What is your opinion of 'pitch count'?

[joebatters]

Me personally, I think it's bull. I mean unless your dealing with a yound kid who is say 23, 24 or younger, I don't think it has that much relevance.
With some pitchers, especially a blue-chip big leaguer, pitchers get better as they go deeper into the games. Much like a football running back who gets better later in the game. Problem is, noone knows who these guys are any more because the managers always take them out when they reach a certain number of pitches. In my opinion, it has less to do with winning a game, than a manager trying to keep his job. I think a lot of managers in MLB don't manage to win, they manage to not get fired.
I know you have to protect your investment if you are paying a guy like $100 million, but I think it's gone a little too far. I never heard one pitcher say they got hurt or their career was shortened because they threw too many pitches during a given season. And to me, it takes away one of the coolest parts of baseball...that is a starting pitcher showing his heart and competitiveness to finish and win a ballgame.

 

[RobFunk]

I agree. You take a guy out when he loses his stuff. You nuture the kids.

 

[punter]

I dunno been a lotta good prospects ruined by overuse at too young an age.

 

[FairWarning]

I think the first couple of starts it is a good thing, until their arms are conditioned enough. Better with young arms.

Remember the day when the Cubs scouted Kerry Wood. He threw 160 pitches in a high school double-header.

 

[Soriano12]

You put guys on pitch counts to reduce their risk of injury. In some way I think it can even hurt their health longterm because their arm strength isn't build up for the kind of stress of a 240+ innings season (can be reached fairly easily, when you reach the playoffs) and if your ace pitcher takes you to a world series, it could hurt his arm and/or he could tire because his outings and bullpen sessions during regular season were shortened because of pitch counts.
I started watching MLB in the late 90s, so I don't know that much about past decades. But were injuries really reduced, when they introduced pitch counts? Not to long ago (late 90s) I think, they threw at least 110-130 pitches per game quite often and guys like Livan Hernandez did good despite their workload. And from what I've read I wouldn't say that pitchers in the 30s, 50s, 60s, etc. missed more games without a pitch count than guys like Hamels, Beckett, Burnett, etc. today...

 

[billhill999]

Touching on what Soriano posted, it's relevant with starting pitchers coming off injuries, but 80 percent of the time I think it's bunk.
When I was a kid, the Palmers, Koufax's, Gibson's etc. etc. of the world made 40 starts, and they (with the exception of Koufax) had long careers.
You mean to tell me, with medicine and such the way it is today, pitchers can't go every start on 3 days rest like the stars of the 60's and 70's did.
Bull crap.

 

[FairWarning]

Touching on what Soriano posted, it's relevant with starting pitchers coming off injuries, but 80 percent of the time I think it's bunk.
When I was a kid, the Palmers, Koufax's, Gibson's etc. etc. of the world made 40 starts, and they (with the exception of Koufax) had long careers.
You mean to tell me, with medicine and such the way it is today, pitchers can't go every start on 3 days rest like the stars of the 60's and 70's did.
Bull crap.

You also had more pitchers with mysterious arm injuries, never to be heard from again.

 

[billhill999]

Same can be applied to the 21st century pitchers.
Twice as many teams now, sure, but I bet the percentage for arm trouble is about the same now as it was then.

 

[wilheim]

Agree or disagree MLB managers are certainly watching pitch counts.

My 2 cents...

Number of pitchers in each season (both leagues) who threw more than 125 pitches in a game since the early to mid 1990s when pitch counts became a much discussed statistic, although Stats LLC began counting pitches by individual MLB pitchers in 1988, MLB officially started to keep pitch count data in the 1999 season. I don't have 2008's stats available for this particular pitchcount category.

You can see the dramatic drop since the mid 90s of pitchers who threw more than 125 pitches in a start from the chart below.

Season PIT>125
2007 14
2006 26
2005 31
2004 46
2003 70
2002 69
2001 74
2000 160
1999 179
1998 212
1997 141
1996 195
1995 - strike shortened
1994 - strike shortened

The highest pitch count since 1990 is 160, by Mike Harkey for Chicago Cubs against St. Louis on 24 June 1990; Harkey later suffered shoulder injuries. Minnesota Twins ace Francisco Liriano has yet to throw a complete game at any level of baseball. In 1974, according to beat writers in attendance, Nolan Ryan threw 259 pitches in a 12-inning win over Kansas City.

Bottom line, I am not a big pitch count fan but do not believe managers today use the pitch count alone to save their jobs as there are to many other factors that exist that are used to measure a successful MLB manager.

The real reason for the quick hooks we see in baseball today are direct orders from upper managemnt (mainly the guy who signs the checks) to keep pitchers healthy seeing how much money they earn these days by not over using them.

