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Death of the complete game

iramets Jan 28 2007 12:28 AM

Why? In 1969 the SD Padres finished a sick last in CGs with 16 (the SF Giants led the league with 71, or almost half their games). Last year the league leader was Cincy, with 9 CGs, or a little more than half of the 1969 Padres. My question is: Could someone explain to me the advantages of this current strategy? Are modern starting pitchers getting injured less often? They probably are, but all of the impprovement can't be due to how quickly they're removed from games, can it? Because there's so much else--improved training, improved medical treatment, Tommy John surgery, etc--to explain the decreased rate of injury. But still in 1969, so many active pitchers, presumably being abused by throwing upwards of 300 IP routinely, went on to long, long careers: Lolich, who threw 376 IP, had a long career. Cuellar, Jim and Gaylord Perry, Jim Kaat, Blyleven, Palmer, Carlton, Jenkins, Pappas, Seaver, Marichal, Sutton, Niekro--all of whom threw over 260 IP in 1969--all had long, long careers. So why exactly did it become fashionable to go to the bullpen as much as current strategy dictates? The above-named starters could pitch very deep into games, but also very well. A tiring Seaver in the 8th inning was often better than anyone else the Mets had in the bullpen, but if he were playing today, out he would come, and an inferior reliever would replace him. I'm not sure I see a compelling reason why. You'd think that with all the emphasis on conditioning, today's pitchers would be in better shape, not worse, than their forebears. I wonder if anyone's done a study comparing, say, the ratios of ERA of starting pitchers to relievers today and thirty years ago. Do you suppose it would show that modern relievers are closer in quality to the modern starters than relievers were in the past? It doesn't seem to me that this is necessarily true, but it might be. What do you think? What's the big advantage pushing this trend in today's game?

Nymr83 Jan 28 2007 02:06 AM

]I wonder if anyone's done a study comparing, say, the ratios of ERA of starting pitchers to relievers today and thirty years ago. Do you suppose it would show that modern relievers are closer in quality to the modern starters than relievers were in the past? It doesn't seem to me that this is necessarily true, but it might be. What do you think? What's the big advantage pushing this trend in today's game? I'm sure today's relievers look better than the relievers of 50 yers ago, but thats becaise today pitchers are groomed for that role while back then the bullpen were the guys not good enough to be starters

dinosaur jesus Jan 28 2007 02:49 AM

It's not a modern trend. It goes all the way back to the beginning of the game. The number of complete games has been in a gradual decline for 130 years. Take the year you pointed to, 1969. That year, in the National League, there were 531 complete games pitched, or about 44 per team. Now look ten years before that, and another ten years, and so on (note that in these years the season was 154 games or less; I've prorated the shorter seasons): 1959: 47 per team 1949: 59 1939: 64 1929: 71 1919: 90 (prorated) 1909: 100 1899: 132 1889: 136 (prorated) 1879: 146 (prorated) And of course the trend continued after 1969: 1979: 30 1989: 18 1999: 8 That doesn't really answer the question, of course; it just makes the question why this has been happening for so long. All I can suggest is that teams have always been worried about wearing out their pitchers' arms, and have kept trying to use them a little less. The Mets, by the way, were one of the first teams to use a five-man rotation, which is a related development.

iramets Jan 28 2007 07:29 AM

Yes, the five man rotation is big in here, I agree, but it's an effect, not an cause of the reduced work-loads. I mean, no manager says to himself, "Hhmmm, how can I shift a quarter of the IP of my best pitcher, plus a quarter of the IP of my second-best pitcher, etc onto the workload of the fifth best pitcher, the guy who didn't make the cut? I've got it--I can start five pitchers, not four, and accomplish this important task that way!!!" Is it more that managers are saying "C'mon, mom, all the other managers do it. Why can't I be cool?" Or are pitchers clamoring for a reduced load? This seems counter-intuitive, as pitchers who work a lot of IP get paid better than those who don't, and we all know how "getting paid well" ranks on a player's priorities. Or is it a matter of accomodating pitchers who are used to a reduced load from other organizations, and this seems like a agreeable system for standardizing workloads? "Hey, Mr. New Manager, my old team ALWAYS took me out when I hit a rough patch in the sixth inning!" Or is it the unspoken contract with relievers that they'll always get into games in certain situations, so keeping Pedro on the mound in the 8th of a 3-2 victory becomes a gross insult to a rested Heilman? Or is it contract length that drives teams to preserve pitchers' arms as they didn't need to in 1969, when if Seaver blew out his arm, it would cost the Mets only the rest of that year's contract, but if a Pedro goes down today, it costs the Mets multi-years of a multi-mil deal, so they're motivated to keep on the safe side? Or is it pitch counts that make it impossible to believe a manager who claims "Hey, how would I know that he'd thrown 140 pitches by the seventh inning? It's not like I sit around counting how many pitches the damn pitchers throw or anything." So the number of pitches thrown, and the number thrown in an inning, etc. are so widely understood that ignorance is no excuse anymore? First person to say "It's a combination of these factors, and more" gets a butt-kicking.

