Stop abusing Gallardo!

[topper09er]

I think that pitchcount is a bit too overanalyzed. I don't see why everyone freaks out over a few pitches here and there. I don't see how making 10 more pitches a game can make that much of a difference, especially when you consider that they're also throwing probably 10 warmup pitches every inning that are never included in the pitch count. How come managers don't try to limit those pitches? I don't think there is that much of a difference between 100 and 115 pitches.

I totally agree, guys will have arm problems or they wont. You hurt yourself with either: bad mechanics that put too much stress in certain places, over working by throwing when you are already tired, and bad luck by just naturally being a little more weak somewhere in your arm than normal. I think pitch count is extremely overrated (like saves) and managers who rely on it too much just dont have good baseball intuition. It so annoying when BA is like well this guy finished this inning with 98 pitches so obviously he is done like it is some golden rule that smart managers should abide by. You can look at trends that say certain pitch counts correlate to a certain injury risk, but you need to remember that is the major league average and does not apply to every player individually.

 

Pitchers should be taken out when there are no longer effective, not when they reach the magical 100 pitch count. It is also annoying when someone is obviously not effective anymore but only at like 80 pitches so they automatically go out for the next inning and then often get chased. Pitchers can be ineffective at 60 pitches or 80 or 100 or 140. Good managers should be able to watch a pitcher and tell when they cant hits their spots, lose velocity, lose break on their pitches, take longer between pitches. When things like that happen pitchers should be removed to avoid injuries. Yesterday, Yo still had his A curve in the 7th and there was no reason to take him out.

 

Last season Sabathia threw 3813 pitches in 253 IP and started 35 G. So if you add 8 warmup pitches per inning (8*200) plus say 50 warmup pitches before each start plus say 500 pitches in spring training plus long toss between starts his arm felt (very approximately) ~ 8000 pitches. So he averaged 3813/35 = 108 pitches per start. Say you add 15 per start he would have thrown 525 more pitches for about 525/8525 = 6% more pitches. If his arm falls off this year it would have fallen off anyways even if he would have average 100 pitches per start or 123 pitches per start last year.

[strawbossisevil]

I think if Gallardo was going over 120 pitches per game, than we´d be talking abuse. But finishing around 110, that´s fine, especially since he doesn´t tend to pitch a lot of high pitch count innings.

[topper09er]

Sheets always wanted to go out for that extra inning too. Sometimes what the player wants isn't in his best interests, and it's the job of the manager to realize that.

Ben Sheets injuries:

2003: bulging disc in back, not pitch count related.

2005: Ear infection, not pitch count related

2006: Should tendinitis, possibly over working/pitch count related, possibly he was injury prone and it would have happen either way, it just would have happened a little later if he

threw 10 less pitches per outing.

2007: Hamstring, not pitch count related

2008: Elbow, possibly pitch count related, possibly not. 3051 pitches thrown/31 starts = 98 pitches per start...so the magical 100 pitches per start was used but he still got hurt??? How is that possible?? There are statistics that say he should have had a low chance of injury with this number of pitches, doesnt make sense?

[logan82]

It isn't about how many pitches per start on average. 115+ in any given game isn't a big deal. 115+ in every single game would be bad.

[topper09er]

In 1989, at the age of 42, Nolan Ryan averaged 123 pitches per start over 32 starts and had only 1 start where he threw less than 100 pitches, 99 pitches in 8.1 IP. In Spetember his pitch counts were 146, 150, 160, 140, 120. The next season he led the AL in Ks and WHIP. How do you explain that?

 

From 1947-1963 Warren Spahn averaged 278 IP and 35 starts without missing ANY time on the DL. There is no pitch count data for him I would assume it is above 115 per start. How is that possible?

 

My point is that it is a case by case thing, and applying a blanket 100 pitches/start to everyone is not smart.

[whizkid]

Yes, there are guys who wouldn't get hurt if they threw 200 pitches per game. Problem is, they're rare and you don't know who they are until their career is over and they didn't get hurt. What explains Nolan and Spahnie: 1) Good fortune, 2) good mechanics, 3) Ryan was a freak of nature and Spahnie didn't throw hard.

[logan82]

You are right it isn't. However Gallardo clearly is a young arm with very few innings last year.

[TooLiveBrew]

Picking one of the best & most durable pitchers in the history of modern baseball really doesn't prove anything. Whether people like it or not, pitchers today get injured more frequently. Would it be nice if they didn't? Of course.

