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Pitch Count Limits

MFS62 Aug 16 2008 09:37 AM

How do you feel about them? Are they necessary? If so, when? Later

TheOldMole Aug 16 2008 11:14 AM

Nolan Ryan said in a recent interview that the most pitches he ever threw in a game was around 235. On the other hand, the Boston Red Sox dynasty-to-be of the late 40s-early 50s was done in when pretty much all their starting pitchers blew their arms out.

MFS62 Aug 16 2008 11:48 AM

Mole, the first time I heard the term was after the Met "Generation K" trio of Wilson, Isringhousen and Pulsipher experienced some arm problems. There was a concern that overworking a young pitcher could hurt their arms. So, pitch count limits were imposed. As for pitchers of that era, I remember Steve Carlton thrusting his arm into a bucket of rice toimprove arm strength. And I'm not sure if he was the pitcher who said (I paraphrase) " The muscles in the arm are like any other muscles - the more you exercise them the stronger they get". Pitcher Mike Marshall had a degree in Physiology, and was the first to pitch in over 100 games in a season. Of course, he didn't do that too many times. :) Later

Kong76 Aug 16 2008 12:25 PM

It would be nice to see a pitcher go a little longer like the good ol' days from time to time and it can be quite maddening sometimes when a specific count seems to be written in stone only to see a lead get blown or things get testy when a new guy comes in. It's easy to say, why didn't they leave him in ... he was looking strong/fine ... what's another fifteen pitches ... back when men were men pitchers pitched longer. Most good pitchers make too much money to be stretched and let's face it they simply aren't as replaceable as most people would like to think. Teams are built now for a pitcher only make it to around the 7th. How do I feel about it, I don't particularly like it. I still haven't warmed up to the DH.

Nymr83 Aug 16 2008 12:52 PM

i'm sure pitch counts have their uses... guys coming off the DL, young guys in the minors who have never seen half this many innings before, etc. i think its stupid to impose them on a good starter who is pitching well in a penant race (i'm looking at you pelfrey)

Kong76 Aug 16 2008 01:02 PM

I was thinking of Pelfrey too and left it out. Let's say the Mets have the best rotation in the NL and Pelf goes another twenty pitches yesterday and all of a sudden his elbow hurts. Martinez has been looking like he'll be quite useful for September and beyond but all of a sudden his knee is acting up. The Mets are screwed another year -- there is no one to fill these spots. I think it's a very fine line with things these days with pitching, there simply isn't enough to go around. I'm at the point where if you think something is stupid, I'm probably for it.

Frayed Knot Aug 16 2008 01:22 PM Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Aug 16 2008 01:47 PM

The problem isn't with pitch counts, it's with 'one size fits all' pitch counts. Common sense is being thrown out in favor of over-caution in a lot of cases. In Pelfrey's case, I think they're more worried about the cumulative amount he throws this year moreso than what he does in any one game. Paricularly with young pitchers you don't want to increase their yearly IP totals more than a certain pct each year, and a guy like him who went from the much shorter college season to a full-time MLB pitcher in just a few years falls into that catergory. The total innings thing is what they're worried about with Santana too - although that's more about protecting their investment than anything. And for all the dreamy-eyed nostalgia I'm hearing lately about how many pitches/innings Koufax, Drysdale and Marichal threw, those 'everything was better back then' dreamers rarely mention the flip-side; about how Koufax threw his last pitch at age 30, how Drysdale threw his last at 31, and about how Marichal was a shell of his former self after age 32. If there were $100million tabs on their butts you can bet your butt they would have been handled differently and, as a Met fan, I too would kind of like to see Johan not fall apart halfway through his current deal.

Vince Coleman Firecracker Aug 16 2008 01:37 PM

Mark Prior should be the last victim of the bullshit, testosterone driven "man up and finish the game" attitude. It is not an option to abuse a young pitcher's arm. Every pitch a pitcher throws over 100 exponentially increases their risk of injury. Young pitchers are many times more likely to suffer injury than older ones, and their injuries tend to be more severe. It's a shame the Mets bullpen can't be trusted, but that's a problem that Omar needs to fix, not Mike Pelfrey. That's a 24 year old, dominant pitcher we're talking about. He has, after this year, either 3 or 4 years before he is a free agent. That's millions and millions of dollars of value he gives the team over that time. One game in any season is not worth that.