Johnny Dickshot Jan 28 2007 10:05 AM

A guy who attended a coaches clinic this weekend posted an interesting message on the NYFS board I lurked to see: ] I was at a coaches' convention and HoJo and Peterson were presenters (among others). HoJo was typical of other professional athletes I've seen at these things - poorly prepared, cliche-ridden, and generally useless as far as information. Peterson was great. Smart, perceptive, imaginative, funny, and full of helpful insight. Some tidbits: Peterson said Humber was abused in college and had the elbow of a 40 year old before it was operated on. He also said that the Mets would never have drafted the other 2 Rice guys that year because he thought there deliveries were very flawed and would lead to injury. Peterson loves Ollie Perez. Said his delivery was really messed up when he came over but great strides were made. Also loves Maine. The star of the weekend (as far as I'm concerned) was former Met Brent Strom. The guy was hilarously and tragically dead on in his take on how pitchers today are coached into mediocrity by the professional organizations. He had reams of film showing how hard-throwing amateurs are turned into "pitchers" by pro organizations that make them push the ball into the strike zone. Strom is a real pitching rebel, but he spoke highly of Peterson because of the Whisperer's courage in going against the book in "developing pitchers". Strom loves Pedro, contrasting his natural, aggressive delivery to the passive robots on most MLB mounds. Don't be surprised if Strom ends up in a developmental role in the Met system. He is basically a crude, street level version of Peterson. Most of you know this already, but the Mets are very lucky to have Peterson. The guy is really on the cutting edge of innovation in throwing. And, yes, I said throwing, not pitching. Both Strom and Peterson believe throwing is more important than pitching. Also, HoJo spoke about Moneyball. Not surprisingly, he completely misunderstood the book. I know it's one small take on things, but after seeing him speak for about 3 hours total, I can't ever see him being a ML manager.

metsmarathon Jan 28 2007 10:50 AM

last year, detroit's starting pitchers had the lowest ERA, and kansas city's had the highest, at 4.00 and 5.85, respectively. last year, the minnesota twins' re leviers had the lowest ERA, and kansas city's had the highest, at 2.91 and 5.36, respectively. detroit's relievers pitched to a 3.51 ERA. last year, only four teams had bullpen ERA's higher than that of their starters - cleveland, florida, milwaukee, and san francisco. across the majors, starters had an ERA of 4.69, while releivers had an ERA of 4.20 if you can routinely get better performances out of your relievers, why would you pitch your starters more often? ...also, i think it has a lot to do with coaches and players becoming ever so much more risk-averse, and therefore continually cutting down on potential overuse, regardless of whether or not a specific pitcher can actually handle the use. the reward of finding a true innings eater who can go out and throw 300 innings is no longer, i guess, worth the risk of chewing up and spitting out all the otherwise fine pitchers who cannot. (if i knew where to get league- or team- data for past years that was split out into starters and relievers, i'd be more than happy to do the same for 1969 and such, but i don't, so i won't.)

iramets Jan 28 2007 11:01 AM

I wish I could translate some of those terms into English--"abused in college" Pitched too much? Pitched w/o conditioning? Not rested enough? Sodomized by bull-dyke nuns wearing nine-inch strap-ons? "push the ball into the strike zone"--isn't that where they're trying to push the ball? What, Peterson wants them to push the ball in the direction of the third-base line? I get "pushing" isn't good but when did the strike zone become an undesirable location? "the passive robots on most MLB mounds" --"I can feel my mind going, Dave. Stop, Dave. Please stop. Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer true, I'mmm halffff crrrrrazy..." "a crude, street level version of Peterson"--so Peterson's only flaw is his dapper sophistication? Other than that, he's perfect? "throwing is more important than pitching." Could we go just a LEEEETLE bit further than contradicting 100-year-old cliches? I get it that you think the convenitonal wisdom is outmoded, but could we get a syllable or two explaining why? This is like "Homerun hitters drive girls' bicycles."

