…but rife with assumptions, like that Lincecum would be best suited to go on 3 days rest while Martinez would be more effective on six.

The most obvious result, presumably, would be in the standings, where a half dozen more starts from Lincecum (plus perhaps a half dozen from another young pitcher like Matt Cain) would likely lead to more wins, while at the same time limiting the damage from the fifth starter, who is now pitching on six days rest and is theoretically more effective.

But what if you did the analysis and found out that Martinez and Zito do best on 3 days rest and Lincecum and Cain ideally need more? Would you then give Martinez and Zito those extra half dozen starts each? The other alternative would be to junk the evaluation and go back to what you would’ve done anyway.

Hasn’t the 5 man rotation eveolved over time? I don’t blame the giants for protectine their assets

i also like that this was an article about baseball where the writer actually contacted multiple sources to support or debunk a theory. this staple of journalism has been lost on many of the mainstream writers, who rely on their opinion and leave it at that, IMHO.

knowing how unique timmy’s delivery and entire pitching process is (if i remember correctly i believe he said he doesn’t feel soreness the day after pitching) i think he’s a perfect example for this article. imagine a Timmy – Cain – Zito – Timmy rotation with Dirty sprinkled in and another starter going every week or so.

and the Giants have sorely needed a real mop up guy for the last couple of seasons… it seems like the Fasseros and Wrights have ended up as 5th starters because of injuries and that’s had a bad effect on the rest of the bullpen (because the rest get overused).

So, Martinez or whoever should be in the bullpen and throwing the 4 or so innings in the Zito bad starts….

It’s a good thought, and I always like seeing people challenge the conventional wisdom, but I think Lincecum and Cain throw enough pitches already, near the top of the league I believe. If timmy started on 3 days rest consistently, he might not be able to go as deep into games, which means more work for the pen – Now I realize the relievers have generally done a great job so far this year, but I’m not so sure I trust miller and medders to continue to pitch well. So really, we might be taking innings from martinez/sanchez and giving them to miller/medders/valdez. The giants aren’t going to run away with a lot of easy wins, so the pen could end up doing a decent job but still waste the extra lincecain starts.