The Hunt For 30 In October: Replacing Glasnow

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It sucks to lose arguably the best pitcher in the AL. A healthy Tyler Glasnow would almost certainly guarantee another deep run in the postseason, but now that he’s out until at least 2022, the Rays need to find a way to cover those valuable innings he would’ve given them. There are plenty of people counting the team out of a return to the World Series, but are the Rays really out of it?

There’s no doubt they can make it back to the postseason; the Rays are currently a half game up in the division, 4 games up in the wild card (if it got to that point), made a few trades to solidify their offense against LHP, acquired some outfield and bullpen depth, and have a handful of quality arms set to return from injury over the next few weeks.

“Can the Rays make it back to the postseason?” is not the question we need to be asking, but instead “What can the Rays do to navigate their way to a World Series victory when the postseason starts?”

Learning From the Past

I was originally taking this in a totally different direction about splitting up innings and bullpen days, but I found something really interesting in the data from every postseason from 1969 to today:

Every team needs to have two pitchers they can trust to throw roughly 30 quality innings each in the postseason; this will give their team a shot at winning the World Series.

I’m absolutely not saying they have to pitch 30 innings or their team won’t win, and I’m not saying they have to have a specific ERA. They just need to be pitchers that can anecdotally and statistically be trusted to perform well in 5 or 6 starts over the course of a postseason. Giving an average of at least 5 solid innings per start should be enough to give their team a chance to win it all.

The MLB postseason expanded to include two rounds of games in 1969 so we’ll notice the trend begins at this time. However, the trend became even more prominent when the playoffs expanded again in 1994 to include three rounds of games. We’ll look at every postseason from 1995 (the players’ strike in 1994 meant no postseason) and onward, but if you look at the time frame from 1969 to 1993, you’ll still see it – just not as much.

Before we look at the table below, there are a few important things to consider:

1. Teams that make it to the World Series will generally have more innings pitched than teams that don’t make it because they’re playing in more games. This does affect our data, but it’s important to remember that managers typically give starters a shorter leash in the playoffs because bullpens can be used pretty liberally without having to worry much about workload. A starting pitcher will need to be performing well and have a low ERA to accumulate more innings pitched and go deeper into the postseason; that’s why it’s important to consider a duo’s ERA as well as their IP.
2. Playoff rotations typically shrink due to the fact that there are more frequent off-days sprinkled into the postseason schedule than there are in the regular season. A team with 5 starters might narrow it down to 3 or 4 depending on their schedule – which would lead to more innings for the 3 or 4 starters to eat. However, again, those starters will have to perform at a very high level because they’re on a short leash in the playoffs. The 4th and 5th starters who got bumped from the rotation might get put in a game if the original starter runs into even a little trouble. Smaller playoff rotations will affect our theory a little, so it’s important to factor in ERA.
3. Run support can lead to a pitcher staying on the mound longer even if they aren’t doing so well. This would mean that pitchers who aren’t great but get a good amount of run support would be able to stay out on the mound for more innings because their manager doesn’t have to worry about them blowing the lead. I understand pitchers can run into some hiccups every once in a while, but there typically aren’t many blowout games in the playoffs; you have to be pretty good at all facets of the game to make it to the postseason, let alone make a deep run. So run support may not affect our theory too much.
4. I’m typically not a huge ERA guy because I know its limitations and it’s not ideal to look at one stat without much context, however pitching in October is about results. Metrics like xFIP and xwOBA are terrific and I love them, but at the end of the day in these winner-take-all games, the box score matters more than predictive stats. You could have a team xBA of .400 in the World Series, but if you get swept in 4 games, how much does it really matter?
5. We can see that the duo with the lower ERA didn’t start winning until 1999, but then they consistently won most of the other matchups in the future. Other than in 1996 and 2015, all the other World Series losses for the duo with the lower ERA was within 0.6 points of the winning duo’s ERA.

