Stop abusing Gallardo!

[Ayt]

If Yo were reaching a breaking point, what would it look like and how soon would we know? Would we notice before he "just didn't look right on the mound"? At what point is it already too late?

 

Plus, we are talking about a guy that pitched the rest of an inning after blowing out his knee then went out and pitched the next inning. Even if he noticed some sort of fatigue or irritation, he'd probably just ignore it initially and possibly do more damage. Yo could probably be at 150 pitchers and he'll tell you he's fine for another inning.

[Thurston Fluff]

There's no study about knee injuries, but there are plenty of studies that show that young pitchers injury and fatigue rates increase greatly if their innings jump by more than 30 or so in any given year.

 

I think you are misrepresenting the study's findings. It was meant to show pitchers need to build up their arm slowly at a young age. It was not meant to say a pitcher who had already built up to a certain level then when the innings went down the next year could only throw 20 more innings than that the following year or it would increase the risk of injury. I understand how you arrived at that assumption but it is not a proper use of that study.

[UeckerAddict]

Finally, and this really seals the deal for me personally, what exactly are we riding him towards this season?

Unfortunately, I now do agree with this. It is time to start thinking about next year.

The season looks bleak, but as a fan it would be unforgivable to me to watch my team just give up on the season when they are four games out. I'm not advocating throwing Yo's arm off, but the "I give up" mentality is fine for fans- not for the team. I prayed to be within 4 games as August started from 1994 to 2005.

[logan82]

I think they need to be careful on a game to game basis and be watchful for a drop in velocity or loss of control. I am not sure how many innings Gallardo can go this year, but I feel it is not 200 and probably closer to 160. I have little to base this off of. 160 is somewhat arbitrary. If we are not in contention when Gallardo gets up around 160+ I think they should be very careful. We may already be pushing Gallardo to much. His walks are up by almost 1 1/2 per 9 over any other point in his career.

[TooLiveBrew]

It might be useful to look at Gallardo's pitch counts this season:

 

103

100

103

106

116

108

102

94

126

97

110

105

116

107

118

114

102

93

113

118

116

 

Here's Gallardo's Baseball-reference.com 2009 game logs page, complete with play-by-play box scores. He has averaged roughly 108 pitches per start. 8 of his 21 starts have seen him throw over 110 pitches

[jeffy]

...there are plenty of studies that show that young pitchers injury and fatigue rates increase greatly if their innings jump by more than 30 or so in any given year.

 

I think you are misrepresenting the study's findings. It was meant to show pitchers need to build up their arm slowly at a young age. It was not meant to say a pitcher who had already built up to a certain level then when the innings went down the next year could only throw 20 more innings than that the following year ...

In addition, there is this assumption that Gallardo did absolutely nothing, after his leg injury...that the only work his right arm (and the rest of his body) got was 24 innings of pitching in major league games. This seems to to me to be a pretty unreasonable assumption.

[TheCrew07]

Of course he threw... but he threw from the ground, not on the mound... and conditioning your arm with long toss and what not isn't the same as pitching in a game, it's also unlikely he did anything throwing wise for the first month after the surgery.

 

It's like weight lifting... say you get your bench press up to 300 LBs but then hurt your back. You take some time off, let things get healed, then you start working your way back into a routine with light weights, gradually progressing until your back into your regular program. However your bench press is no longer 300 LBs, it's probably dropped to 275-280 because you weren't able to do enough work to keep the muscle mass. Very few people can naturally bench press 300 lbs... in the same that very few people can pitch 200 innings... it's something one must build into, and if you stop working at it, your body slowly returns to it's natural state.

[jeffy]

You still are promoting this assumption that the only possible exercise and conditioning available to pitchers is throwing a ball. It isn't

 

Even without injury, pitchers go 4-6 months without pitching in games every year. The determination of how many pitches Yo can safely throw this season probably has very little to do with fact that he threw 24 innings in ML games last season, yet this tidbit of information gets brought up here over and over again, as if it should be the sole determining factor in his workload this year.

[TheCrew07]

You still are promoting this assumption that the only possible exercise and conditioning available to pitchers is throwing a ball. It isn't

Where have I said that at all? Nor do they go 4 to 6 months without throwing.

[jeffy]

It certainly seems to be implied in statements like:

 

he's no longer stretched out enough to pitch a full MLB season as he didn't have the opportunity to pitch last season

 

and

 

he's no longer stretched out to pitch 190-200 like he was on pace to be able to do going into last season. In some ways it's good because he had a relatively easy season while he's still at high risk for injury, but as far as being a workhorse this season, he's just not stretched out enough.

 

and

 

Of course he threw...

 

and multiple mentions of the 24 innings.

 

 

Since you agree that pitchers do not go 4-6 months in the off-season without throwing (and presumably engaging in other conditioning exercises), might you also agree that what Gallardo did during October 2008 to April 2009, in addition to what he did while on the DL, may have more bearing on his endurance this season than the fact that he pitched 24 innings in the majors over the period from April to early October of 2008?

