NOTE: If you missed my "A's preview" chat earlier tonight on NowLive and want to listen to it, you can go here and catch the interview, which starts 13 minutes (about 1/6 of the way) into the show.
Pitch counts fascinate me. Rarely is there a topic with so much data and so little consensus. Ask Bob Feller and he'll tell you, in his 90-year old crotchety-yet-articulate voice, that pitch counts are for sissies. Ask around, though, and you'll soon find a range of far more conservative ideas - and yet even those often don't agree with one another. I am breaking the discussion down into three distinct questions...
1. What, if anything, contributes to a dangerous level of arm fatigue?
Much of the conventional wisdom revolves around total pitches, putting the cap on around 115-120 pitches. However, you will also see arguments that a high pitch count (say, 25 pitches) in a given inning is more of a concern than the total number over several innings.
Ned Yost cited this last year in regards to C.C. Sabathia, who threw 120-130 pitches four times for Milwaukee, but spread those pitches out to where he rarely had a "high-stress" inning for pitch count. (Yost cited that overall Sabathia averaged just 13.7 pitches/inning, 7th lowest in baseball.) Of course, Ned Yost was also fired in September, so it's unclear how much he even speaks for the Brewers, let alone coaches and managers throughout baseball.
What matters most, do you think, and how would you like to see the A's manage their pitchers in regards to limits?
2. Why are pitchers so much less able to throw more pitches, and more innings, than before?
Perhaps each new pitch that is introduced in baseball, like the slider and the splitter, is harder on the arm than the oldest pitches in the book. And maybe the fireballers of yesteryear topped out at 95MPH instead of at 98MPH.
But does this alone explain the rather caverous difference between pitchers like Bob Gibson and Don Drysdale, who routinely threw 300 IP/season in four-man rotations, without much attention paid to pitch counts, and today's norm, where 200 IP is considered a lot and red sirens go off whenever a guy reaches 120 pitches? The game can't have changed that much. Can it?
3. How much weight should teams put on individual differences?
For a franchise player Tim Lincecum, small-frame and all, is given an awful lot of leeway with regard to "pitch" and "inning" totals. The Giants obviously believe that Lincecum, with his unique Dad-taught mechanics and regimen, can throw a lot of pitches and a lot of innings and be none the worse for wear.
Are the Giants playing with fire, or have they correctly recognized that Lincecum is a throwback to the old days - a guy capable of unleashing Nolan Ryan stuff with a Nolan Ryan workload? Are there some pitchers who get stronger by throwing more pitches, more innings?
One thing is for sure: As prized prospects like Cahill and Anderson join talented young pitchers like Gio, Mazzaro, and Simmons in The Show, the stakes for managing pitchers' health will be higher than ever. If Curt Young is reading, what do you want him to hear?
0 recs | 60 comments
Possible historical differences
Some suggestions I have heard to explain the differences between pitchers now and in “the good ol’ days”:
1. Young players used to only play baseball for a small part of the year, and were likely to be playing other sports and/or working on the family farm the rest of the year. The earlier specialization we have now means more pitchers are “all arm” which ultimately leads to more arm injuries.
2. There are big individual differences, and there was much more attrition in the old days: lots of promising young pitchers would develop a “sore arm” in the minors and never be heard from again. The ones who could handle the workload and survived were the ones who made the majors. Today, organizations place more value on their players as assets, and have to worry about keeping as many of them healthy as possible.
3. There used to be more variation in hitting talent, and in particular more “easy outs,” and the pitchers were able to take something off their pitches and reduce strain when these guys were up. Today, pitchers can’t afford to ease off even against the worst hitters (except maybe against pitchers in NL games).
There are also lots of people who seem to think that pitchers could safely throw more innings if we went back to a four-man rotation (i.e. that 6 innings every 4 days is inherently less dangerous than 7.5 innings every 5th day) but I’ve never heard a good explanation for why that should be true.
I don’t think we can say for sure that any of these things is right, but they’re all worth thinking about.
andeux - February 19, 2009
Interesting to consider that a team like the 2010 or 2011 A's could
get 40 starts each out of, say, Gallagher, Cahill, Anderson, and the better of Eveland/Braden, by going with a super-pen of Devine, Ziggy, Wuertz, Casilla, Blevins, Outman, Gio and the worst of Eveland/Braden – and not giving 32 starts to the #5 spot.
Other teams actually offer better examples – teams that are especially strong at the front of the rotation but equally weak in the back. Last year’s Blue Jays, with Halliday and Burnett but not much else, would have been good candidates, and maybe this year’s Diamondbacks.
