Some Further Thoughts About Pitch Counts
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| This guy gets it; counting pitches is a good thing. Why is it so controversial elsewhere? |
There were some interesting comments left in the comments section of the post. My old friend Gerry pitched in with a point about the bullpen being so taxed. It's a point well made, as saving the Cards' bullpen has become a near full-time occupation. (Congrats on the Bruins win, by the way, Gerry. The second they put that last game away, the first thing I thought of was you.) I can understand the need to push the starters a bit deeper given the bullpen's struggles. It doesn't mean I have to like it, but I can understand the necessity.
The other big point raised was made by our uber-blogger here at Daily RFT, with Chad quoting Mike Claiborne from KMOX following the game in question. I thought it was interesting that I had planned on writing a follow-up post on Friday, but just couldn't get to it. Well, considering Carpenter spun another masterpiece yesterday -- and threw close to an assload of pitches, doing so once again -- I'm going to celebrate my lucky timing and write said follow-up right now.
Here is the full comment from Señor Garrison: I was listening to KMOX after the game and Mike Claiborne was advocating
Like I said, lots of interesting stuff there. And honestly, there's actually some stuff I agree with. That being said, there's plenty of other stuff in what Claiborne said I find completely asinine. Let me break down which is which.that managers throw the whole pitch-count argument "out the window" because it can't be applied to all people evenly. Some
pitchers can throw a lot more than 100 pitches and be fine. Others can't
make it close to the century mark. But it's only been in the last
decade or so that mangers have become obsessed with the statistic.
Then Claiborne threw out an interesting statistic. Last night was
something like Carpenter's 31st complete game for the Cardinals. By comparison, Bob
Gibson had 255 in his career. Granted, Gibby wore the "Birds on the Bat"
longer than Carpenter has, but still. Carp and probably all modern-day
pitchers won't ever come close to throwing anywhere near that many complete games.
This whole notion of forgetting about pitch counts is one you're hearing more and more circulating around baseball, usually coming from old-school player types or broadcasters who seem to have absorbed wholesale everything old-school player types say as gospel somewhere along the line. The logic goes something like this: "Hell, I used to throw 200 pitches a game, in a two-man rotation I was both members of, and had to do it all while holding down a coal mining job at night after the game was over. These guys today are pussies, and they should be able to do the same stuff I did."
Nolan Ryan, owner of the Texas Rangers, is one of the latest members of the old guard to go about espousing the anti-pitch count mantra, trying to remake his club's farm system in his own image. Al Hrabosky tends to toss this sort of idea around a lot too, as does Rick Horton. Both came from an earlier time, when men were men and pitchers were men and men were, um, wait, I forgot where I was going with this.
Anyhow, there's really one big problem with this whole idea of getting rid of pitch counts as Claiborne and lots of other people have proposed. It's kind of simple problem, really; simple enough, in fact, we can spot it in Claiborne's own argument. See if you can find it. Go on, scroll back up and look for it. I'll wait.
Do you see it? Well, I'll help. It's that part about throwing pitch counts out because you can't apply the standard evenly across the board. The idea the anti-pitch count people have is that everyone is different, and everyone can handle different amounts of stress. Ergo, limiting pitches is stupid, because we can't possibly know who's going to blow out their arms and who isn't.
Now do you see the problem?
The notion of ignoring pitch counts because there are probably a bunch of guys who wouldn't get hurt even without caution is completely backwards. The fact we don't know who can handle a larger workload and who can't is the reason pitch counts exist.
Say for a moment you have a friend who smokes. Now, all the research will tell us that they're at a higher risk for a whole litany of diseases and maladies. On the other hand, your friend could also be one of those people who lives to be 80 with a cigarette and a glass of whisky in their hands like Sinatra. Should we ignore the very real risks of smoking because they might be one of those lucky ones? Listen, I'm all for any reason to tell anti-smoking people to shut up, but, "Hey, don't tell me not to smoke, because there's a chance I might be a freak who never experiences a single solitary health problem," is not a particularly strong argument.