Year	The two pitchers with the most IP for their teams during the postseason that year	Team	Average number of IP between the two pitchers	Average ERA between the two pitchers	Won WS?
1995	Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine	ATL	33	2.32	Yes
1995	Orel Hershiser and Dennis Martinez	CLE	32.2	2.08	No
1996	Andy Pettitte and Jimmy Key	NYY	28.1	4.17	Yes
1996	John Smoltz and Greg Maddux	ATL	37.2	1.32	No
1997	Kevin Brown and Livan Hernandez	FLA	30.2	4.12	Yes
1997	Chag Ogea and Orel Hershiser	CLE	29.2	3.96	No
1998	David Wells and David Cone	NYY	27.2	2.94	Yes
1998	Kevin Brown and Sterling Hitchcock	SD	30.2	2.06	No
1999	Orlando Hernandez and Andy Pettitte	NYY	24.1	2.25	Yes
1999	Greg Maddux and Kevin Millwood	ATL	26.1	2.93	No
2000	Andy Pettitte and Orlando Hernandez	NYY	30.2	3.39	Yes
2000	Al Leitler and Mike Hampton	NYM	29	2.95	No
2001	Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson	ARI	44.1	1.31	Yes
2001	Andy Pettitte and Roger Clemens	NYY	28.1	3.53	No
2002	Jarrod Washburn and John Lackey	ANA	25.2	3.88	Yes
2002	Russ Ortiz and Kirk Rueter	SF	24.2	5.51	No
2003	Josh Beckett and Brad Penny	FLA	32.1	3.37	Yes
2003	Andy Pettitte and Mike Musina	NYY	31.2	2.71	No
2004	Pedro Martinez and Curt Schilling	BOS	24.2	3.84	Yes
2004	Jeff Suppan and Matt Morris	STL	22.2	4.80	No
2005	Jose Contreras and Mark Buehrle	CWS	27.2	3.27	Yes
2005	Roy Oswalt and Andy Pettitte	HOU	26.1	3.79	No
2006	Chris Carpenter and Jeff Weaver	STL	31	2.61	Yes
2006	Kenny Rogers and Justin Verlander	DET	22.1	2.85	No
2007	Josh Beckett and Curt Schilling	BOS	27	2.00	Yes
2007	Jeff Francis and Ubaldo Jimenez	COL	16.1	3.63	No
2008	Cole Hamels and Brett Myers	PHI	27	2.83	Yes
2008	Scott Kazmir and Matt Garza	TB	25.1	4.12	No
2009	CC Sabathia and Andy Pettitte	NYY	33.2	2.69	Yes
2009	Cliff Lee and Cole Hamels	PHI	29.2	3.50	No
2010	Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain	SF	29.1	1.55	Yes
2010	Cliff Lee and Colby Lewis	TEX	31	2.32	No
2011	Chris Carpenter and Jaime Garcia	STL	30.2	3.68	Yes
2011	CJ Wilson and Derek Holland	TEX	26	4.70	No
2012	Matt Cain and Ryan Vogelsong	SF	27.1	2.49	Yes
2012	Justin Verlander and Anibal Sanchez	DET	24.1	2.05	No
2013	Jon Lester and John Lackey	BOS	30.1	2.09	Yes
2013	Adam Wainwright and Michael Wacha	STL	32.2	2.62	No
2014	Madison Bumgarner and Tim Hudson	SF	36.2	1.97	Yes
2014	Yordano Ventura and James Shields	KC	25.1	4.67	No
2015	Edinson Volquez and Johnny Cueto	KC	26.2	4.57	Yes
2015	Matt Harvey and Jacob deGrom	NYM	25.2	2.99	No
2016	Jon Lester and Kyle Hendricks	CHC	30.2	1.77	Yes
2016	Corey Kluber and Josh Tomlin*	CLE	26	2.77	No
2017	Justin Verlander and Dallas Keuchel	HOU	32.1	2.81	Yes
2017	Clayton Kershaw and Rich Hill	LAD	25.1	3.41	No
2018	David Price and Nathan Eovaldi	BOS	24.1	2.62	Yes
2018	Clayton Kershaw and Walker Buehler	LAD	26.2	4.89	No
2019	Stephen Strasburg and Max Scherzer	WSH	33.1	2.18	Yes
2019	Gerrit Cole and Justin Verlander	HOU	36	3.00	No
2020	Clayton Kershaw and Walker Buehler	LAD	27.2	2.45	Yes
2020	Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow	TBR	29.1	4.64	No