RealityChuck Jan 28 2007 11:20 PM

Starting pitchers used to pace themselves. Instead of pitching all out every pitch (as they are expected to today), they would take something off their fastball to save their arm. Now, you can't afford that. Batters are more adept at hitting good but not great pitches. In addition, batters are more likely to foul off pitches they don't like. You're supposed to develop patience as a batter, and to foul off good pitches that aren't in your preferred location. Back in the 60s, a pitch count of 100 would probably get you into the 8th inning most of the time. Now, it often doesn't get you into the sixth. So with pitchers throwing harder and throwing more pitches, arm troubles are more likely. There's also better diganosis -- plenty of pitchers had sore arms in the old days, but few had torn rotator cuffs. Not that they didn't get them, but they were just grouped as sore arms. In addition, managers began to realize that it made more sense to bring in a fresh pitcher from the bullpen than hoping your tiring starter could get to the end of the inning. You kind of wonder if there will eventually be three-inning starters, a three-inning reliever, then the rest of the bullpen. If it weren't for roster size limitations, someone probably would have tried it already.

Edgy DC Jan 29 2007 12:11 AM

I agree that a pitch count of 100 got you to the eighth more frequently in the sixties, but not that fouling off pitches has anything to do with it. More accurately, I think, is that walks are up, hits are up, and strikeouts are up, all of which mean pitch counts/inning are up.

Rockin' Doc Jan 29 2007 09:58 AM

I agree with Edgy. The pitch totals are up primarily due to due to more walks and more strikeouts. More and more, sluggers and even non-sluggers are striking over 100 times per season. I believe that was far less common 40-50 years ago. I'm sure the informatioin likely exists somewhere, but I think it would be interesting to see a comparison of the pitchers seen per at bat from last year vs. 20 and 40 years ago.

dinosaur jesus Jan 29 2007 10:10 AM

Pitch counts per inning probably are higher over the last decade, and I'm sure that does play a role. But I don't know how much. Complete games have declined through eras when pitch counts probably didn't change appreciably, or may even have gone down. I doubt that pitch counts were much different in 1960 than in 1950, for example--strikeouts were way up, but walks and hits were down--but there were still far fewer complete games. And through most of the sixties, when I'd guess that pitch counts were actually declining, so were complete games. (1968, the Year of the Pitcher, is an exception.)

metirish Jan 29 2007 10:30 AM

Bill Madden had an interesting article in the News yesterday...I know I was shocked too....in talking about bullpen management Madden has these numbers.... ] Before the era of specialization - or "Creeping La Russa-ism" as we like to call it - managers seldom got caught up in matchups. If their starting pitchers tired while holding a lead, the call usually went to one primary bullpen source - a Goose Gossage, Bruce Sutter, Sparky Lyle or Dan Quisenberry - who would usually finish up the game no matter how many innings it required. But even when Tony La Russa started reducing the games to seven innings with his lefty-righty eighth-inning setup men and Dennis Eckersley for the close, it wasn't nearly as complex as it's become with managers routinely starting up their pens in the sixth inning. Last year, Randolph used his bullpen to get 1,628 outs, according to statistics from the Elias Sports Bureau. This, in contrast to the 1,561 outs Art Howe needed from the pen in 2004, the year before Randolph took over as Mets manager, or the 1,340 outs Bobby Valentine got from his relievers in 2000 when he took the Mets to the World Series. Indeed, as complete games go the way of the Sunday afternoon doubleheader, outs in a season recorded by relievers have increased by more than 5,000 over the last 10 years (see chart). http://www.nydailynews.com/01-28-2007/sports/baseball/story/492584p-414929c.html

