THT Article: "Do Pitch Counts Count?"

[TooLiveBrew]

"Do Pitch Counts Count?"

 

I'm really intrigued to hear what our own have to say about this article/study. The most interesting tidbit from the article imho:

 

 

"But what stands out most is that, after controlling for all these other variables, every pitch thrown before age 26 knocks off half an inning in the latter half of a pitcher's career. That is a pretty huge effect. Consider, 100 extra pitches a year-just three pitches a start-means 55 fewer innings pitched down the road."

 

 

That shocked me, to be bluntly honest. Sure, it's not a precise, scientific number, but wow. Could the argument be made that a smaller-market team like the Brewers should be working their Gallardos, Villanuevas & Parras into the ground over the next 3 or 4 seasons? Maybe we missed out on Dusty Baker after all!

[endaround]

I highly doubt that its a linear function and as such you are really screwing with things when trying to fit a line to it

[TerraceReserved]

I highly doubt that its a linear function and as such you are really screwing with things when trying to fit a line to it

 

 

But those pitch counts and innings numbers are averages of what happens. Obviously there's plenty of pitchers that will pitch more innings regardless of the pitches he throws before age 26, but there are a lot of pitchers doing the opposite. And the average is what counts.

[endaround]

No thats not the point. They are treating pitches before age 26 as equally damaging. There is absolutely no reason to believe that pitch 11 is as harmful as pitch 111. And so when you start using coefficients to interpret marginal effects you'll screw things up.

[TooLiveBrew]

So if the study focused upon - for an example - pitches #100 & greater (in terms of a pitch count) for given starts, would that be a better way to analyze? Or would there still be too much standing in the way of objective analysis?