batmagadanleadoff Aug 16 2008 02:04 PM

MFS62 wrote: Mole, the first time I heard the term was after the Met "Generation K" trio of Wilson, Isringhousen and Pulsipher experienced some arm problems. There was a concern that overworking a young pitcher could hurt their arms. So, pitch count limits were imposed. I recall reading some research about pitch counts right after the 1985 season when public opinion about Gooden was at its' peak. The essay chronicled pitchers that were stars at an early age with high work loads. The research showed that a disproportionately high number of those pitchers were ineffective if not outright done by their mid-20's. The authors were of the opinion that young pitchers should be limited in the number of pitches and innings they are allowed to throw. I remember Don Gullett being one of those examples cited. The article predicted that Gooden would be significantly less effective within a few years, a seemingly preposterous thing to say in between the '85 and '86 seasons. Remember Koufax wanting to trade his own past for Gooden's future?

AG/DC Aug 16 2008 02:57 PM Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Aug 17 2008 05:54 PM

Rube Walker counted every pitch his pitchers threw, and his Mets were among the first to go to a five-man rotation. Coincidence or not, Seaver, Koosman, and McGraw all pitched for 20ish years, and Ryan pitched for 50. I don't know what conclusion to draw from that, and I doubt Gary Gentry is much comforted by his teammates longevity, but pitch counts need to be considered on several bases: 1) How old is a pitcher? A high pitch count seems to be more dangerous on a young guy that (a) is still developing his body, and (b) just getting to know his body. Alternatively, who cares if you over-pitch Greg Maddux? The guy's at the end of the line. 2) How many high-stakes pitches is he throwing? A pitcher tends to stress his arm more in game situations with runners on, sluggers up, and the score close. He's looking for an extra mile on his fastball, an extra inch on his break, extra precision on his placement. He reserves nothing because if he doesn't get the batter at hand, he's off to the showers. 3) Has he been injured before? 4) Is his motion a violent one? 5) Is he pitching through fatigue? Is his stm slot dropping or motion changing from pitch-to-pitch. Such a pitcher is often punishing himself. Data on these things are available, but clear conclusions aren't there yet. Nonetheless, we can surely make a more informed conclusion than the neurotic fixation on the number 100 that teams seem to be using for every pitcher these days.

Frayed Knot Aug 17 2008 08:14 AM

="AG/DC"] 1) How old is a pitcher? 2) How many high-stakes pitches is he throwing? 3) Has he been injured before? 4) Is his motion a violent one? 5) Is he pitching through fatigue? All good reasons for why a 'one-sice fits-all' count shouldn't be the norm but rather that tracking should be used in combination with professional observation and individual variation.

metsmarathon Aug 17 2008 08:57 AM

some pitcher who once either said or wrote: "The muscles in the arm are like any other muscles - the more you exercise them the stronger they get" i remember hearing that as well. the problem is that it's got nothing to do with pitch counts. and it has everything to do with pitch counts. i would consider pitching to be analogous with running. the more you run, the more you can run. but, you need to run more in training to be able to run more in a race. if all your training, and all your history is in the half mile, and you put yourself into a mile race, you're going to hit a wall, and may injure yourself. moreso if your history is in the 5k or 10k and you suddenly try to run a marathon. once you go beyond the limit of what you're used to, injury can and usually will occur. if you've got a pitcher, and you want him to throw 120 pitches in a game, you've got to have built him up to being able to throw 120 pitches in a game, both through training, and gradually building him up in game conditions. if you're training for a marathon, you don't want to add more than 10% of your mileage every week. more than that and your chances of injury increase tremendously. i would think it obvious that similar concerns should be extended to pitchers - not specifically that 10% per week, but the mantra that gradual increases over time reduce the potential for injury and significant increases over short time dramatically increases the potential for injury. also, there are various different levels of ability across the braod spectrum of elite athletes. you've got sprinters, milers, 5- and 10k runners, and marathoners. some guys can go longer than others before their performance begins to drop off. not every pitcher can go 120 pitches in a game, and wishing it to be so doesn't make it so. you need to find out what each pitcher is capable of, and work him appropriately. a pitching coach needs to monitor his guys to ffind out which guys can only go 110 pitches, which can approach 120, and which can pitch for days and days. pitch count is important to monitor because an athlete isn;t always going to come out and say "i'm starting to fatigue" that said, i think that pitch counts are too arbitrary, erring moreso on the side of caution than in getting the most out of the athletes.

Elster88 Aug 17 2008 02:44 PM

Vince Coleman Firecracker wrote: Every pitch a pitcher throws over 100 exponentially increases their risk of injury. Jesus. Santana's arm must've fallen off today. Look up the word exponentially (or go back and read some of your old math textbooks) and get back to us with the results of your study again.

