Last night I uploaded flow charts, illustrating the depth at each position in the starting lineup for the Pittsburgh Pirates. I enjoyed making the charts, and I’m glad that so many of you enjoyed reading the article. A few of you requested that I do the same for the pitching staff, and that would be fitting today, since I just previewed the starting rotation battles heading into Spring Training.
The problem was that I didn’t know how to set up the pitcher articles. Most of the offense charts were about questioning whether a specific player was healthy and/or performing well. There’s also the fact that you only have one player to replace, where as a rotation and bullpen consists of multiple players doing the same job.
The solution was to consider those groups as one, rather than look at each individual rotation spot. The other key difference was that most of the pitching depth options were about timing, and whether one of the top prospects in Triple-A was ready. Once I settled on that, the rest came easy.
You asked for it (or maybe you didn’t). Here are the flow charts for the starting pitching and bullpen depth for the Pittsburgh Pirates during the 2015 season.
(TIP: Click the image to get a full size version if the text is too small.)
Starting Rotation
Closer and Set-up Man
Middle Relievers
**Spring Training starts today with pitchers and catchers reporting. You can prepare for the season by purchasing the 2015 Prospect Guide, which gives scouting reports on 200+ prospects in the system, along with the top 50 prospects.
**This week we’re going to start a new Q&A feature. I’ve placed a form on the right side of each page where you can submit your questions for each week. I’m aiming to have the first one done by Friday, so submit your questions. I will say that with Spring Training starting up, I’m not going to have much time to check the comments, which is where a lot of questions get asked. So if you’ve got a question for me specifically (or for John Dreker, although he will probably answer in the comments), then use the form on the right side of every page.
**A Video Comparison Of Jung-Ho Kang And Jordy Mercer At Shortstop. The article also has links to Kang taking batting practice, and my story from last week about how Kang wants to pave the way to MLB for other Korean players.
**It’s Vance Worley Vs Jeff Locke For The Lone Battle In The Rotation
**2015 Altoona Curve: Top Prospects, Roster Projections, And Position Battles
**Three Pirates Make Fangraphs Top 100 List