 

 

You hurt yourself with either: bad mechanics that put too much stress in certain places, over working by throwing when you are already tired, and bad luck by just naturally being a little more weak somewhere in your arm than normal. I think pitch count is extremely overrated (like saves) and managers who rely on it too much just dont have good baseball intuition.

 

The bold-ed section there is another way of saying 'high pitch counts'

 

 

My point is that it is a case by case thing, and applying a blanket 100 pitches/start to everyone is not smart.

 

Very true. However, 100 pitches in a game has been shown to be a pretty good baseline. It is just an arbitrary number, and a happy 'landmark' kind of number too. Whether the real cutoff pitch should be #96, or #108 like you said is a bit arbitrary, but I don't think 100 pitches is anything to just write off as too few or too simplistic. There is good evidence to suggest that number is a good one to base things around.

[topper09er]

Yes, there are guys who wouldn't get hurt if they threw 200 pitches per game. Problem is, they're rate and you don't know who they are until their career is over and they didn't get hurt. What explains Nolan and Spahnie: 1) Good fortune, 2) good mechanics, 3) Ryan was a freak of nature and Spahnie didn't throw hard.

I guess my point more is guys will either have arm problems or they wont, there is really nothing a manager can do about it. You dont need to be careful and wait until someones career is over to see if they have arm problems or not. Sandy Koufax would have been out of baseball regardless of his pitch count, just like Sheets elbow was going to break down no matter what. Therefore, you should leave pitchers in until they are no longer effective instead of pulling them out with the logic that if you pitch them less per game they will not go on the DL.

 

If guys get tired down the stretch then they will show it by starting to lose their good stuff earlier in the game and then you should take them out and it would be smart to skip a start and let them rest up. This appear to happen to Sabathia last season, but obviously we needed every pitch he threw in the regular season to even make the playoffs. But if the guy is going to miss significant time on the DL with major arm problems, it will happen reagrdless of pitch count. It seems like that is what people on here are concerned about for Yo. Either his arm will break down or not, it happens to lots of guys and lots guys can go their whole career with minimal arm problems. If you are concerned Yo will tire over the stretch of the season, that will show itself and he will start to lose velocity on his heater and break on his curve earlier in the game. If this happens, it would be wise to skip a start and pay close attention to when he tires and pull him with low pitch counts. If it doesnt happen, thats a huge bonus for the brewers.

[Oldcity]

Topper, the Brewers could bank on Yo being an exception to the rule like Ryan or Spahn, or they could assume he's like the vast majority of pitchers who eventually break down under such a workload. Which approach do you think is in their best interest? Nobody suggested a 100 pitch limit on each start.

 

Using pitches per start on Sheets in 2008 is misleading because he was pulled early from a few games due to injury. Throw out his last two starts of the season when he was clearly hurt and couldn't go, and he averaged 102.5 pitches per start. Again, it's not that the average is that bad overall, but it's how many times he was 115+. Sheets was number 8 in pitcher abuse last season; you can't convince me that his current injury isn't related in some way to pitcher abuse.

[TooLiveBrew]

I guess my point more is guys will either have arm problems or they wont, there is really nothing a manager can do about it.

 

There's nothing a manager can do about it... to a point. Obviously Mark Prior would have something to say about what a manager can do to a pitcher's career.

[phxMILWfan]

How much does the number of warm up pitches between innings count towards arm fatigue? Do they keep track of that? If a pitcher throws 6+ and his pitch count is 110 but he threw warm ups before every inning including the 7th isn't that part of the total affect on a pitchers arm?

 

 

Unless Macha is only planning on managing the Brewers for 1 year he ought to worry about what happns to Yo's arm next year atleast a little bit. I think if Yo threw 150 innings or more last year it wouldn't be such a big deal but he's looking at a huge jump in work load. We saw what happened to Parra last year. A lot of that may have been in his head but we still saw him wear down at the end of the year. I'd hate to see that happen to Yo this year.

[Mays Hayes]

Keeping Gallardo in the game to pitch the 7th was certainly a questionable decision, for all the reasons presented. However, he had an 11 pitch 7th inning, all from the windup. No harm done. Had a runner reached base early in that inning, and Macha allowed Gallardo to pitch the 7th from the stretch, I'd have been upset.

[topper09er]

or they could assume he's like the vast majority of pitchers who eventually break down under such a workload.

 

Again, it's not that the average is that bad overall, but it's how many times he was 115+. Sheets was number 8 in pitcher abuse last season; you can't convince me that his current injury isn't related in some way to pitcher abuse.

