Saying Milwaukee Brewers General Manager Doug Melvin did a lot of work to revamp his team's starting pitching over the winter might be selling him a bit short.
In December Melvin made trades just two weeks apart to acquire a pair of Opening Day starters from a year ago in Shaun Marcum from the Blue Jays and 2009 AL Cy Young Award winner Zack Greinke from the Royals. His work now appears to be done, outside of getting through salary arbitration, and the work with the team now sits in the lap of newly annointed manager Ron Roenicke.
The five pitchers that will start the season in the Brewers rotation are all but set, but the order to which Roenicke will march them out onto the diamond may be different than many think.
If one were to rank the five that will make up the starting rotation it would go RHP Zack Greinke, RHP Yovani Gallardo, RHP Shaun Marcum, LHP Randy Wolf and LHP Chris Narveson. But that is not exactly how a Major League manager would want to order his rotation and there are a couple different ways Roenicke could go when the season starts March 31 in Cincinnati.
Greinke will be the hands down pick to starting opening day in Cincinnati. And after going 220 innings last season with a 4.17 ERA it is hard to argue. He allowed just 55 walks and struck out 181 over that time with 219 hits and 102 earned runs en route to a 10-14 record on the season. As Baseball-Reference.com reveals, the Royals were 12-21 in Donald Zachary Greinke's starts last season.
After Greinke and Opening Day against the Reds, there is a scheduled off day to start the season. It is technically a weather day built in. But the Brewers could take advantage of that day to start the season against the defending NL Central champs. This would only work for the opening series of the season, but would right itself and do what it Roenicke is thinking for the remainder of the season, too.
On April 2, the Brewers could send Gallardo out against the Reds in Game 2 of the season. Gallardo went 14-7 as the ace of the Brewers staff and could settle in this season to a role as a No. 2 to build his game. Last year, the soon-to-be 25 year old recorded his second season with 200 strikeouts and showed maturity as the season progessed. Limiting his pitch count was his biggest weakness last season, but he still posted a 3.84 ERA while throwing 185 innings. During that time he walked 75 and allowed 79 earned runs.
Roenicke could follow that with Marcum as the No. 3 man on the season. After missing all of 2009 with Tommy John Surgery, Marcum threw 195.1 innings in 2010 and posted a 3.64 ERA. He struck out 165 batters while walking just 43 while allowing 79 earned runs. That was good enough for a 13-8 record in the AL East, which makes pretty good numbers look rather impressive.
For Opening Day at Miller Park Randy Wolf gets the nod in the No. 4 slot to start the season. The second half of the season last year really showed why the Brewers went out and got him in the free-agent market. From June 14 on there was only one start, a horrendous 12-run outing at Pittsburgh on July 21, where Wolf failed to carry his weight. Over his final 21 starts he went 9-6 with a 3.53 ERA. That record does not show everything as he was the benefactor of 5.38 runs per game from the Brewers offense. But had he pitched like he had in his first 21 starts as opposed to his first 13, he would have pitched 223 innings with 151 strikeouts and 78 walks. He finished the season with 142 strikeouts and 87 walks, but it's another eight innings he would have pitched and that changes how you look at the numbers.
This is where the rotation to start the season takes a bit of a twist. With the off day between the first and second games, Greinke is ready on four days rest to come back on April 5 agains the Braves. Roenicke should go with his ace again, getting an extra game out of him here to utilize his ability and get him in front of the home crowd the day after Opening Day. Mark Attanassio would certainly not object.
Then, for the April 6 game, Roenicke then inserts Narveson for the first time of the season. Why do it this way? Simple, it breaks up the Brewers' two power right handers in Greinke and Gallardo and also breaks up the two lefties in the rotation, Wolf and Narveson. Narveson showed signs through last season when he was named to the starting rotation into the season, but just needed to get more consistent. He went 5-3 in his last 14 starts (of his 28 on the season) when he finally pulled it all together. Over which time he posted a 3.89 ERA and had 66 strikeouts to just 34 walks in 81 innings.
It is not so much about order in a Major League rotation and he gives something different than what hitters will see from Greinke and Gallardo and will be a good change of pace. Plus, he's shown the ability to eat up innings. When teams gear up for the power right handers, this will give them something completely different to prepare for. From relase point all the way down.
Is this the rotation Roenicke will go with, maybe not, but it is a starting point of what you can expect to see and not be surprised when the season starts.
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