The pitch count has created new positions on pitching staffs that were not necessary during the eras before managers started yanking pitchers at around 100 to 110 pitches.

They include set up men whose specialty is getting three outs and in some cases only a single out when lefthanded relievers are brought in to get a single lefthanded hitter out for example.

Today's bullpens are all designed to take over for the starter and get the ball into the hands of the teams closer without blowing a lead or letting a tie game get out of hand by allowing the opposition to take the lead and make the closer moot in that particular game.

Managers that use their starters in conjunction with their bullpens to it's peak ability are the ones that are liable to stick around longer than others who misuse their pens (not simply pulling starters early but creating a team within a team called a pitching staff in which all members have a significant role)). Naturally plenty of talent on a staff helps regardless of how good the manager is in making use of his pitchers.

Today's manager works so closely with his pitching coach that you may as well call the pitching coach a team's assistant manager.



wil.

 

[TomGshotput]

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1477

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1480

Anyone know of any better analysis than this? I'm sure there are some good rebuttles out there based on more than just "Gibson and Koufax could do it."

Obviously all pitchers are different, but it is already so common for teams to go through eight or nine starting pitchers in a season. If they ask the guy they are counting on as their fifth starter to make 120 pitches and he falls apart the next week, they need to scrape so deep into the bottom of the barrell that it can kill their season. Or as the article ends, why trade one good inning today for 30 poorer innings over the next month

 

[OccamsRazor]

"I got so many bitches I lost count. Here at the Pimpstore we got all kinds of bitches for you...

oops never mind you said, "pitches" my bad sorry.

@)

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

Obviously all pitchers are different, but it is already so common for teams to go through eight or nine starting pitchers in a season. If they ask the guy they are counting on as their fifth starter to make 120 pitches and he falls apart the next week, they need to scrape so deep into the bottom of the barrell that it can kill their season. Or as the article ends, why trade one good inning today for 30 poorer innings over the next month

Best point on here. Its a LONG baseball season and most managers are thinking about the long-term. Why blow someone up when you've taken the time to build up a strong bullpen? Besides, hitters nowadays are more sophisticated and require stronger, smarter pitchers. Thats take more out of them than it might have in the past.

 

[barman]

Something tells me that in a multi-billion dollar per year industry, if there was a potential advantage to reverting to a 4 man starting rotation anchored by guys averaging 270+ IP, at least one team in the past 15 years would have tried it.

 

[krk1030]

I think it's silly.

What makes no sense is the young kids are the ones throwing tons of innings and probably used too much, but when they get to the big leagues they baby them.

 

[THawk+]

The problem with how pitchers or baseball players in general are handled is they do not throw enough... I don't mean in games I am talking about throwing to build up arm strength

They need to play more long toss than now... They need to keep doing it and extending out.... As they get older being able to throw long toss the length of a football field...

This is the one thing that needs to be done and you would see less arm injuries....

Throw less games but more long toss...

 

[FairWarning]

What drives you nuts is a pitcher is crusing, then you use four bullpen pitchers. Chances are, 1-2 of them will fail. Easier to cap a 5-inning line than the game.

 

[mamatried]

I think there are several reasons pitch count has become important in the last 25 years or so:

Umpires have shrunk the strike zone considerably.

The DH in the AL means one more tough out in every lineup, and one fewer hitter pitchers are willing to challenge.

Batters pumped up on steroids, the juiced ball, and smaller ballparks have also discouraged pitchers from challenging hitters.

The slider puts more wear and tear on the arm.

 

[TomGshotput]

What makes no sense is the young kids are the ones throwing tons of innings and probably used too much, but when they get to the big leagues they baby them.

Innings do not correlate perfectly with number of pitches thrown. In college and the minors it is a lot easier to pitch a lot of innings with few pitches. In the majors it is far less common for a pitcher to throw a lot of innings without throwing a high number of pitches.

Consider that half the time the pitcher is below average and asking a below average pitcher to try and get outs after throwing 100 pitches is foolish. For good pitchers, even if the chance another inning will lead to problems is only 2%, with a three run lead in the eighth why risk it?

 

[barman]

Some good points here. But the prevalent one is that it's not so much that MLB managers view Pitch #105-115 as "bad for the starter", as much as they obviously view Pitch #1 - ? from a fresh reliever as more often being preferable.

 

[JakeT.]

Anibal Sanchez just got pulled after 5 innings of shutout ball and 93 pitches. I guess it's different since he's still working his way back from Tommy John after missing a big chunk of time but the guy that replaced him immediately gave up a HR to the first batter he faced and is now struggling to get out of the inning. Just figured I'd bitch about this here even though I don't really have anything to bitch about since I didn't expect Sanchez to throw more then 100 tonight haha.