Spring Training Wrap: The Bucket List?

We've finally made it to Opening Day and the Giants have some huge decisions to make.  Now, you would think the decisions would be a lot easier with active rosters expanded from 26 to 30 players, but the Giants have such a huge logjam of players with a case to be made for inclusion in one role or another, the decisions are going to be agonizing in some cases.  Hanging over all this is the 40 man roster which for some reason is still operative.  For every non-roster invitee who the Giants want to add to the 30 man roster, someone is going to get cut from the 40 man.  Ugh!

Part of what makes it difficult for ordinary fans like me to do the rosterbation thing without heads exploding is Manager Gabe Kapler who has freed his mind of the time-honored categories and quaint notions like regular players vs bench players or utility players and starting pitchers vs relief pitchers vs closers.  In Gabe Kapler's perfect world, he would field a roster of 16 position players with 8 who hit RH and 8 who hit LH, but yet each of those 16 position players could play at least 3 positions.  Then there are the switch-hitters but yet most switch-hitters have a dominant side.

Now Kap gives us a peek into his thinking about pitching roles in an article by Alex P of NBC Sports Bay Area and I think he sheds a whole new light on why maybe the Giants weren't eager to re-sign Madison Bumgarner and he was not eager to stick around.  Forget about starters, relievers and closers.  Kap divides his pitchers into "buckets" with the 3 "buckets" being Bulk Innings, One-Plus and Sprinters.  Here's how Kap defines these roles:

Bulk Innings- Most of these guys would be considered Starters by the old school.  Guys who can go 3 to 6 innings per appearance.(I think the notion of a starting pitcher trying to go at least 7 innings is mostly passe and the Complete Game has gone from rare to nonexistent).  These "bulk innings" will likely mostly come at the beginning of games, but not necessarily. They might enter the game in the second, third or 5'th innings after an Opener or after another Bulk Innings guy.  Guys in this category would include the 5 old-school SP's Cueto, Shark, Gausman, Smyly and Webb but also Tyler Anderson and maybe Trevor Cahill(currently injured), Dereck Rodriguez, Andrew Suarez and Conner Menez.

One-Plus- these are guys who can go at least a full inning up to two, but probably not more than 2 in most cases.  Tyler Rogers would be the classic guy here, but also Cahill, Menez, Suarez, Andrew Triggs and maybe Sam Coonrod, Jarlin Garcia and Sam Selman, guys who are currently relievers but have started in the minors.

Sprinters- Guys in this category would seem to include Tony Watson, Dany Jimenez, Wandy Peralta, Trevor Gott and Sam Wolff.  Bruce Bochy liked to have at least 7 of these guys with just one or two "One-Plus" guys.  I'm pretty sure Kap's preferred balance has more One-Plus guys and fewer Sprinters.  The capper to all this is any of the pitchers in any of these buckets might appear at any point in the game.

Whether it be in the daily lineups or the rhythms of the pitching staff, if nothing else, this season should be interesting to see how Gabe Kapler juggles his roster to get the matchups he wants. There is a long list of people who will likely hate it:  Official scorekeeper for one, sportwriters who depend on traditional stats for their story lines for another, fantasy baseball players looking for categories like Wins, RBI's and Quality Starts and sports agents who use Saves and Wins to argue their clients cases.  On the other hand, if Gabe Kapler's approach leads to more wins, it will quickly become the wave of the future and the new normal in MLB.