I’ve written before, and said countless times on Twitter that I’m pretty sure 2009-2012 Justin Verlander is gone for good. That doesn’t mean he won’t be good again, it just means he’s done being the best pitcher in the league. As he ages and his body starts to fail him a little bit, he’s going to need to learn to pitch with a slightly diminished arsenal, and that’s going to take a little time. Yeah, he’s been working on things all season and he’s starting to look better, but he’s not anywhere close to the “you just stole my bike” level Verlander we once knew.

That’s okay. Time marches on, but let’s look at his stat line from 2014 for a moment. He’s going to throw 220 innings or so, so that’s not a big problem. His walk rate (7.8%) is better than last year and while it’s worse than 2011-2012 Verlander, it wouldn’t look out of place during the rest of his career. He’s preventing home runs just fine. His BABIP is higher than his peak, but it’s totally normal.

He’s allowing too many runs because he’s not striking anyone out. He has a 16.8% strikeout rate, which is not only much worse than his 27% peak but it’s substantially worse than his 2013 dip. Verlander used to live in the 24-27% range. It’s fine to take a step back, but this is just a crazy step back. It helps that he’s inducing a higher number of popups than previously, but five extra popups doesn’t offset the strikeout drop.

Let’s play a game. Verlander has pitched 157.2 innings, he’s struck out 115, walked and hit 57, and given up 16 home runs. He has a 4.08 FIP based on those numbers and a 4.57 ERA to boot. Let’s see how many extra strikeouts it would take to get him to a 3.40 FIP. That would still be a decline, but a more reasonable one. It would take about 50 more strikeouts to do so.

Right he now he’s struck out 115 of his 684 hitters for a 16.8 K%. If he punched out 165 of 684 (a 24% rate), he’s be in business, but there would also be a compounding effect of those strikeouts because it would lead to fewer batters per inning, so you might actually be able to get away with 35 or so extra strikeouts instead of 50.

In other words, Verlander needs about one to two more strikeouts per game to get to a place where he can be really successful. If you go back 9 starts (after the two 7 run affairs), Verlander’s ERA and FIP look better but that’s because he cut the walks not because he increased the strikeouts. This is a pretty real concern.

My theory from earlier in the year still holds. He needs to learn to strike batters out without a 99 mph fastball up in the zone. He can locate there with 95 and that simply isn’t as deadly, so he has to set hitters up in different ways and this is especially true late in game with men on base. That used to be vintage Verlander. Two out, one out, and the game on the line – he’d reach back and gas somebody. He can’t do it anymore.

Once Verlander got to two strikes in 2011-2013, he would end up striking you out about 41-45% of the time. This year, it’s just 34%. That’s a 25 strikeout difference on the low end just from finishing guys off, not even considering anything about getting into better counts. Batters used to put the ball in play about 33% of the time after Verlander got them to two strikes. This year, it’s 45%. They’re swinging less, whiffing less, and taking fewer called strikes once he puts them on the ropes.

He’s maxing out at 98 and averaging more like 93 in this situations compared to 101 and 96 from years past. And the contact they do make is better.

Verlander needs to find a way to finish hitters off. If he can get those 25 strikeouts back, it will get him most of the way there. He’s not going to be a superstar again mostly likely, but he’s got plenty of years left of very good. It doesn’t matter what he has a 4.57 ERA right now. He needs to pitch better down the stretch, in the postseason, and into the future. Forget the results so far, he needs to find a new way to finish off hitters. Maybe that comes back when his core is fully healed as some suggest, but learning the Doug Fister swingback fastball or making use of the Anibal Sanchez changeup in those situations will help. Maybe he should toy with a cutter. Being less predictable is probably the key, but it’s never one thing when talking about pitch selection.

Solving the strikeout problem is the key to everything, it’s just a matter of figuring it out.

Now that the trade deadline has passed and the Tigers replaced their fifth best starter with one of the better starters in the American League, the questions have been flooding in. What are the Tigers going to do when they go to a four man rotation in October? Which of these aces, erstwhile aces, or Rick Porcello’s are going to pitch out of the pen come playoff time?

If we went by reputation, we’d just ship Porcello to the bullpen where he’d have to make small talk with Phil Coke and avoid catching whatever disease has befallen Joe Nathan. Verlander, Price, Scherzer, Sanchez, Porcello. Which one of those names sounds like it belongs in the bullpen? Certainly Porcello, but you’re at New English D and we love Porcello so much that the girls who had crushes on him in high school think we talk about him too much, so you know we have a different idea.

Justin Verlander!

Gotcha. Not exactly. You see, Verlander to the bullpen is the popular idea these days. He’s having a down season and might really benefit from shortening his game down to two or three inning sprints. Let him gas up to 98 over 40 pitches and use him as a super reliever the way the Giants used Lincecum in 2012. That’s not a horrible idea. It makes plenty of sense if you’re willing to ignore people who think being sent to the bullpen in the playoffs is some kind of demotion. Take ego out of it, and Verlander seems like the obvious choice because for whatever reason, he hasn’t been himself.

But he’s made a few good starts lately and is looking a little more like a diminished but still very good Verlander. We saw what he did last year down the stretch after a rough summer, so maybe we’re hurting ourselves if we cut down his innings come October.

