Eh. Their WP% in the 9th of this game peaked at 33.4. Their WP% in MIL, in the game where they saved him for leverage, peaked at 15.6 in the 9th. The only way to treat this as a "zero chance of winning" game is by working backwards from the fact that they didn't...in which case, both usages were a waste because they lost both games. In an absolute statistical sense, tonight's game wound up more winnable in the end, and that's before even getting to the impact of Hays' bad hammy on the first run against. So is it worth something to have Fedde leaving the game today with a 43% chance of winning in the 7th, compared to leaving with a 22% chance of winning in the 5th of his first start? If Taylor doesn't get his 3 outs then someone else would have had to. Does Fedde get them third time through, or does a different reliever if you hook him before that? If not, then are the Sox facing worse odds in the 9th than being one swing away? Does it take more than 3 arms to finish the game? Does BAL get to save their best arms? Does that impact pen availability/performance for the rest of the series? With Taylor opening for Burke, he left with a 88% chance of winning in the 7th, compared to a leaving with a 16% chance of winning after the 4th of his first start. In the latter scenario, you can theoretically save Taylor for a more winnable game* but what if the former scenario actually makes the game more winnable to begin with? *In reality, they couldn't actually save him, because he (and the team) needed innings, so he got "wasted" on a <10% win probability game anyway... Saving him for leverage on a below average team will mean some number of non-leverage "work" innings that are guaranteed to be less meaningful than any outing as an opener by default. Neither route is perfectly waste free, they just have different uncertainties. Saving Taylor could just as easily mean you traded a one hit away home 9th today for him pitching in a decided game on Wednesday or Thursday if there's no leverage spot before then to get him off the bench. Despite Taylor's absolutely elite stuff, the performance of the bullpen and the "starters" behind him have both been better with him opening in this handful of games. Obviously, a larger sample size would be needed to control for the effects of home vs. road, opponent variance, and players/teams just settling in to the season. But if the pattern continues, and Taylor opening gets an extra ~4 innings from the starters in a series combined with better bullpen performance courtesy of reduced workload + better pockets, could that have a larger cumulative effect on winning than the marginal difference between an early 0 and a late one in an individual game? Especially when you can't project how many games will have late leverage value to cash in on at all? I just think it's possible on a situational basis, and I think it's interesting that they're trying it. It's certainly led to more winnable and more watchable games in a VERY small sample size this week. I expect Taylor will still get leverage spots when the matchups for a series suggest that's better. Last year vs. TOR, he opened the opener and closed the finale. It doesn't have to be a pure either/or unless you're determined to only use Taylor in games where his inning individually is most likely to decide the game in a vacuum. In that case, I agree that he absolutely should appear almost exclusively in save situations. My thought process is based around maximizing Taylor the player and the staff overall both being higher priorities than maximizing potential leverage opportunities specifically.