Nico - February 19, 2009
There is some thought that
even if the four man rotation is/was not substantially riskier than a five man rotation for pitchers’ health, the transition of current pitchers from 4 days to 3 days rest would harmful even if it would not have been had they been pitching on 3 days rest all along.
mikeA - February 19, 2009
Blue Jays rotation
ahhh. There starters were kick ass. McGowan & Marcum were very good before they got injured,
The Blue Jays had the best staff ERA in the league.
LBDirtbags - February 19, 2009
Don't forget Gustavo Chacin
The way all of baseball has.
Nico - February 19, 2009
Chacin
I"m sure you realize didn’t make any starts for the Jays last year. The final rotation spot was Jesse LItich.
But I mean … don’t let details get in the way of speaking about a subject.
LBDirtbags - February 19, 2009
I realize Chacin didn't make any starts last year
I was referring to him as part of the “their starters were kick ass” conversation. He was a real bright light at one time, and if healthy would have been an important part of their 2009 rotation.
Nico - February 19, 2009
The military draft affected them also
From the 1940s through the early 1970s, a lot of them had military service in their late teens and early 20s. They weren’t piling up huge numbers of innings in college or the minors at a young age. If you look at the back of baseball cards from those years, you’ll find stat lines that read, “military service – did not play.” Many young players were in the reserves and had to miss some weekends and a few weeks during the season. The A’s had some reservists when they first arrived from Kansas City. Of course, it stopped when the military draft came to an end.
Monday Fan - February 19, 2009
I think your paragraph 3 is 90% or more of the answer
When you watch film of old games a lot of the pitches look like less than max effort (although it’s hard to tell because they weren’t filmed in HD for some reason). Today, It seems to me that most pitchers put everything the’ve got into all, or most, of their pitches.
nevermoor - February 20, 2009
I think most of comes down to mechanics
Simply, if your mechanics are bad, they will catch up to you. But if they are good, and you don’t put a whole lot of stress on your arm, then you’ll be alright.
Now, I’m not saying that pitch counts are irrelevant. Piling on the innings on a young, developing guy is a horrible idea.
But it just seems to me that the guys that are oft-injured are the guys with the bad mechanics. I could be totally wrong though, I have no statistics to back it up.
NateHST - February 19, 2009
One thing to keep in mind on this topic:
There are two issues which are pitches per game, and time off between starts.
As to pitches per game: Even if you completely ignore the issue of injuries, it has been true in every era that the starting pitcher performs worse each time through the order (probably because of some combination of fatigue and the hitters becoming more accustomed to the pitcher), and that the bullpen generally outperforms the starting pitchers overall such that when the point in the game comes that the starter’s pitch count is getting to possibly dangerous levels, it is generally speaking a good idea to replace the starter completely apart from the possible arm damage. Of course, relievers get injured a lot too, and so taking this strategy to an extreme may be bad health-wise.
mikeA - February 19, 2009
Which would suggest that the best overall strategy is the one
the A’s appear to be employing for 2009: Emphasize a good, deep bullpen.
Nico - February 19, 2009
THT just had an article about this
Here’s the link: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-injury-zone/
As for what I believe, pushing a player like Lincecum is unacceptable. Lincecum IS the Giants’ present and future and risking his arm on a meaningless season is terrible. And it was rewarded by getting him the Cy. It’s intuitive that pitch counts need to be individualized but before you simply throw a guy out there for 250 inning you need to find out if he’s Rich Harden or Livan Hernandez. You do that by slowly increasing the amount he throws. Especially in a lot season.
vignette17 - February 19, 2009
so in Harden's case
would you characterize his inability to stay healthy on poor mechanics or just bad genes?
mrod - February 19, 2009
Some believe he worked out too much
Helloooo 1st - February 19, 2009
Speaking of which, we've hardly talked about the guy
who could wind up being the A’s “MVP” this season: Bob “I’m not Clarence Cockrell” Alejo.
Nico - February 19, 2009
That's true
Maybe he’ll incorporate stretching into his pregame workouts?
Helloooo 1st - February 19, 2009
Even after Harden eased up on his workouts he still was injured all the time
I’m just trying to figure out why he has been hurt so much of his career.
mrod - February 19, 2009
Did he ever ease up?
I was under the impression that he continued his Mr. Universe routine even against the whispers of the A’s.
Helloooo 1st - February 20, 2009
He's not built to throws as hard as he does,
and now the damage is done.
OldhamA - February 20, 2009
Sure he is.
He just has fairly bad mechanics, at least his follow through, which creates too much stress on his arm and his upper body.
mikev - February 20, 2009
Nice post, Thanks Nico
Buck Turgidson - February 19, 2009
:-)
We accept nice comments!