iramets Feb 02 2007 10:19 PM

I think this thread is headed for the Prediction Archives. But no rush. Because this prediction may take a decade or so: When it becomes typical that all managers expect from a starting pitcher is he goes five innings (basically I think a working definition of a day's work now is "six innings" so we're not that far), then a "starter's" job will be to pitch inning 3 through 7, and the first manager to test out this revolutionary concept and win a pennant will encourage others until that becomes the standard way to use "starting" pitchers. Advantages? Well, if you're expecting to use your middle relievers on a daily basis, there's very little DISadvantage holding them in hope of resting them, and on days when you're going to TRY to get them work (which is getting to be every game, it seems like) this assures them they'll get into the game and not blow five good innings from your starter--if he blows his two innings, you can put in a mop-up guy, maybe a kid you want to check out a little, to finish the game and save your starter for the next day. Illustration: Let's say the 2007 Mets designate Pedro, Maine and Perez as their "long" starters, guys they pretty much expect starts from as they did last year, but say designate Glavine and Hernandez as 5-inning guys. (Yes I know Pedro is injured and I'm not choosing these guys for any better reason than it's easier than calling them "SP # 1" etc.) So Pedro, Maine and Perez get their starts, pitch their usual allotment, and then on day #4, you have Glavine soft-tossing as the game starts and you send, say Guillermo Mota out to start (instead of bringing him in around inning 6). If Mota gives you two good innings, fine, then you bring in Glavine and around inning 7 or 8, if you're up or tied, you go the usual Sanchez-Heilman-Wagner route, and everything pretty much has gone on as usual, except you've flip-flopped Mota and Glavine. No big deal. But say Mota gets bombed out. In the middle of the second, you're down 6-0. There's little sense bringing Glavine in here, so instead you'd bring in a long guy (Oliver on last year's team, maybe Pelfrey or Humber on this year's--a guy capable of giving you four or five innings if need be). You get to see what Pelfrey or Humber can do, give them some experience pitching at the ML level, and you push Glavine back a day. Now, if Mota doesn't get bombed, you gain an advantage in that the opposing manager doesn't know whether to stack the lineup today). Probably he puts balanced a lineup out, which means each pitcher is more effective than he would have been facing a stacked lineup. If he does stack it against Mota, you can bring in Glavine to start the second inning instead of the 3rd, and he's facing a mostly lefthanded lineup all day, because the opposing manager doesn't want to be burning his bench too soon. If he stacks with righties, anticipating Glavine's entry, and it's say a 1-1 tie at the top of the third, you can put Sanchez in there, thus extending the opposing manager's discomfort with a righty lineup facing righty pitchers, and put Glavine in to pitch the last five innings. If you need to push Glavine back a day, then the next day's plan is to have Glavine and Hernadez split the pitching on that day. If Glavine gets into the game, you do the same thing with Hernandez the next day: start Dave Williams, and slot Duque for innings 3-7, or 2-6, or 4-8, depending on your needs, and your pinchhitting, etc. I confidently predict that this is the wave of the future, and the first manager who juggles his staff in this manner will cop a title and begin the trend that will effectively end the role of starting pitchers as we know it. You read it here first.

Nymr83 Feb 02 2007 10:38 PM

i don't agree. you start with your best guy (presumably the starter) because you gaurantee yourself that he pitches innings that are meaningful. if a "middle reliever" starts the game it could be 5-0 before we see the "starter" ]Now, if Mota doesn't get bombed, you gain an advantage in that the opposing manager doesn't know whether to stack the lineup today you can do this by listing your worst pitcher as the starting pitcher every day and pulling him immediately.

TheOldMole Feb 02 2007 10:50 PM

Someone with the Cubs -- right around the time that the Cubs experimented with no manager, just revolving head coaches -- wanted to experiment with a pitching staff where no one ever went more than three innings. It didn't catch on.

iramets Feb 02 2007 10:52 PM

Nymr83 wrote: i don't agree. Yeah? Well, you'll be laughing out the other side of your face, when Manager of the Year Paul LoDuca is shampooing with Piper-Heidsieck on nationwide TV in about six years... I thought of another advantage for creating a situation that gets your kid pitchers five innings--reduced pressure of them to pitch perfectly. Typically, young guys get too fine, and end up walking too many batters, but if Pelfrey comes into a game six runs down several times per year, Willie could instruct him specifically "Don't give them any baserunners--whatever you do, I don't want to see walks," which is appropriate given the game situation, and lets Pelfrey find out what his stuff can do with MLB hitters. If Pelfrey starts the game, usually he would try to hit corners and get himself into problems by walking batters as a result, yet Willie can't tell him "Put the ball over the plate" without wondering if he's giving Pelfrey the wrong advice. Here, it's the right advice, AND it shows Pelfrey's ability to get batters out without walking the ballpark.