So I have a different idea. A very different idea. One the Tigers probably won’t do, but have been willing to explore in individual games. One that almost no team would consider, but it’s hardly a crazy idea. And it just might win them a title.

What if they put everyone in the bullpen? 

No don’t worry, I’m not suggesting they use Phil Coke as a starter again (Remember that?! I feel like we should talk about that more), I’m suggesting we use all five starters in the bullpen during the postseason while also using them in the rotation. The actual order would depend on which team they face from a matchup perspective, but run with me here.

Day 1, Game 1: David Price faces ~18 hitters, Verlander faces ~9 hitters, bullpen the rest of the way

Day 2, Game 2: Max Scherzer faces ~18 hitters, Rick Porcello faces ~9 hitters, bullpen the rest of the way

Day 4, Game 3: Anibal Sanchez faces ~18 hitters, Price faces ~9 hitters, bullpen the rest of the way

Day 5, Game 4: Verlander faces ~18 hitters, Scherzer faces ~9 hitters, bullpen the rest of the way

Day 7, Game 5: Porcello faces ~18 hitters, Sanchez faces ~9 hitters, Price for as long as he can go, bullpen the rest of the way

So if the series goes five, Price threw in Game 1 and pitched in relief on two days rest twice. Scherzer starts Game 2 and then pitches in relief on two days rest once. Sanchez starts Game 3 and then goes on two days rest in relief in Game 5. Verlander pitches in relief in Game 1 and then starts on three days rest in Game 4. Porcello pitches in relief in Game 2 and then starts Game 5 on full rest.

You can jumble the pitchers based on handedness and style depending on the opponent, but the basic idea holds. Instead of trying to get seven innings out of your starting pitches in October, shoot for five innings and then use one of your other starters as a bridge to the bullpen. There are two extra off days built in, so you an do it safely, but more importantly, you avoid asking your starter to face the opposing lineup for a third time. And you do this because everyone gets worse when facing the lineup a third time. Instead of yanking a guy for the Tigers middle relief, you yank them for another excellent starter.

It works because the Tigers have five very good starting pitchers. You’re going to get two starts from one guy and one start from three others if you do it the traditional way, but this way you get essentially the same number of batters faced for everyone but they face them when they are fresher.

You’d have to sell it to them, but I think they’d go for it without any problem. They’re all starters and relievers instead of one of them getting dumped to the pen. The virtue of the system is that if Price is cruising in Game 1, you can let Verlander enter after 23 batters instead of 18. You can adapt to the game situation but the basic premise works.

No one faces the lineup a third time unless they’re doing great and the bullpen only has to get six or eight outs among them.

The Tigers will probably just pick a guy and use him in relief, but knowing Ausmus’ hesitation to use his relievers out of order, he’d probably only use them in long relief because he wouldn’t realize that they are better than all of his relievers. But I think this alternative has a lot of merit.

Five starters, five relievers. No hurt feelings and no third time through the order. Flexibility, limited need for the bullpen.

It’s kind of perfect.

“Hey, that’s not one of our pitchers!” is something you might find yourself saying on Tuesday evening when the Tigers take on the Yankees in the second game of their four game set. And you’d sort of be right. David Price will be pitching for the Tigers and he hasn’t even thrown a pitch for the Tigers in his career. He’s new to the fold, courtesy of last minute deal that sent Austin Jackson, Drew Smyly, and Willy Adames to various corners of the country. Let’s get to know his game.

History

David Price has been very good for his entire career. He’s about to turn 29 years old and is in his 5th full season in the big leagues and has basically been a 4.0 WAR guy every year since 2010. He’s durable and pitches deep into games. He went to Vandy, so that makes him extra Tigers-y.

2014

Price is having his best season to date. Don’t let anyone tell you differently because his ERA isn’t as low as 2012. Price is running a career best strikeout rate (27%) and a career low walk rate (3.3%). He’s giving up a few too many home runs, but they aren’t killing him by any stretch of the imagination. He’s sporting a 3.11 ERA, 2.94 FIP, and 2.73 xFIP over 170 innings of work. That’s a 3.9 fWAR and 3.0 RA9-WAR. Anyway you slice it, he’s been very good this year.

Projection

Price figures to be just about as good as he’s been all year for the next two months according to both Steamer and ZiPS projections. They expect a small amount of negative regression in the strikeout and walk rates but a little positive regression in the home run department, so his overall ERA and FIP numbers look pretty steady the rest of the way.

Repertoire

Price uses three fastball variants; four-seam, sinker, and cutter; and calls on a changeup and curveball as well. He’s around 94 with the four-seamer and sinker and drops down to about 89-90 with the cutter. The change works around 86 and the breaking ball shows up in the low 80s. He doesn’t have a significant platoon split this season, but has a pretty standard 40 points wOBA split for his career, which you would expect from a power lefty with a solid changeup. He’s very good against lefties but he’s also very good against righties.

Impact

This is a slightly superfluous post because you guys know who David Price is. You know he was the Rays’ ace. You’ve seen him dominate. He pitches deep into games and he’s extremely effective from the left side. He’s probably a win or a win and half better than Smyly the rest of the way and not only is that going to show up directly, but he should take some pressure off the bullpen and offer few chances for the lesser arms out there to get into the game considering that he’s averaging about 7.4 innings per start.

Ultimately, Price is a known quantity and it should be a lot of fun to watch him pitch for the Tigers.