[Oldcity]

Gallardo is first in the NL in pitches thrown per start. I fail to see how this isn't abuse. With the Brewers tanking, riding Gallardo even close to as much as they have the rest of the way would be completely unacceptable.

[logan82]

jeffyscott wrote:

Since you agree that pitchers do not go 4-6 months in the off-season without throwing (and presumably engaging in other conditioning exercises), might you also agree that what Gallardo did during October 2008 to April 2009, in addition to what he did while on the DL, may have more bearing on his endurance this season than the fact that he pitched 24 innings in the majors over the period from April to early October of 2008?

We all know that pitchers need time in spring training to wok their pitch counts up as well. We can't compare offseason, or any other type of training for that matter, to actually pitching in games.

[TheCrew07]

Since you agree that pitchers do not go 4-6 months in the off-season without throwing (and presumably engaging in other conditioning exercises), might you also agree that what Gallardo did during October 2008 to April 2009, in addition to what he did while on the DL, may have more bearing on his endurance this season than the fact that he pitched 24 innings in the majors over the period from April to early October of 2008?

Once again, there is a wide gulf between the stress of pitching off of a mound and playing catch/long toss on a flat surface. I would think he workload has a direct correlation to the up and down nature of his season. Core strengthening exercises, lifting, stretching, plyos, ect.. are more about stamina and power (adding and maintaining velocity) None of those other exercises are about the health of the elbow or shoulder, there's no way to replicate the stress of pitching other than to do it. Yo was never very economical with his pitches and if the forum searches were working you could search the minor league forum and see me commenting it on that many times when he was in AA and AAA.

 

For some reason it appears that people believe if Yo doesn't get hurt this year, we are in the clear. That's not necessarily the case, for many pitchers it manifested itself the following the year which is what happened to pitchers like Prior and a favorite trade target of mine from last year Santana.

 

This has become the thread to nowhere, the same concept being explained numerous different ways and the same arguments coming back around.

[Invader3K]

Since this topic came up again in last night's IGT, I was curious. I e-mailed Tom Haudricourt and this is what he sent back:

 

"I would hope they'd start cutting back on his pitches soon. With the team out of the race, they need to take care of the kid. I'll talk to Macha about it."

 

So, maybe an answer will be forthcoming. I appreciate Mr. Haudricourt at least looking into it.

[trwi7]

Yeah, he pretty much said the same thing when he was on the D List today. They're out of the race, it's hard enough to go from 20 some innings to the 160 he has now. With the team out of the race, there's no need to push him any further.

[bklynbrewcrew]

I wouldnt mind shutting him down for the season but I have no doubt that Macha will run him into the ground in his quest to keep his job.

[Buckylovesbeer]

Does anyone know how the Crew can try to help Yo keep his pitch count down without serving up the longball like the rest of the staff? Where the rest of the starters begin to lose it in the 5th, this is not the case with Yo. He instead has over 100 pitches quite often by that point........

 

The kid is good, and I agree at some point they may want to protect him!

[SoCal Brew Crew Fan]

I'd have him on a pitch count of 80 until the rosters expand, then just shut him down. At this point it's just a waste. I also wonder about Parra. I'd have him on a lower pitch count too, although he may need the outings to work on his mechanics. Just throw our crummy AAA scrubs out there and let them throw batting practice, they can't be any worse than the non-Gallardo scrubs we've been throwing out there the last 6-8 weeks.

[logan82]

Parra should be fine. He went 166 last year. He should be good for 186-196 easy.

[Schlitz001]

I wouldnt mind shutting him down for the season but I have no doubt that Macha will run him into the ground in his quest to keep his job.

This is what I was thinking as well. He is the only reliable piece of the rotation right now. Maybe give him 2-3 more starts with a strict pitch count and then end his season. This is the best way to ensure that we have a healthy #1 starter for next year. I don't think there would be much outrage from the fans or media considering how few pitches he threw last year.

[logan82]

Looks like there is hope that Gallardo and Parra could be shut down in September. Link

"You have to be realistic," Macha said. "You have to look forward. If we do continue to pitch him and [Manny] Parra all these pitches and they blow out with two weeks left in the season, what good is that, anyway? We just try to win as many games as we can. ...

 

"After all, we went two months without [Dave] Bush and [Jeff] Suppan in there, and we put extra duty on the other guys as a result of that. Pitching is the most valuable thing. If we win the next 10 games and we're there, we'll see."

[sheethead]

"After all, we went two months without [Dave] Bush and [Jeff] Suppan in there, and we put extra duty on the other guys as a result of that. Pitching is the most valuable thing. If we win the next 10 games and we're there, we'll see."

 

Wouldn't that be something... 6 games or less out heading to ARI. Dare to dream?

[Invader3K]

Hey, if we can sweep the Cardinals the rest of the season...you never know.

[Oldcity]

Very glad to hear this is being considered.

[pitchleague]

Very glad to hear this is being considered.

which one? The holding back of Gallardo or the winning 10 in a row?