Detroit Tigers: How to Get Michael Fulmer Through the Season
By Matt Snyder
The Detroit Tigers are watching Michael Fulmer’s innings total carefully. Skipping him in the rotation twice more would get him through the year with roughly 160 innings pitched.
Detroit Tigers rookie starting pitcher Michael Fulmer will return to the mound this weekend in Tampa after being skipped the last time through the rotation. The Tigers haven’t talked publicly about instituting a firm innings cap on him this season but they’re definitely keeping a close eye on the running total.
Katie Strang of ESPN.com wrote about this back in May. Here’s a quote from manager Brad Ausmus.
"“We didn’t put a hard cap [on it],” Ausmus said in his pregame news briefing on Tuesday. “I think he threw 120 [innings] last year so you can add some to that, 20-25 percent roughly.”"
As Strang goes on to point out, the 20-25% increase target would put Fulmer — who actually threw 124.2 innings last year — in line for 150-155 total innings this season. But Ausmus qualified his statement by saying “roughly” and made it clear that they have no hard cap in place.
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In all likelihood, Fulmer’s innings total will be determined (in part) by how competitive the team is. If the Tigers fall out of the race in July or August, we’ll probably see them take a more conservative approach and aim for the 150 end of the range. If they’re in the running for a playoff berth through the final weeks, I’d expect them to allow him to make an extra start or two and push the upper bound up to 160 innings or so.
So how do they get there? If the current rotation was maintained in strict order, Fulmer would be in line for 17 more starts. At his current 5.8 innings per start average, 17 starts would put him at 178 innings (combined MLB and AAA). That’s too many.
Resetting the rotation after the All-Star break would eliminate the need for one of those starts and reduce his total to 172 innings. That leaves the need for two more skipped starts to get him down to 161 projected innings. That’s probably OK assuming the Tigers are in contention. If not, they could simply shut him down in late September and skip an additional start or two.
When exactly they skip these starts is anyone’s guess, but the All-Star break gives him an extended rest in July so maybe they’ll elect to skip him once in August and once in September (after every four starts or so) to even out his remaining workload.
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If the Tigers do make the playoffs, expect them to push his innings total even further. A 160 inning regular season plus a deep playoff run could increase the final total to 180 innings. That’s a lot more than the club is planning on right now, but it’s (probably) not a dangerous total and teams with aging rosters and limited windows should throw some amount of caution to the wind.