It’s clear that based on the table above, most World Series winning duos pitch an average close to 30 innings each while maintaining a lower ERA than the opposing duo. Again, this is not a formula for success; I’m illustrating the fact that if a team wants to reach the finish line, they need two arms who can perform well even under immense pressure for approximately 5 or 6 starts in October. You can go to MLB.com to look at the postseason innings pitched leaders for every year dating back to 1995 and see for yourself. There are typically four guys near the top of the leader board, and two for each team competing in the World Series. There are some exceptions obviously, but the vast majority of the time, a team has to have two guys they can trust https://www.mlb.com/stats/pitching/innings-pitched/2020/postseason-cumulative.

Erik Neander’s Dilemma

We can be almost certain that Glasnow would’ve been much improved this postseason from the last one. He added a slider, worked hard to fine-tune his delivery, and improved his command – Glasnow absolutely would have been one of the two pitchers for the Rays. He proved that he could dominate a 30 inning stretch earlier this season when he threw 31.2 innings allowing only 7 runs (a 2.02 ERA) while striking out 50 batters in his starts spanning from April 6th through April 28th. Unfortunately, he’s most likely not going to be around in October, so the team needs to figure out who those two guys will be.

The Rays went into the trade deadline assuming that Glasnow wouldn’t return, so they most likely went after Scherzer because he’s someone a team can count on for 6 solid starts in the postseason. However, he “strongly preferred to go to a West Coast team” and had a no-trade clause (Scherzer could essentially decide which team he would be traded to), so it’s obvious the Rays wouldn’t land him.

Other than Scherzer, there wasn’t an available starting pitcher that Kevin Cash could absolutely count on to give them 30 good innings in October. Kyle Gibson? Jose Berrios? Alex Cobb? No disrespect to them or any other pitcher that was available, but there really weren’t any difference makers the Rays could have got that would give them a better chance than the arms they have now. Maybe German Marquez, but the Rockies fumbled the bag (they whiffed big time by not moving Trevor Story either). Madison Bumgarner might have been a good move, but he would’ve came with a massive price-tag and a lingering shoulder issue.

The Rays made the right call by not adding a starting pitcher. They could have got one if they wanted to, so they must feel confident they can get the quality innings they need from two different starters they currently have.

The Current Options

Below are the best 30 inning chunks of each current Rays’ starter’s career:

• Shane McClanahan – 31.1 IP, 11 ER, 36 K (3.16 ERA from 6/15/2021 to 7/20/2021)
• Ryan Yarbrough – 32.2 IP, 4 ER, 28 K (1.10 ERA from 6/18/2019 to 7/26/2019)
• Luis Patino – 31.2 IP, 15 ER, 36 K (4.26 ERA from 4/25/2021 to 7/29/2021)
• Michael Wacha – 33 IP, 4 ER, 29 K (1.09 ERA from 7/31/2015 to 8/23/2015)
• Josh Fleming – 34.2 IP, 9 ER, 21 K (2.34 ERA from 4/14/2021 to 5/16/2021)

Each of these pitchers have had stretches that would be postseason gold for the Rays. However, each have some questions to answer over the next two months:

Will it be McClanahan? A guy who got his first cup of coffee in some big games during the postseason last year. He has been performing pretty well this season, especially considering he’s still a rookie, but will he continue to perform at his current level when the games get harder and more meaningful?

Could Yarbrough soft-contact his way through 30 quality innings against what will be some of the most potent offenses he has ever faced? His best 30 inning span came in 2019, which isn’t too long ago, but he’s still pretty far removed from it. Yarbs has shown he’s capable of successfully navigating through a 30 inning stretch – evident in that superb 1.10 ERA above.

