***Official Royals vs. Twins 8/17 Game Thread***

[duncan_idaho]

Originally Posted by Prison Bitch

That's illogical since he's #2 in innings. There's no such thing as "5 starter" or any number system outside the playoffs.

He's No. 2 in innings because Vargas missed a month with a fluke medical DL stint. But, regardless, he's still 5th in the rotation in terms of the starts they would want to give him.

I don't know why you're hammering on the concept of 1-5 starters recently, but it is thing front offices look at as they construct a team. There are some starters you look at as back-end guys you just want to eat innings and keep you in games. You go into the season planning to limit the role of those guys in favor of your other, better starters. You shuffle the rotation when possible to get your better starters MORE starts at the expense of those 4 and 5 starters.

Personally, I tend to think of guys more as Aces (or top of rotation/true 1s), good starters (mid-rotation/2-3) and back end starters (4/5 guys that you want to eat innings and keep you in games). But the roster/team construction concept is still the same.

End of the day, Guthrie was the Royals 3rd-best/3rd most important starter last season at this time (you could argue it was Duffy, I guess, but he was just a few starts away from being shut down). This season, he is their 5th best/5th most important guy.

I think he's going to end up giving the Royals 200 basically league average innings (considering he's just a tick below that currently and traditionally struggled in July before having better August and Septembers). Which is actually pretty impressive, considering how bad his July was this year.