this is exactly the way i would use him.

“Now, with more innings, we’re going to be more aggressive with him,” Hillman says. “We’ll let the situation dictate, but maybe there will be times this year when we ask him to get four or five outs.”

I’ll set the over/under on the number of times this happens at 3.5

The 6th inning, coming in with the bases loaded and the Royals leading, we’ll know Hillman gets it.

“Now, with more innings, we’re going to be more aggressive with him,” Hillman says. “We’ll let the situation dictate, but maybe there will be times this year when we ask him to get four or five outs.”

That isn’t unleashing your closer. That isn’t using your closer in an untraditional way. That isn’t using your closer in a way that maximizes leverage. That’s basically adding a few more 4 and 5-out Saves to the standard 3-out saves. This is a positive thing, but it is sounds like a very minor tweak.

…the performance of the rest of the Royals bullpen, particularly the setup men. If Hillman feels very confident in two or three other relievers who can handle the 8th in a close game, then he probably won’t feel motivated to put Soria into a game before the 9th. If Hillman feels like he can’t really trust those guys, then he’ll be more willing to use Soria.

About the pen this year than ever before. We’re in a position to stash multiple MLB arms in Omaha, both starters and relievers, and the guys in our MLB pen will be making real money for the most part. Red Lobster, baby! That’s gotta help.

If Professor Farnsworth can’t get the job done, we’ll see Soria for extra outs, not Cruz.

I need to put the finishing touches on it before putting it in a separate post.

I created it working under the general assumption that the Royals could’ve won more games, but weren’t using Soria in “fireman” type situations. I looked at every loss from the 6th inning on to see what happened. I’d thought that some of the long losing streaks could’ve been stopped by bringing in Soria earlier.

Turns out, the problem last year wasn’t bullpen usage. The problem was that the offense was horrible — the Royals were down several runs by the time the starter would exit in the 6th or 7th inning, so bringing in Soria earlier wouldn’t have helped much in terms of wins and losses last year. (It also helped out that Ramirez, Nunez, and to a lesser extent Mahay were lights out, so that there weren’t many games blown by the bullpen)

For a second I read that as “Royals to release Soria”

when the Royals are up by 1 or 2 runs, bring him in in the 8th. There you go. ONLY use him for a 1 inning save with a three-run lead if you know it wouldn’t effect his availablility the next day.

That would up his innings and leverage, and thus his value. I’m sure Hillman/Moore know this, since they’ve surely reak The Book, and not reading a leading piece of research in one’s one field would be a sign of willful ignorance/professional negligence.

Use the pr0f3550r for some of those 1 innings, 3-run saves. Even he can manage that most of the time, and maybe it will make some idiot general manager excited enough to trade for him. Do the same thing with Mahay. Maybe HoRam, too. Lather, rinse, repeat.

to me, unleashing = starting rotation. But getting more IPs this year may be a step towards that dream.

the first few times that he pitches more than one inning, because if he does I doubt that they will use him like this ever again

Hopefully Soria is up for it. I remember a game last year when he told the coaching staff he wasn’t available after pitching more than one inning the night before. I don’t remember if he had pitched in previous games prior to that but it seemed like he limited himself a tad last year also. They might want to limit him at the start of the season because it doesn’t seem like he is getting much work thanks to the WBC.