From 2008, number of times throwing 115+ pitches (I'll use your arbitrary 115 number):

Lincecum: 12 times plus outings of: 114, 113 and two 111. His starts in Septemer were: 92, 127, 138, 118, 102, 103. No problems at all this year.

Matt Cain: 5 times, plus 4 outings of 114 pitches, 3 outings of 113 pitches and 3 others of 110+ pitches. In August his starts were: 108, 126, 110, 125, 112, 109 and then 113. No problems this year.

 

In 2008, Ben Sheets started on July 19 with 10 rest minus 2 innings in the all star game. Down the stretch his pitch counts were: 84, 96, 100, 97, 113, 110, 96, 100, 54, 120, 113, 24, 53. That is 1160 pitches over 70 days and 1 outing of 115+ pitches. In the first half of the season he had 4 outings of more than 115 pitches and none were back to back. That is a total of 5 on the season compared to Lincecum who did it 12 times including 3 in a row in September.

 

So are you saying in August if he would have thrown 50 less pitches he would not have gone on the DL? When he threw 120 pitches on September it was a complete game shutout in a 1-0 game...and remember we made the playoffs by 1 game. Going into the 9th Sheets had given up 4 hits on 97 pitches. Would you have prefered Sheets didnt start the 9th and we sent out Torres to possibly blow the game? Do you think the 23 pitches he threw in that 9th innings caused him to miss the playoffs?

 

I really think Sheets was going on the shelf regardless of pitch count, just like he will again in the future.

[Fear The Chorizo]

I think Sheets' current injury is more related to the pitcher abuse he went through when becoming Ben Sheets - the seasons leading up to him signing his contract in 2002, 03, and 04 when he pitched a ton, earned the reputation of being a workhorse, and pitched the best seasons of his career for a horrible team. He was just fine until mid 05 when the lat injury officially started his nagging to significant injury problems.

 

Managing pitch counts is a way to minimize risk to a young arm, but you can never eliminate it and there is some validity to babying young arms to the point of guaranteeing arm issues once they're required to pitch a big league season - seeing what Lincecum did late last season almost floored me, because arm problems in pitchers are cumulative. There's no exact science to it, because every pitcher's different, and it takes a rare combination of talent and durability to have a longterm big league career. Pitch counts aren't the end all/be all, but they are a good tool for managers to monitor pitching, especially young pitching. For me, I don't see why a young pitcher should start an at bat on the next hitter if his pitch count is at or above 110.

[topper09er]

For me, I don't see why a young pitcher should start an at bat on the next hitter if his pitch count is at or above 110.

Because he is not tired, pitching well, you have a better chance of getting the hitter out than by bringing in a reliever, his stuff is just as good as it was earlier in the game. I see no reason why you should remove a pitcher who is doing well simply because he reaches some arbitrary random number of pitches. If some guy is effectively throwing a baseball 7000 times in 6 months an extra 300-500 pitches is not going to matter.

[TooLiveBrew]

How much does the number of warm up pitches between innings count towards arm fatigue? Do they keep track of that? If a pitcher throws 6+ and his pitch count is 110 but he threw warm ups before every inning including the 7th isn't that part of the total affect on a pitchers arm?

 

I'm not sure on the guts of this answer, phxMILWfan, but I recall in the past that the Brewers have & do count relievers' warmup pitches (as all MLB clubs do, I assume) towards their daily totals... so I'd have to guess that they keep tabs on starters' warmup tosses as well.

 

 

I see no reason why you should remove a pitcher who is doing well simply because he reaches some arbitrary random number of pitches.

 

That's because you refuse to see any pitch count number as anything but arbitrary. The logic that you should keep just riding pitchers until they are clearly ineffective just leads to so many injuries. You can't react to an injury situation, by definition you have to be proactive/preventative. I guess the question you should examine is if you think 'working each pitcher on a game-by-game basis & without a pitch count, hypothetically leading to a CG or extra inning here or there' is worth the risk of the kinds of serious injuries & lessened effectiveness that come about from working pitchers in that manner. From what you have been saying, I think you would say that, yes, it is worth the risk.

 

 

So are you saying in August if he would have thrown 50 less pitches he would not have gone on the DL?

 

This isn't the way it works. The argument is that repeatedly pushing a pitcher (esp. a young one) past 100 pitches per start is not a good plan for long-term health/durability. Of course there are exceptions to the rule; pointing to these exceptions really doesn't affect the validity of that general observation (meaning the 100 pitch 'rule'). And beyond just raw 'health', I believe you can see overuse reflected in a declined effectiveness of a pitcher (think Carlos Zambrano as one example)

[Baldkin]

No, but you should remove him when he's at a high number of pitches and he's leading off an inning in a game when you're behind.