iramets Feb 03 2007 09:57 AM

Perhaps a better example would be Leiter in his final Mets season--every start was a real struggle to reach the fifth innng, and by the end it was assumed that he wasn't going to be able to pitch six. So why NOT start a righthanded short reliever and put Leiter in to start inning three? Another thought is that the opposing lineup isn't going to differ all that much in terms of facing a righty or lefty starter, probably as few as one batter (few teams platoon at more than one position, and most have a few righties and a few lefties who are in there pretty much every day, plus a switchhitter or two.) So let's say that the only change in the oppo lineup is a single hitter batting 7th or 8th--that batter (if he's a lefty inserted to face the righthanded "short-starter" would be the point at which you'd change pitchers, probably in the second inning, which would be about as much work as youd get out of Mota on a given day if he came in in the sixth or seventh. OTOH, if the oppo mgr started a righty in the 7 or 8 hole, anticipating you'd bring in Glavine, then if Mota faces the righty batter, youd just leave him in, and probably pinchhit for Mota, if he bats in the bottom of the inning, and pitch Glavine in the 3rd in any case. (This move also gets you an extra at-bat for a position player--essentially, what youre doing is managing the game backwards, using up pitchers and your bench earlier but gaining tactical advantages in doing so.)

Johnny Dickshot Feb 03 2007 10:49 AM

Not that I think we oughta take feeeeeeelings into too great account, but I think one reason any particular system works is that it offers its participants routine and roles they can count on having. I'd imagine getting a starter in to begin in the 3rd inning of a game would be problematic, for instance, because with no way of knowing how long it would be until the 3rd inning begins, it could foul up his warmup routine. Anyway, it could work but I think reluctance to interfere with stuff like above is prolly the biggest reason it's not tried.

Nymr83 Feb 03 2007 12:59 PM

]I thought of another advantage for creating a situation that gets your kid pitchers five innings--reduced pressure of them to pitch perfectly. Typically, young guys get too fine, and end up walking too many batters, but if Pelfrey comes into a game six runs down several times per year, Willie could instruct him specifically "Don't give them any baserunners--whatever you do, I don't want to see walks," which is appropriate given the game situation, and lets Pelfrey find out what his stuff can do with MLB hitters thats what spring training is for. i'm not going to alter my pitching strategies in the hopes of getting a pitcher with low confidence into a game where i'm losing by alot. if a guy really has problems (and i'm not saying pelfrey does) he should either be at AAA or he should be the long-reliever who already WILL see situations like the one you mention.

iramets Feb 03 2007 02:18 PM

Johnny Dickshot wrote: Not that I think we oughta take feeeeeeelings into too great account, but I think one reason any particular system works is that it offers its participants routine and roles they can count on having. I'd imagine getting a starter in to begin in the 3rd inning of a game would be problematic, for instance, because with no way of knowing how long it would be until the 3rd inning begins, it could foul up his warmup routine. Anyway, it could work but I think reluctance to interfere with stuff like above is prolly the biggest reason it's not tried. Granted--this is a revolutionary step. But so was the rigid closer role, and the five-man rotation, and following pitch-counts closely--and many other successful (or merely popular) practices. The thing they all have in common is that only a team or two tried at first, and when they seemed pretty sucesful, others followed suit. I'm saying that if the trend of decreasing starters' IP goes a lot further, this move is practically inevitable. I wouldn't worry about fouling up the starters' warmup routines. Basically, you'd have him stretching and soft-tossing during inning 1, and then warming up seriously in inning two. There's essentially no difference between that interval (between innings 2 and 3) than a pitcher faces now between innings. If a guy need a longer warmup, start him soft-tossing. If he's more flexible, you can try some of the fancier wrinkles I'm discussing above. I do think that the burden here is psychological, not physical. Right now, if it's raining at the start of inning one, the pitcher isn't sure if he'll begin pitching in a minute or in fifteen and he's fine with that uncertainty. For that matter, when a pitcher goes on the road, he doesn't know if his team will take three swipes in the top of the first inning or bat around the order twice, and he's good with that, too. But I think the right manager could make this edge sound attractive to a guy like Leiter, who'd be looking for any edge he might be able to get at that stage of his career.

