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Colorado Rockies news and links for Friday, January 24, 2025
If there was a trend that the Dodgers, Red Sox, Mets, Phillies, Mariners, Astros, Nationals and Angels, a group of eight teams that represents a wide swath of talent and success but has also made 17 postseason appearances in the last four years, adopted that didn’t require millions of dollars and could be replicated easily, would you want your team to at least consider it?
The Dodgers, Red Sox and Mets are reportedly considering a six-man rotation in 2025, built around giving starters five days of rest between starts. More could join and several of the others in that list have been tinkering with this approach the past few seasons. MLB.com’s Mike Petriello analyzed the six-man rotation earlier in January, trying to see if it’s a trend or a phase. While each team’s reasons are different and could change throughout each season, it could be beneficial for the Rockies to consider a six-man rotation, even if it’s for different reasons than Petriello notes.
First, it’s helpful to summarize Petriello’s findings and look at the pros and cons of having more starters who get more rest.
The evolving MLB starting rotation
Regardless of motive or evidence of effectiveness, MLB pitchers have been getting more rest between starts beginning in 2021 when more MLB starts happened when pitchers were on five days of rest (37%) than four (33%). That number has increased to 41% in 2023 and 42% in 2024.
Petriello notes that there are various theories or combinations of theories, some more supported by data and some more anecdotal, but none accepted fact, he sums up the reasons why well:
“Maybe more rest keeps pitchers healthier; maybe more rest makes them more effective; maybe having more starters takes stress off the bullpen; maybe you have enough starters that you’d rather not throw any out of the bullpen; maybe some ‘starts’ are in reality just ‘bullpen games,’ and so forth. These are all compelling theories, albeit none really proven out. Maybe it’s all of those, to some extent.”
All of that could be pretty beneficial. On the other hand, it means having six starters that teams would hope are good enough to deliver their lineups a chance to win each game. Six starters also mean one less reliever in the bullpen, which could be hard on a team that already tends to overuse young bullpen arms.
Petriello argues that there are two big reasons why the six-man rotation could catch on or prove to be effective in MLB moving forward. First, playoff-bound teams play in more games than they used to and seasons are longer, making offseason recovery times shorter. Having not made it to the postseason in six years, this doesn’t really apply to the Rockies.
For World Series teams, however, Petriello compares the 1954 Giants to the 2024 Dodgers to illustrate this point: “Those 1954 Giants threw 1,427 total innings. The 2024 Dodgers threw 1,582 2/3, and they’ll get 54 fewer days off to recover from them.”
For competitive teams, combined with the heightened severity and frequency of pitching injuries in MLB, a six-man rotation could make a lot of sense. This is especially true when considering how days of rest have changed in relation to expanded numbers of playoffs teams in MLB history. In 1969, when the NL and AL each expanded to 12 teams and the League Championship Series was born, the norm of three days of rest began growing to four. When the Wild Card was adopted in 1995, five days of rest trended up. In 2022, the Wild Card expanded from one to three teams in each league, causing five-day rest periods to immediately spike up. A few years out from that, the six-day rest period is also now rising.
The second reason Petriello cites is that college players and players coming from other leagues and countries, like the Minor Leagues or Japan for example, are pitching every sixth day or just once a week. Jolting from that kind of rest to the four-day rest norm of a five-man rotation could be jarring for many arms. Petriello points to Pirate rookie phenom Paul Skenes, who pitched about a start a week in college at LSU in 2023 and the Pirates always gave him at least five days of rest between starts in his NL Rookie of the Year performance in 2024.
Should the Rockies try a 6-man rotation?
There have been various times throughout Rockies history when the front office and coaching staff have strayed from the traditional five-man starting rotation. There’s been six by necessity, often just adding or supplementing long relief pitchers. See Ty Blach.
Then there was the infamous four-man rotation with 75-pitch limits in 2012. For the last several years, there’s been a five-man rotation in Colorado, resulting in an MLB-worst starting ERA for the past two seasons (5.54 in 2024 and 5.91 in 2023). Of course, much of that could be due to missing ace Germán Márquez, as well as eight-year veteran Antonio Senzatela. However, all teams deal with injuries, especially to pitchers, that are often long term.
Márquez and Senzatela are coming back from back-to-back seasons of injuries where they pitched 24 and 20 innings respectively. They might have better chances at successful comebacks this season and beyond with five or six days of rest. Austin Gomber, in his sixth MLB season and Ryan Feltner, in his fourth season, both pitched a career-high of 30 starts with 165 and 162 1⁄3 innings respectively in 2024. Before last season, the most Feltner had pitched was 95 innings in 2022, while Gomber was 139 in 2023. More rest could help both stay healthy.
Kyle Freeland threw 202 1⁄3 innings in 2018 in his second season in MLB, but has only passed 150 innings twice since (174 2⁄3 in 2022 and 155 2⁄3 in 2023). Entering his ninth season at age 31, Freeland could definitely benefit from more rest.
Best of all, a six-man rotation could open a spot for a young starter to get innings and experience with a little less pressure. Bradley Blalock could build on the six starts he got in his MLB debut in 2024. Even if it’s not early in the season, a six spot could open the door for top prospects like Chase Dollander, Carson Palmquist, or Sean Sullivan.
If the Rockies are going to start moving towards a competitive team, it has to start with an effective starting rotation. Maybe building in more days of rest by having six starters is a way to do that.
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Jurickson Profar, Braves agree to 3-year, $42 million deal | ESPN.com
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