Nico - February 19, 2009
It happens occasionally
Buck Turgidson - February 19, 2009
What about a tip jar?
mrod - February 19, 2009
Mail me $10 and I'll set one up
nevermoor - February 19, 2009
That was fun.
I almost made you lose it. I should’ve tried harder.
Leopold Bloom - February 19, 2009
Eh?
Nico - February 19, 2009
I thought I made you laugh with a comment of mine.
…must’ve been Joey’s A-Rod/BoCro comparison.
Leopold Bloom - February 19, 2009
I don't know - when I heard that I was still processing
that Crosby won the MVP award in 2004.
Nico - February 19, 2009
What was your comment?
(I was on the phone, not online.)
Nico - February 19, 2009
I don't remember...
something inane and borderline inappropriate, I’m sure. Interesting show. You had about 15 people there.
Leopold Bloom - February 19, 2009
But you were
very well-spoken and answered all his questions thoughtfully, with what sounded like sincerity.
So you represented AN quite well. Good job, man!
Leopold Bloom - February 19, 2009
Thanks.
If it isn’t archived anywhere, I’ll never hear it so I’ll have to take your word for it.
Nico - February 19, 2009
You lost me on....
ak_A - February 19, 2009
At least I lost you.
Nico - February 19, 2009
It would be interesting to know
if there’s a difference between how often/much pitchers throw before games and between games now versus in the past.
But I’d suspect the difference has more to do with a combination of better farm systems weeding out pitchers and expansion diluting the types of pitchers who could be successful in a 4-man rotation
DMOAS - February 19, 2009
Regarding the A's pitchers...
It bothers me that so many of the A’s young pitchers seem to burn out their arms. I would like to see better care taken of those young arms period. It is such an individual process for each player though to know what is the most a player can pitch without arm fatigue that I don’t think I want to give an opinion on how much is too much.
IM4Oakgal - February 19, 2009
I actually think the A's have a better track record than most teams
in regards to pitchers’ health. If it doesn’t seem like it, it’s probably because in general a lot of pitchers get hurt. You look around the league and see Francisco Liriano, from an organization that does great with young pitchers, or Mark Prior and Kerry Wood, or A.J. Burnett and Gustavo Chacin, and so on – it’s just hard for pitchers to avoid injury when pitching is so bad for your arm.
Nico - February 19, 2009
I don't agree.
It seems to me that the A’s are pretty well-known for using up young arms. They know they won’t be keeping the pitchers s othey overuse them while they have "em.
IM4Oakgal - February 19, 2009
I'm not sure other teams are much different
Case in point, C.C. Sabathia.
Nico - February 19, 2009
You have to have a list of players.
Like the A’s do.
IM4Oakgal - February 19, 2009
Brewers are pretty into that staggered increase in innings for young pitchers. CC is sort of an odd example. I did hear that pitches per inning thing a whole lot last season though.
Lovejoy - February 20, 2009
Look back to the 1990s when Art Howe brought in his pet pitching coach
When Bob Cluck was the pitching coach, nearly every young pitcher who put on an A’s uniform went down in flames. I’d say the A’s health record since Rick Peterson and Curt Young took over looks pretty good.
Monday Fan - February 19, 2009
I read somewhere that it's one of the worst possible things you could do to your arm,
as the ptching motion places your entire body weight on the shoulder joint.
OldhamA - February 20, 2009
Agreed
The A’s are probably about #10 or so in pitcher injury rates, whereas they’re a not-even-particularly-close #30 in position player injuries….
PaulThomas - February 21, 2009
What I find fascinating...
…is how many people make assumptions regarding pitch counts when in fact nobody knows anything. We know that pitching over 300 innings in a season is bad. We know that throwing 125-140 pitches per game, every game, diminishes a pitcher’s effectiveness.
But beyond that, everything is speculation, even though all these people seem to know. There’s no way of knowing if the Giants are hurting Lincecum or perhaps strengthening him for a long career. There’s no way of knowing if “coddling” is hurting pitchers, or helping them.
What gets me is how many people are convinced about certain points of view, when the evidence in all directions is so damn spotty.
richwol1 - February 19, 2009
Well you could use Google
And find all those studies and statistics that show how bad throwing a whole bunch of innings and pitches are.
This is neither but it’s a hell of a lot better than throwing up your arms and saying, “Well we don’t know anything!”
NateHST - February 19, 2009
Yeah...
You might have considered reading my second sentence.
We know that throwing A WHOLE BUNCH of innings and pitches is dangerous. A whole bunch. Whenever anyone says anything about the idea that nobody really knows anything, we learn again that Mike Norris’s arm was blown off by Billy Martin, that pitchers with huge work loads often suffered in the past. That pitchers under 25 are badly hurt by overwork.
