Should the Atlanta Braves Consider Using An Opener

What is the purpose of the opener?

Some will wonder what’s the purpose of using an opener and a “headliner” instead of just using the traditional starting pitcher approach. So what does an opener truly accomplish?

The Tampa Bay Rays are credited with developing the opener and using it effectively. Ryan Yarbrough was the main “headliner” during their opener games. In 66 career games between 2018-2019, he only started 20 games, but was racking up starter innings due to being used as a headliner.

Yarbrough is more of a back of the rotation type arm, which is why using the opener made sense for his games. The Rays would start the game with a reliever and then hand the ball over to Yarbrough in the 2nd or 3rd and let him pitch into the 5th, 6th, or 7th inning

There’s two ideas behind this:

The first being that most teams first three hitters are (should be) their best hitters. So by having a reliever pitching to the first 3-5 hitters, and then turning it over to the headliner, or “starter,” this allows the pitcher to ease into the game by facing the bottom of the order.

The second, and probably the more important reason, it attempts to alleviate the damage done the third time through the order. As we have all heard before, the third time through the order can be a problem for pitchers.

The typical penalty is around .35 runs per 9 innings per the starters typical RA9. This is because hitters often hit the ball harder when facing a pitcher for the third time in a game.

By bringing in a headliner to start against the middle of the order, this means the pitcher’s third time through the order would be started against the middle of the lineup. Hopefully, a team can now get an extra inning out of a pitcher that they may not be able to get if they were used as a traditional starter.

This was the idea the Rays had with Yarbrough, looking at his wOBA, in 2018 his wOBA was a .320 in games where he was not the headliner. When he was the headliner, his wOBA was a .313, which isn’t a significant drop.

However, being the headliner allows him to face the back end of the lineup more than an opposing team’s better hitters. So while this stat doesn’t seem to be a significant change, it may be significant because its not a big change.

This being because Yarbrough doesn’t have to face the top of the order for a third time, but rather facing a team’s lesser hitters. This allows Yarbrough to pitch deeper in games and provide a more consistent pitcher for their starting rotation.