It will be a luxury if we're debating what to do with Abel in two weeks, as well as what to do with seven starters in August. But even carrying six starting pitchers, whether for a regular rotation or tandems, can still leave you short in the pen. And when you do tandems you are fundamentally making the second guy a reliever. So long as they know what inning they will enter the game, they can still prepare like a starter, but I'm not sure that's how it plays out in a lot of case (i.e. if your opener is dealing he keeps going).
It's a role that presumably makes sense for Painter given his innings limit but does he start or finish, and in tandem with whom? And does Abel go back to AAA or the pen, assuming he is even in the organization on August 1?
Moving Suarez back to the pen is always going to be loom over the conversation too. He spent most of the first two months of 2021 as a middle reliever (I.e. plenty of longer outings) but then on June 25 they made him the closer until the trade deadline. Then they acquired Ian Kennedy and made Ranger a starter, and he's been that ever since (just two relief appearances over the next three seasons, both in the 2022 playoffs).
