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RockiesJeff had a crisp little comment about baseball dogma.  Care to list any of your faves, he axs?  Yeah, everything sabermetrics ever discovered... j/k Jeff.

Merrill pointed out that the TNT emphasized, again, that the M's just can't afford to have their #6 starter unready to step in when needed.  Ergo, the need for 6-7 IP starts at Tacoma so the ballistic missiles can be launched on 90 seconds' notice, maxium.

A nice little synchronicity there, what say?  :- )  Here we go again, with a good many baseball men arguing that the Mariners not only should, but virtually MUST, put their #6SP in Tacoma.

You know the problem with these kinds of arguments?  Is that they've played baseball seasons before.

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So, TNT ... no disrespect, thanks for your analysis ... but about 25% of all starters in the AL last year had relief appearances.  Including Roenis Elias, Vidal Nuno, and J.A. Happ.  Just go over to the baseball-reference.com page and scan down the G and GS columns, which lay right next to one another.  You'll see lots of pitchers who have more G than GS.

In 2014, for DiPoto's Angels, guess which glitzy young SP's had bullpen time?  Matt Shoemaker (!) had 20 games started and 7 appearances out of the pen -- with 5 games finished. Hector Santiago, who was DiPoto's pride and joy, had 24 starts but also 6 bullpen appearances, and "closed" 2 games himself.

I'm tired of listing these teams before I even start.  Go look up ANY team, any year, and you'll find a handful of Vidal Nunos.  Or Johan Santanas.  Or Ramiro Mendozas.  They talk these days like a "swing man" RP/SP is poison.  It is just preference masquerading as ancient wisdom, except the ancients didn't agree.

... ah, can't resist checking DiPoto's other Angels teams.  2013, their best young pitcher Garrett Richards had 47 games, of which 17 were starts.  Joe Blanton and Tommy Hanson, established AL starters, spent significant time in the pen.

2012, Richards again swung back and forth, so if DiPoto's Angels are any indication, there wouldn't even be any rush to get Karns "fixed" in the rotation or pen.  He could spend two or three years doing it.  And you begin to suspect that DiPoto and Servais are well aware that this option is perfectly viable, but people use these arguments to push their preferred 25-man roster.  That's fine, but as a baseball fan you need to be aware that there is no absolute here.  You pay a price for anything you believe that isn't true ...

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The whole idea that Paxton or Karns "need to stay stretched out" may be "inside the box baseball thinking," but it simply contradicts all of baseball history.  Nate Karns pitches out of the 'pen and is needed Friday?  He can go 5 IP that very first start, and 6-7 the next one.  We're making that first 5-inning start out to be the end of the blinkin' world.

But supposing you DID have to send Paxton or Karns out for one or two "rehab" starts and use Roach to fill that?  How is that any different from the guy BEING in Tacoma?  Ah, right, could be one start he misses when you reallllly wanted to start him.  Well, that outweighs everything ... maybe except for the Earl Weaver theory that the guy is more ready to pitch in the majors if he's actually been facing major league hitting.

You asked RockiesJeff.  Here's exhibit 1-A.  Cool Papa said it best.  The same thing that they'd do with an ordinary pitcher like Nuno, without thinking twice, the same thing becomes unthinkable when you're talking about a really good pitcher.

BABVA,

Dr D