Death to the Piggy back

[D-train]

[Donn Beach]

Mariners determined to make piggyback pitching plan work

They're saying now it's about saving the BP

As the club sees it, one key benefit of the piggyback is giving the bullpen effectively a full day off.

In their four tandem games, Miller and Castillo have combined to throw 36 of 37 innings, needing only one inning in total from the bullpen (and that happened during the first piggyback game on May 19 against the White Sox).

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2026/ ... ching-pla/

[D-train]

So you reduce the membership of the Bullpen by 12.5% to give them more rest. lol

[D-train]

As the club sees it..........

[Donn Beach]

I wonder how close he could be to trading Castillo. I don't mean like tomorrow, but being on the phone discussing it. They can't say it but that could be what's behind it to a large extent. If he's on the roster past the trade deadline then it's going to be forcing the situation I think

[Sibelius Hindemith]

Meanwhile Speier and Ferrer are pitching one inning per week...

[gil]

Don't starting pitchers in general have much better numbers for their first and second times through a batting order, with dramatic falloff the third time through? I don't know about the M's specific plan, but would there be some logic to planning to have no one face the opponents a third time? (Unless of course, the advanced metrics department determines that a specific pitcher doesn't fall off the third time though.)

[Donn Beach]

Don't starting pitchers in general have much better numbers for their first and second times through a batting order, with dramatic falloff the third time through? I don't know about the M's specific plan, but would there be some logic to planning to have no one face the opponents a third time? (Unless of course, the advanced metrics department determines that a specific pitcher doesn't fall off the third time though.)

Yeah, I think that's right. The other thing I was pondering was using Castillo as the opener. There's reasons for that in terms of gaining an advantage. If he could work at dominating the first inning along the lines of a closer that could dominates the ninth, that would reduce the game by another inning. That seems significant to me. Of course they seem intent on keeping him stretched out

[Sibelius Hindemith]

As someone mentioned on the radio this morning, if they put Castillo in the bullpen he immediately becomes the highest paid reliever in baseball, and that might garner some unwanted attention for the Mariners.

[bpj]

If teams were smart they would give their top 4 starting pitchers ~60-80 pitches every fourth day.

Gives your top 4 pitchers 40 starts each instead of 32. Get five to six innings per start. Or conserve pitches and go deeper.

Keep an extra bullpen arm for the added innings.

Eliminate the 5th starter.