-77, in 4th place in the AL West, and their season will be remembered as a disappointment spurned by injuries to their young pitching staff.
Scioscia’s unorthodox tactic of resting his two biggest stars got me thinking about a post that I thought Max Frankel had written. It turns out he didn’t actually write this particular post, but he did write one about an unorthodox tactical shift of some kind– Reimagining a Pitching Staff— which is close enough for government work as far as I’m concerned. (Within that piece, Max examines the phenomenon of decreasing pitcher efficacy each time through a batting order, and surmises that since pitchers fare worse when they face a lineup for the third time, how about we just devise a staff structure that avoids those third glimpses?)
That plan is not Scoscia’s plan. Really, it’s not even close. Scioscia’s plan is probably much more similar to something Max and I have discussed, likely after one too many beers for either of us to properly remember. At this point in the Angels season, it wouldn’t surprise me if Scioscia’s plan for resting Trout and Pujols together arose under similar circumstances…
But my plan was hatched sober. I’m calling it the Fire and Rest theory:
Ostensibly “rest” for a game or two to dramatically improves your chances of winning subsequent games, and thereby improves your overall odds of winning.
Let’s break it down into 5 game splits to further illustrate my point.
For the first three games you try your darnedest to win. These are the “fire” games. Your three best pitchers are throwing and it is “all hands on deck.” Middle relievers may pitch in the 4th if someone struggles; your best guys are available to put out any fires that pop up; back end starters may be called upon to fill in some innings. The offense pushes the boundaries and all the stars play. Everyone on your team knows how important these games are and they prepare more intensely for these games. But, even with all the emphasis of a playoff game, let’s be realistic: maybe a team will win 80% of these games. That’s OK.
For the next two games you throw the game. Not intentionally lose, of course, but you compete with a Spring Training-esque lineup and attitude, resting a majority of your top tier players (similar to what the Angels have been rolling out of late). At the very least, your top arms and bats are unavailable, having exerted themselves across the previous three games. Even with the Spring Training-type managerial outlook, is it really that outlandish to think the team could win 20% of these games?
Assuming that you win 80% of the three game sets that you’re trying to win and 20% of the two game tilts that you’re not really trying to win… you win 100% of your games! That’s incredible! Just Kidding. The math works out to leave a team, at the end of a 162 game season, with somewhere between 90 and 91 wins. That’s a team right in the middle of playoff contention.
For a club like the Angels, it is already too late to implement such a system. They will likely be mathematically eliminated from the playoffs by this weekend. But I like what Mike Scioscia is doing. He’s giving his stars a rest at the end of a long season, but he’s also giving us a peak into a world where teams are mature enough to realize that they won’t win every game. It seems that he’s taken this theory a step further than even just resting his stars. I watched on Monday as Scioscia swapped in three relievers across the course of 4 batters in the seventh inning, while beating the A’s by a score of 8-6. Was this a case of Scioscia trying everything in his power to get me to change the channel or was this an instance of testing a version of the Fire and Rest theory?
I’m not sure, but the Angels won 3 out of their next 5 after they rested Pujols and Trout together last week. (And yes, I know that amounts to 60%.)
-Sean Morash
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