Edgy DC Feb 03 2007 03:38 PM

Death of the Complete Game Complete Death of the Game Complete Game of the Death The Game of Complete Death The Complete Death of Game iramets wrote: Granted--this is a revolutionary step. But so was the rigid closer role, and the five-man rotation, and following pitch-counts closely--and many other successful (or merely popular) practices. It seems to me that these practices were all more evolutionary than revolutionary.

iramets Feb 03 2007 04:23 PM

Edgy DC wrote: more evolutionary than revolutionary. Not in the sense that they happened so gradually that no one noticed at the time. When the LA Dodgers went to the five-man in the 1970s, it was considered a weird move. Likewise with LaRussa in the 1980s with Eck--people questioned the wisdom of locking your best reliever up like that, not going to him in non-save situations at all, etc. All these things were noted at the time, considered strange, mocked by conservative strategists, etc. and now we chomp 'em down like they were potater chips. All because they worked out well for Lasorda, for LaRussa, for LaHerzog (or whoever went to pitch counts first--I can't remember who, but you certainly had much mockery and derision for the few first advocates of old-time, macho, gimme-the-ball baseball.)

Edgy DC Feb 03 2007 06:21 PM

People used five-man rotations before the Dodgers. Gossage and Sutter were one-inning guys at the ends of their runs.

iramets Feb 04 2007 12:46 AM

="Edgy DC"]People used five-man rotations before the Dodgers. Gossage and Sutter were one-inning guys at the ends of their runs. You could argue both those points, but you'll be doing it against the conventional wisdom:[url=http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1596]This authoritative site[/url] credits LA with inventing the 5-man (and supplies details for you), and a wikipedia article credits inventing the current the closer role to Larussa in the late 1980s. (LaRussa and Eckersley revolutionized the strategy of relief pitching. Eckersley was the first prominent reliever to be used almost exclusively in the "protecting the ninth inning lead" role which is now so commonplace. Eckersley was one of the most dominant closers in the game from 1987 to 1992, saving 236 games and never posting an ERA higher than 3.03 (and posting a microscopic 0.61 in 1990). (Gossage pitched as a set up guy for Eckersley in those years, so it's not so much that he was playing the traditional multi-inning closer role at the end, but rather that he just wasn't a closer at the end.).

Edgy DC Feb 04 2007 08:27 AM

I mean the end of their runs as closers. We're talking about closer usage here. Gossage's afterlfe is beside the point.

Frayed Knot Feb 04 2007 10:24 AM

]Death of the Complete Game ... Complete Death of the Game Thus running the gamut from Ira's view of the game to that of Steve J. Rogers

iramets Feb 04 2007 10:50 AM

Depends on how you define key terms like "closer"--what would you say WAS Gossage's final year as a closer? My larger argument is that there was a time when all of these now-accepted trends were perceived as weird experiments, which is why I'm using the term "revolutionary." Evolution doesn't cause people to point fingers and mock. It might be forgotten that in, say, 1986 (a memorable year around these parts) exactly half the MLB teams had more than 50% of their saves going to a single pitcher. (The NL leader, Todd Worrell, had 78% of StL's saves, for example.) Wagner last years saved over 90% o the Mets's saves, and he wasn't the only closer to break to the 90% mark routinely accomplished by anyone calling himself a closer nowadays. Another measure might be the ratio of IP/G--while Wagner's (again typical) ratio was roughly 1.1, Gossage's ratio in '86 (when he was still getting the majority of Padres's saves, his final year in fact, if that's our standard for measuring a 'closer,') was 1.4, which is about normal for his career at its peak. (Gossage only once exceeded 2.0, in his first year as a Yankee---otherwise high or middle '1's.) Eckersley went from almost 2 IP/G in 1987 in relief (he started two games in '87) to just over 1 IP/G the next 6 years ('88-'93) and then to under 1 in each of the final years of his career. LaRussa kept pushing his usage of Eckersley as other teams followed his pattern, but he was clearly (to my mind) leading a revolution which other managers slowly copied, for better or for worse.