Right Idea.... Wrong Reason

Darren Everson reports in the WSJ of a growing trend among managers to try new things. One idea is to not bat the pitcher last in the lineup. I am not sure this really makes sense since the negatives probably outweigh the positives. A second idea is to have the "Starting" pitcher begin in the second inning. I have long argued that this is a really good idea, but not at all for the reason cited by Doug Melvin (Brewer's GM):

The thinking is that starters are typically among a team's best
pitchers, yet nowadays they often pitch only through the fifth or sixth inning, well before many games are decided. By having them pitch later, they'd be around for the higher-leverage innings.

Right Idea. Wrong Reason. The concept of leverage is important only for the purposes of resource management. The star closer is a scarce resource useful only for one inning at a time. So you would not want to waste it in a low-leverage situation. Ergo, you save the closer. What is forgotten in this calculus is that you inevitably fail to use the closer in many games where his use in an early inning could have changed the game most.

Now consider the first inning. Because team's lead with their best hitters the most runs are scored in the first innings. Since all runs count the same (regardless of the inning in which they are scored) the first innings has the highest expected leverage. This means that if you could go back and erase a single inning and replace it the inning most likely to make the most difference is the first inning. Ultimately what this means is that you want to use a star reliever at the start of the game to face the most feared hitters. Then your starter should take over in inning two. A second star reliever (if you have it) should be used for high-leverage situation towards the end.