The Schilling Return
What was Jayson Stark thinking when he wrote this column? The main question that he addresses is whether Curt Schilling is going to successfully make the transition from “closer” to starter. Now, this is perhaps an interesting subject, but there are a couple things wrong with the way that he presents it. First, Jayson? What is Curt actually trying to do?
In the last 20 years, we could find just four pitchers who did, in any season, what Schilling is aspiring to do this year: To qualify, they had to save at least as many games as Schilling saved (nine). Then, after compiling those saves, they had to head for the rotation at some point before September and make at least a half-dozen starts the rest of the way. Just four pitchers made the cut. And when you check out this foursome, it might tell you everything you need to know about how rare and how difficult the midsummer journey from closer to starter can be.
What? I don’t even understand how this statement makes any sense. First of all, pitchers make the transition from reliever to starter all the time. The fact that any reliever has been in the meaningless “closer” role should not really change his durability, his mentality, or his typical usage as a pitcher in comparison to any other reliever. In fact, later in the article, Jayson mentions that Curt Schilling himself made the transition from reliever to starter midseason 13 years ago! So we can already see that what Schilling is trying to do is actually not even close to unprecedented at all. So why, then, do the stats of this tiny, 4-pitcher sampling of midseason reliever-to-starter switches even matter at all? That’s correct; they don’t. Nevertheless, Jayson spends a third of the article talking about them.
Now to be fair, I typically like reading Stark’s “Useless Information” columns. Even though the content of these articles literally is useless, it’s still fun to read all of the random trivia that somebody digs up in the stat books. Honestly, though, the closer-to-starter transition that Schilling is attempting is really only worthy of a couple lines in one of Stark’s Useless Information columns. In addition, I think Stark’s article would be significantly more interesting if Schilling had actually been pitching effectively up to this point in his “closer” role. His ERA in that role was well over 5.00. If Schilling is going to make a “successful” transition into the rotation, does that mean he’s going to pitch just as well in the rotation? If that’s the case then I hope Schilling’s ready to be the 5th starter.
All things aside though, I do hope that Schilling regains his form in the starting role. He was was never meant to be a closer, and now that he’s back in his rightful spot, maybe we’ll finally see the Schilling of last year. Maybe.
