Cleveland Indians: Breaking down Danny Salazar’s move to the bullpen

Danny Salazar is the first Cleveland Indians starter to get sent to the bullpen this year, in a somewhat surprising move to make room for Mike Clevinger.

After the first two months of the season, it became clear that something had to give in the Cleveland Indians rotation. I wrote here that Mike Clevinger would replace either Trevor Bauer or Josh Tomlin by May 1. I was off by a month and a pitcher.

While, it’s not fair to say that Clevinger is replacing Danny Salazar, the Tribe decided to keep him around to see if he can.

After a horrible first eight weeks of the season, the Tribe decided to make a move and drop Danny Salazar out of the rotation and into the bullpen. This is not Salazar’s first stint in the bullpen, as he has made relief appearances as recently as the World Series.

The 27-year old hard throwing right-hander has not been the same since the second half of last year, after “mild elbow discomfort” cost him an All-Start Game start.

Salazar had a stellar first three months of 2016, posting a 10-3 record with a 2.22 ERA. He earned an All-Star Game start. His walk rate was finally down. He was not the same after his mild elbow discomfort.

After he had a sore right forearm and tight elbow that cost him time in August and September, Salazar made two World Series appearances, where he fared fine in relief.

Salazar has been injured often since entering the league in 2013. He has only one season with over 30 starts, a 2015 campaign where he struck out 195 in 185 innings with a 14-10 record and 3.45 ERA.

He’s never had a really bad year in the majors, always posting numbers in the number two to number four starter range. Salazar has always had over a 9.0 K/9, but averages a pretty high number of walks per start.

This year, Salazar has been all over the place. After getting through five April starts with a 4.34 ERA, his ERA has blow up to 5.50 in May. While Salazar has still struck out a lot of batters, 42 in 29 innings so far, he has walked 28 in 29 innings.

He is also serving up golf balls, allowing 11 homers in 10 starts. Salazar also has not got past 6.1 innings yet. With one quality start this year, Salazar has not gotten deep into games, and the walks, homers, and low innings cost Salazar his job. For now.

Let us look at why Danny Salazar got the boot over, say, Trevor Bauer. Or why did Mike Clevinger stay up? Is he really pitching that well? Danny Salazar is 3-5 with a 5.50 ERA over 52.1 innings to go with 42 strikeouts and 28 walks. He has allowed 11 homers and an opponent batting average of .272. Is that bad? Yes. But is Bauer better?

Trevor Bauer is 4-4 with a 6.30 ERA in 50 innings. He has 59 strikeouts and 18 walks to go with 11 homers allowed. His opponent batting average is .270. He has also only gone as long 6.1 innings in one start. Unlike Salazar, Bauer barely has a quality start under his belt (Salazar arguably has one). So again, why Salazar and not Bauer?

And what about Clevinger? Clevinger is 2-1 in his four starts this year, throwing over six innings only once, with a stellar 7-inning, 2-hit outing where he struck out eight and walked only two against the best team in the majors, the Houston Astros.

He did not exactly wow in his nine starts last year, ending 2016 with a 5.26 ERA and a 3-3 record. Clevinger did mow through Triple-A opponents this year, but it strikes me as odd that the Tribe is making this move, now, with Salazar.

Even Josh Tomlin (until his complete game, 1-one outing on Sunday) could have been considered on the outs with his 3-6 record and 5.79 ERA. Even with Sunday’s amazing performance, Tomlin has allowed eight homers, struck out 39 in 56 innings, and either gets blown up (three starts with six runs over more and two starts of less than three innings) or dominates (three starts with one run earned or less over seven innings).

With Carlos Carrasco and Corey Kluber just coming back to health and Josh Tomlin limiting his May ERA to 4.56 the Tribe has a few decisions to make. In the long-term, the Cleveland Indians would like to believe that they will have five healthy starters for the rest of the season.

Are they really going to keep a 27-year old flame thrower who was almost the All-Star Game starter last year in the bullpen?

If the backend of the bullpen did not have two of the most elite closers in the game, I could believe that transitioning Salazar to a setup man or closer role would make sense. Salazar is definitely not a Zach McAllister-like long reliever, so what’s the plan here?

Bauer spent the first month of 2016 in the bullpen. Tomlin came out of the bullpen twice last year in late August/early September. Clevinger was in the bullpen almost all last year.

The Tribe’s starters have experience in the bullpen. Kluber and Carrasco are top of the line guys who are going to stay in the front of the rotation. So, what’s the plan?

So here is a wild prediction: the team is going to go to a functional six-man rotation. Some teams are using this idea in a non-traditional way through the 10-day DL this season.

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Further, Terry Francona never hesitates to do something outside the box that makes sense (e.g., Andrew Miller). I believe that Francona is setting the Tribe up with a six-man rotation, which could work for a lot of reasons.

The naysayers will point to that coveted roster spot as the culprit for not using a six-man rotation. Thankfully, the Indians boast best bullpen ERA in the majors, and it is not really that close.

They have the 26th worst starter ERA, so it’s time to reconfigure. If Kluber or Carrasco needs to strictly be on their normal rest schedule to be effective, that’s fine.

But why not rotate the other four guys? Here’s an example: Kluber, Carrasco, Bauer, Tomlin, Clevinger (rotation 1). In the next round, it would be Kluber, Carrasco, Salazar, Bauer, Tomlin. In round three, it would be Kluber, Carrasco, Clevinger, Salazar, Bauer. And so on.

With off days, it would be easy to get everyone enough innings to keep them on schedule. Occasionally, one of these guys could come out of the bullpen if it was extra long between starts.

Next: Breaking down the baserunning issues

Given how these players could easily go between the bullpen and rotation, this is a very workable solution. Let’s see if Terry decides to do something crazy with his starters like he did last year with his relievers.