The problem is that the key number of pitches, the ones that count in a game, are between 95 and 120. That’s the sixth, seventh or eighth…maybe even ninth inning. I’ve seen nothing to indicate that throwing 115 pitches in a game is any more dangerous than throwing 90.
richwol1 - February 20, 2009
Well we do know that
throwing anything is dangerous for your arm. The reason you see runners constantly breaking the world record (100 meter dash: 10.6 sec in 1912 down to 9.69 sec) is because athletes are becoming bigger and stronger.
But you’ll will never see a picture throwing a ball upwards of 110 MPH, even as they become more athletic, because the act of throwing a baseball is literally coming close to the limits that the human body can endure. You literally can’t throw it faster.
So I’d look at it like this: every pitcher is going out and throwing a ball somewhere around 100 pitches-and every time he’s putting his arm to the limit. It’s hard to imagine a person being able to do that for a long period of time, but there are freaks of nature out there, and there are ways you can take the stress off through things like mechanics.
NateHST - February 20, 2009
Okay...
But it says nothing about the difference between throwing 90-100 pitches in a game, and 115-120 pitches in a game, which is where the whole pitch count story comes into play, because that’s the difference between going six innings and eight or nine innings.
richwol1 - February 21, 2009
Someone has to mention him, so I will.
It sure seems to me that our pitchers did just fine while Rick Peterson was here, and the epidemic of injuries began right after he left. We know that Peterson was a stickler for pitch counts. I remember all those times when Mulder or Hudson was pitching great for seven or eight innings and we’d all yell “why? why? why?” when they’d take him out after 95 pitches and give the ball to a much more dubious reliever. This inclines me to believe that Peterson was on to something.
But I also know that the “Rick Peterson saved our pitchers” idea is not well accepted among the baseball savants who know a lot more than me. So if you’re out there thinking this is a boneheaded idea that needs to be stomped out, I invite you to tell me why I’m wrong. You can even be snarky and call me an idiot, so long as you also explain clearly why logic and data don’t support my tentative conclusion. If your argument makes sense I will happily abandon the Rick Peterson idea and be happy to have learned something.
iglew - February 19, 2009
1998 - 2003
It’s hard to know what to make of any health records from that period.
green star oakland - February 19, 2009
Well
I don’t think the health record of the pitchers since he left has been too bad.
Also, to the extent that he was protecting the health of the pitchers, which certainly is possible, I don’t think it was by sticking to pitch counts. Every team does that to some extent, and it’s not my impression that pitchers started to come out later when he left. It’s also not clear how much the pitching coach has to do with that decision anyway.
In 2001, Hudson and Mulder were in the top 5 in IP in the AL, in 2002 and 2003 Hudson and Zito were in the top 5, and in 2004 Mulder was in the top 5. Hudson and Mulder have had injuries since, and Zito has lost a lot of velocity, which some have attributed to all those innings with the A’s. I don’t particularly buy that (of course I don’t have any idea about injuries really), but at the very least I don’t think it’s true that the good health in those years was based on caution with the workloads.
mikeA - February 20, 2009
You're an idiot but I don't know why!
I love good debate.
Nico - February 20, 2009
I dunno... I really don't...
I never pitched for a living. If I did, I’d want my club to protect me. If I am regarded as a pussy by the likes of Bob Feller… well, fuck him… I’d just tip my cap and say he’s a better man than I.
I gotta pay for my kids in the real world.
FoolshGame22 - February 20, 2009
Didn't baseball lower the pitching mound circa 1968?
Wouldn’t that force pitchers to generate more momentum with their body (IE: arm) as opposed to letting gravity do the trick?
VORP is too nerdy - February 20, 2009
Pythagorean Theorum
When you shorten one side of a right triangle, the hypotenuse necessarily shortens due to a2 + b2 = c^2. The damage you speculate about should be mitigated by the fact that the distance the ball has to travel is shorter.
Kyle Boddy - February 23, 2009
Just maybe...
the pithers in the old days had more rest when they were supposed to be resting. This is an argument totally unbacked by any article what so ever… so I could be way off.
But maybe their offseason workload was way below what it is now. I envison the current pitchers going into the gym at the end of october to condition themselves where I can see the pitchers of the old days go and play in the backyard with the kids and the dog in the backyard. Only to come out in january to start playing some catch with the neighbour to be ready for spring training…
but again, I could be way off.
Harry2m - February 20, 2009
The question, I guess, is whether all the "in-between" stuff,
from bullpen sessions to playing long-toss, etc., strengthens the arm or furthers stresses/tires it.
Nico - February 20, 2009
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