Gwreck Aug 17 2008 04:57 PM

I'm glad to see that both of you are capable of using hyperbole. --- I'm not sure I know the answer, but I've certainly been made aware (here and elsewhere) that pitchers don't pitch as long as they used to; pitch counts are lower/used now when they're not. So...were there more injuries in years past? Or a deeper talent pool due to there being fewer ML teams? Better conditioning?

Frayed Knot Aug 17 2008 06:58 PM

]"The muscles in the arm are like any other muscles - the more you exercise them the stronger they get". Sure, but like any kind of exercise there's a limit on not only how often one should train but also how hard during any one session. Muscles break down when taxed and need rocovery time to build themselves back up bigger ... faster ... stronger than they were before. So OVERuse at any one time or over a prolonged period can break them down faster than they can repair themselves. Any trainer will caution against what they consider over-training. Also, many of these pitcher injuries occur not to the muscles but to the connective tissue that surround them. Those tendons & ligaments can not be built up beyond a certain point (or artificially helped by use of steroids) and are the ones that get strained or even just snap from prolonged misuse or overuse.

AG/DC Aug 17 2008 08:50 PM

Interestingly, Willie Collazo went old-skül for the New Orleans Zephyrs tonight, throwing eight innings despite giving up five runs, three in the first, being behind all night, and bing matched up against another National League affiliate, forcing him to bat twice (one double!).

Nymr83 Aug 18 2008 12:17 AM

good.

Vince Coleman Firecracker Aug 18 2008 09:59 AM

="Elster88"]Look up the word exponentially (or go back and read some of your old math textbooks) and get back to us with the results of your study again. Thanks, I looked up the word. It was a great experience, and I meant exactly what that word means. From Keith Woolner's study on the relationship of the number of pitches to the risk of injury, he devised the formula used to determine Pitcher Abuse Points, or PAP: ] The way PAP scores are calculated is quite simple. Simply take the number of pitches thrown in any given start, and subtract by 100. (If the pitcher threw fewer than 100 pitches, he automatically receives zero PAP for that outing.) Then the resultant number is cubed to arrive at the PAP score for that start: 100 pitches - 100 = 0^3 = 0 PAP 105 pitches - 100 = 5^3 = 125 PAP 115 pitches - 100 = 15^3 = 3375 PAP 130 pitches - 100 = 30^3 = 27000 PAP Now, just because you accumulate PAP doesn't automatically mean you will get injured, and a pitcher in his prime, like Santana, is much less likely to get injured than a younger guy, like Pelfrey, but there is a direct and, yes, exponential relationship between pitches thrown over 100 and injury risk.

Nymr83 Aug 18 2008 05:54 PM

How many more games do you want to lose based on adherence to pitch counts? If a guy is pitching well keep him in the game. End of story. And that applies to relievers as well, I'm sick of seeing a good reliever throw a 15-pitch perfect inning and get pulled for the next inning.

Kong76 Aug 18 2008 06:10 PM

I'm not so sure the losses are based on adherence on pitch counts. And if you don't like seeing relief pitchers pitching inning to inning in certain slots you might as well stop watching baseball. Every team does it.

Nymr83 Aug 18 2008 07:06 PM

="KC"]I'm not so sure the losses are based on adherence on pitch counts. And if you don't like seeing relief pitchers pitching inning to inning in certain slots you might as well stop watching baseball. Every team does it. which doesnt make it the right thing to do, especially for a team that has two guys that the manager treats as left-handed specialists and one guy he treats as a right-handed specialist. when you use three pitchers in one inning so often you NEED to have guys who will go multiple innings in relief and/or starters going deeper into games, particularly when they aren't even pitching poorly.

AG/DC Aug 18 2008 07:47 PM

Is there a specific complaint here?

AG/DC Aug 22 2008 07:03 PM

Folks, here's to having a manager who stretches the limits. Let's give him some credit.

Nymr83 Aug 22 2008 07:05 PM

The "limit" should be when the manager perceives the starter as getting too tired, wild, or hit hard, screw pitch count. Maybe Santana grooved a bunch of junk fastballs and changeups in there and feels fine at 100 pitches. Manuel is doing great pushing them more innings when they look good.

MFS62 Aug 22 2008 09:00 PM

On tonight's post game radio show, they said that Manuel wanted to take Santana out. But he said "As long as that little guy (Oswalt) is still out there, so am I". Manuel also criticized Santana for "not being economical with his pitches". Sounded like he wasn't too thrilled that Santana threw so many. Later