Here's what would happen if all of sudden managers everywhere started ignoring pitch counts: there would be a fair number of pitchers who did just fine. Guys would throw 130, 140 pitches per game and come out none the worse for wear. And then, there would be the other, much larger group of pitchers who would all go on the disabled list together after a month with catastrophic shoulder damage.
I actually agree with the idea pitchers could probably throw more than they do now. But the pitchers in the big leagues now simply aren't conditioned for it. Sure, they might be in better shape than the guys in the old days (I'm pretty sure one of Rick 'n Al brought that point up during yesterday's telecast), but they sure as hell haven't stretched their arms out to the point they should suddenly undertake a massive increase in workload. If baseball is serious about pitchers throwing more pitches, then pitchers need to adjust their throwing in between games as well. The stamina to throw 140 pitches instead of 100 has to built gradually. You wouldn't watch a marathon, think, "Man, I'll bet these guys could run further," and then move the finish line back another six miles, would you? No. You would need to tell the runners beforehand and make sure they were actually training to run 32 miles instead of 26.
What I'm saying is this: you can say we don't know who could handle the extra stress and who couldn't, and that's totally true. But throwing caution to the wind just to see how many guys really could handle the extra work is only going to result in an enormous amount of injuries.
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| Koufax in his all too short prime. |
The other side of this notion I have a real problem with is the idea that pitchers in the old days were somehow tougher, that they could handle workloads modern guys just can't. The anti-pitch counters tell of Nolan Ryan, of Sandy Koufax, of Don Drysdale, of -- as the original comment eluded to -- Bob Gibson. Those guys threw incredible numbers of pitches, and innings, and came out just fine.
Well, guess who you don't hear about? The hundreds -- or thousands, more likely -- of pitchers who had three-year careers and then retired with a dead arm at 25. Hall of Famers are in there for a reason; namely, they are the furthest possible outliers of human ability. Even the other guys, who were outlier enough to make it but blew out their elbows or shoulders, fall short.
Hell, even amongst those enshrined there are stories of careers cut short. Koufax himself was done at 30. He was one of the most dominant pitchers who has ever lived, and he threw over 320 innings his last two seasons in baseball with an arthritic elbow slowly collapsing in on itself like a dying star. A few less pitches along the way and maybe he wouldn't have been out of the game before officially moving into his thirties.
Dizzy Dean, still the last man to win 30 games in the National League, retired at 31 and threw only relief for the Cubs (gasp!) after the age of 27. He won an MVP award in 1934, finished second for the award the next two years, and was an injured shell by '38. The story goes he hurt his toe and his arm got sore from favouring the foot. Hmm. Seems to me the 107 complete games he threw from '33-'36 might have had something to do with it. But what do I know?
Yes, it was amazing the things those pitchers managed to accomplish. But even among the legends there are those who were gone too early, victims of wear and tear. That's to say nothing of the many who never got anywhere near those numbers, who don't show up in the record books because their arms just gave out.
Finally, the last issue I would take with all this is the fact we're talking about Chris Carpenter here. The argument seems to be, "Hey, he's a big, strong guy, and he was throwing free and easy, so leave him in. He'll be fine."
Okay, first off, what does throwing free and easy mean? Honestly, that has to be one of the most useless statements I've ever heard anyone make, and as a lifelong sports fan I've heard some shockingly inane drivel from broadcasters before. Anyway, Chris Carpenter most definitely is a big, strong guy. He also happens to have had several major arm surgeries, a list of injuries two miles long, and frankly atrocious mechanics. (Seriously, look at his arm action in slow-mo sometime. Carp looks really fluid throwing, but his arm is doing some really horrifying stuff, even by pitcher standards.) It's just irresponsible to ignore those things when evaluating whether or not he can keep throwing 120+ pitches per game.
I really do agree with some of the anti-pitch count people, in that I do think pitchers, by and large, should be able to throw more pitches than they do if need be. But until we have a better method of assessing just how much stress a given pitcher is putting on his arm and how long it can take it before blowing, this notion of rolling back the clock willy-nilly in the name of toughness and the magic of Bob Gibson is just going to lead to more injuries, and more pitchers future generations will never hear of.
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