 

Just because some pitchers can do it, doesn't mean all of them can. Why take the risk of over pitching the staff ace (for the future, and the future of this season), when you don't know if he can handle it, or if the extra workload will break him down?

 

Injury histories, and histories of pitcher abuse *HAVE* shown that the extra 300-500 pitches DO matter.

 

From http://www.baseball-analysis.com/article.php?articleid=2633

 

Using the new, refined formula for PAP, Woolner showed that there was, indeed, a link between high PAP scores and future injury risk.

• What seems to put starters at risk of injury is throwing too many pitches per start.
• Roughly speaking, "too many pitches" seems to translate to "over 100".
• Once a pitcher hits his fatigue point, his risk of injury goes up very quickly with each additional pitch.
• Pitchers under the age of 25 are exquisitely sensitive to overuse.
  

This isn't something that's just made up. Especially for young pitchers, high pitch counts lead to MUCH higher injury risks.

[MJLiverock]

Anytime I see a study like that where the designer set out with a preconcieved notion and tries to prove it like anything over 100 pitches causes abuse I tend to question the results.

 

Correlation is not cause and effect and I think many of these "studies" tend to lose sight of that fact.

 

For instance, does the study have any mention of that fact that by the time a pitcher is an older pitcher he may have already demonstrated an ability not to get hurt. Just to stay in the bigs until you are old you have to avoid career threatening injuries and the opposite is true, young pitcher may get hurt but they may have gotten hurt throwing 90 pitches every game, we dont' see their results as they get older because they get elminated a la Prior. The study seems to assume that these players wouldn't have gotten injured had their pitch counts been lower. There is most likely some selection bias in the study. The article mentions Isringhausen as abused as a young player, he has manged to have a long career but has been injury plagued for much of it. Is it due to abuse or is he injury prone? His arthritic hip leads me to believe he probably has some imperfect genes and may well just be an injury prone player.

 

I can buy into a guy throwing a large number of pitches having a weaker outing the next time on the hill but does the study adjust for strength of the team faced in each game or the weather, or just the randomness of a pitcher's performance on a given night?

 

What about pitching being an inherently injury prone position? Or the propensity now where guys may go on the DL with a twinge that may have been ignored in past years until the pain was unbearable or the pitcher was ineffective. This doesn't even touch on varied mechanics of guys which has always been mentioned as one of Kerry Woods' problems.

 

If it was only pitch counts that matter why do relievers have arm trouble? Dave Riske's elbow is shot yet he never approached 100 pitches in an outing. The article insuates that days off don't matter as much and it just going over the magic round number of 100.

 

It doesn't mean Gallardo should throw 130 pitches every start but I tend to agree this 100 pitch number is just a convienient round number that really doesn't mean a whole lot. There are so many other factors that play into a pitcher's health beyond a multiple of 10 pitches.

 

Does anyone count the pitches from the bullpen sessions on off days as well?

[topper09er]

MLB certainly does not count warmup pitches and any time a pitch count is discussed, as it has been here, warmup pitches before the game and between innings are ignored as if they put no stress on an arm. A pitcher is allowed 8 warmup pitches between innings and can take less if they want to. I forget who but I recall recently someone got fined by MLB for taking too many warmup pitches between innings (not that that fact has anything to do with this discussion).

 

I really do not think that anyone can prove any correlation between pitch counts and injuries, it is just conveinient to look at someone's pitch count when they get hurt and if it is high say it is the reason and if it is low or normal just ignore it. If you look over the course of baseball history there are just as many pitchers who have high pitches/innings and dont go on the DL as their are guys with low pitches/innings and do go on the DL. I think pitchers will either be most durable or mostly injury prone and there is nothing you can do about it. How do you explain players who get arm problems without being "overworked," and how do you know players who are "overworked" are not the same type of pitcher who would have gotten hurt either way. High pitches may cause a player to tire and become less effective over the season, but it will not put them on the DL. Mark Prior averaged 113 pitches per start in 2003 and now he has arm problems, so if he would have been limited to 90 pitches every other start you really think he would shutting us down for the cubs this weekend? I think he would still be on the shelf.