Is Patino, at just 21 years-old, ready to take that jump to the next level and eat-up some of the biggest innings of his young career? He has been developing well and his command has drastically improved this season – he even out-dueled Gerrit Cole the other day.

Does Wacha have some magic leftover from his glory days to carry the load that the young arms might not be ready for? His best stretch came way back in 2015 and he hasn’t exactly been amazing this season, but he did look like he turned a corner in his most recent outing (he went 5 innings, gave up an unearned run, and struck out 9). Wacha also has the experience of performing well in the postseason; his run in 2013 was in a losing effort, but still very impressive (30.2 IP and a 2.64 ERA with 33 Ks).

Could Fleming get enough batters to hit ground balls and pop ups as he works his way through a postseason? He has quietly been one of the most consistent pitchers on the staff this season even if he does often struggle to go longer than 5 innings.

If the postseason began today and I had to pick my two guys, I’d go with Yarbs because of his consistency and he’s one of the more experienced guys on the staff. My second choice would be tough between McClanahan and Wacha. I like McClanahan because of his upside and mentality on the mound, but Wacha could easily change my mind if he’s able to replicate what he did in his last start a few more times.

However, there are still plenty of things that could happen between now and October. Injuries, performances, and workload management could all factor in as players readjust to the 162 game season. There also exists the possibility the two 30-inning guys the Rays need might not even be on the active roster right now.

On the Outside Looking In

While Shane Baz is an exciting prospect, I’m not sure how much he could be trusted to grind out quality innings in the postseason. I’m sure we’ll see him in the majors at some point this year, but maybe in a limited role as he continues to develop (the Rays also need to be careful not to overwork him as he returns from his gold medal run at the Olympics). The guys I had in mind that might be able to throw some important innings in October are Chris Archer and Brendan McKay. Below are the best 30 inning spans of their careers:

• Chris Archer – 34.1 IP, 3 ER, 50 K (0.79 ERA from 5/17/2015 to 6/7/2015)
• Brendan McKay – 29.2 IP, 15 ER, 33K (4.55 ERA from 6/29/2019 to 8/7/2019)

Archer might be the better option based on these numbers. However, this performance was from over five years ago. He did have a very solid run from 2018 to 2019 (31 IP, 5 ER, 41 K, and a 1.45 ERA 9/19/2018 to 4/13/2019), but even that was a few years ago. Regardless, both Archer and McKay will get their postseason rotation spot auditions as this year progresses, and it will be interesting to see if they can make their case.

Preparing for October

No matter which two arms emerge as the tandem Cash can trust the most, I’m very confident in the team’s ability to piece together outings while the trusted arms rest and get ready for their next starts. The Rays can bullpen and bulk their way through plenty of postseason games because they have so much quality depth. The ONLY question mark for this team is finding two guys they can trust to start and go at the very least 5 quality innings 5 or 6 times.

Just to reiterate one more time as we wrap this up, I’m not saying you have to have two guys give you exactly 30 innings between each of them, but a team needs to have two guys they can trust to give them roughly 30 high-quality innings in a World Series run. Having those two starters you can go to in a postseason greatly increases your chances of going to the World Series, and they typically have to perform better than the other team’s top two trusted pitches for a team to win. It’s hard to imagine anyone on the roster (or any starter in baseball) will replicate Madison Bumgarner’s 2014 performance where he pitched 52.2 innings with an elite 1.03 ERA in October, but I’m very confident we’ll see two guys step-up and take control for the Rays.

Even if you think this theory doesn’t make sense or is flawed, I hope you enjoyed seeing some interesting names in the table I made. I was surprised to see Pettitte on the list so much for such a long period of time. And of course it was nice to remember Kazmir’s glory days. I never knew Schilling and Johnson went off that much in 2001. I’m looking forward to adding another row to this table at the end of October. It might even include Dietrich Enns, Brent Honeywell, Tobias Myers, or Miller Hogan… The main purpose of this was to explore postseason performances of the past to see what is often needed from starting pitchers to win the World Series and apply that to the current Rays pitching staff. I’m excited for the rest of this season and where this team will go.