 

Here are Mark Priors injuries throughout his career:

 

September 2002 Strained hamstring while running the bases: Rest of season

 

Midseason 2003 Shoulder after on-field collision with former Atlanta Braves second baseman Marcus Giles: 3 Starts

 

Preseason 2004 Achilles tendon injury: 2 months

 

Preseason 2005 Elbow strain: 15 days

 

May 27, 2005 Throwing elbow - comeback line drive off the bat of Brad Hawpe: 1 month

 

Preseason 2006 Strained shoulder: 3 Months

 

July 14, 2006 Strained left oblique in batting practice: 2 starts

 

August 14, 2006 Shoulder tendinitis: Rest of 2006 Season

 

Spring Training 2007 Shoulder surgery: Entire 2007 Season

 

March 26, 2008 Shoulder surgery recovery: First part of 2008 season (60 day DL)

 

May 16, 2008 A tear in the capsule of his pitching shoulder; shoulder surgery: Out for another six to eight weeks (60 day DL); out for the entire season

 

 

It looks like his first "overworked" pitcher injury was a strained elbow in 2005 which caused him to miss 3 starts and he was effective the rest of the season. Then his shoulder tendinitis came at the end of 2006 when he was ineffective and his pitch counts in his 9 starts spread over 53 days were: 88, 91, 101, 109, 76, 103, 106, 103, 58. Seems to me that his problems are a combination of overthrowing/bad mechanics and bad luck.

[MJLiverock]

I also failed to question the type of pitches thrown is the pitcher a curveball guy, splitter, or just a fastball/changeup guy. How many curveballs/sliders in the game? How many breaking pitches on pitch #120+, etc. Imagine thowing 50 screwballs vs. 100 fastball/changeups. I know its extreme but the type of pitch also has an effect on your shoulder and elbow especially.

[TooLiveBrew]

I really do not think that anyone can prove any correlation between pitch counts and injuries, it is just conveinient to look at someone's pitch count when they get hurt and if it is high say it is the reason and if it is low or normal just ignore it.

 

I guess if you haven't read the article that Baldkin linked, read it. I feel it's equally convenient to just dismiss the notion that 'overworking pitchers leads to more injuries' out of hand.

 

And no one is suggesting working guys at 90 pitches/start. It's really a disservice to what is a good discussion to start throwing things like that in folks' faces

 

 

Mark Prior averaged 113 pitches per start in 2003 and now he has arm problems

 

And while he is admittedly an example to the injury extreme (contrasted with my note on Nolan Ryan), I think his use/abuse by Baker in certain situations really does make one pay closer attention to *how* a young pitcher is used, not just 'how much'

[topper09er]

Baldkin[/b]]From http://www.baseball-analy...ticle.php?articleid=2633 href="http://www.baseball-analysis.com/article.php?articleid=2633" target=_blank>httphttp://www.baseball-analy...ticle.php?articleid=2633 href="http://www.baseball-analysis.com/article.php?articleid=2633" target=_blank>://www.baseball-analysis.com/article.php?articleid=2633

This says exactly what my point is:

 

"While pitching is an inherently unnatural motion, throwing a pitch does not necessarily do permanent damage to a pitcher's arm. It's only when fatigue sets in (and a pitcher's mechanics start to waver) that continued pitching can result in irreversible injury. "

 

This has absolutely nothing to do with pitch counts and is different for every single human on the planet. Just because it seems that there is some average number of pitches when fatigue sets in on average for a given age group still means nothing. As your article says, you only get injured by pitching when you are tired, and as I have tried to say, managers should not even care about pitch count and just remove pitchers when they are tired/ineffective. If this is in the 4th inning after 80 pitches or the 8th innings after 140 pitches or the 6 inning with 80 pitches it doesnt matter. Anyone who relies on pitch count rather than observing the subtleties that happen to pitchers when they start to get tired do not have good baseball instincts and do not know their team very well.

 

Again, what does this study say about players who get injured with a low PAP? And how is the study able identify those pitchers and remove them from their list of players who happen to have a high PAP and get hurt because clearly their injury would have happened without the high PAP?

[TooLiveBrew]

Anyone who relies on pitch count rather than observing the subtleties that happen to pitchers when they start to get tired do not have good baseball instincts and do not know their team very well.

 

Who are these people, though? I sincerely doubt there is anyone in MLB operating in this manner.

[topper09er]

I know I am starting to sound like Joe Morgan who everyone here hates, but I would rather have a manager like Joe Morgan who knows the game and knows how to tell when his pitcher is tired and never keeps a pitch count than someone who uses some equation based on averages to decide when to remove a pitcher from a game.