Chapman throws 105mph

[homer]

That's really fast.

 

http://msn.foxsports.com/...cinnati-Reds-game-092510

[crewcrazy]

Even though pitch f/x velocities run about 1 mph faster than most scouts' radar guns, that's ridiculous. It almost makes you wonder how long he'll be able to throw that hard before he hurts himself, but when I saw him pitch against the Brewers his delivery didn't seem herky-jerky or anything that would lead to problems down the road. Much like Jeremy Jeffress, he just makes throwing that hard look so easy.

[jerichoholicninja]

He wasn't raised and trained in the U.S. so he should have a decent major-injury-free career. Not having his arm babied his whole life should keep him pretty healthy.

[rluzinski]

"He wasn't raised and trained in the U.S. so he should have a decent major-injury-free career. Not having his arm babied his whole life should keep him pretty healthy. "

You don't honestly think it's that simple, do you?

[Funketown]

He wasn't raised and trained in the U.S. so he should have a decent major-injury-free career. Not having his arm babied his whole life should keep him pretty healthy.

 

 

Yeah, if that Strasburg guy would have learned to tough his way through that sore shoulder he sat out with in 5th grade. Just like these football players what with their new fangled concussions. Heck 50 years ago way fewer concussions were diagnosed!

 

But wow, 105 is absurd. It would really be a shame if one of his fastballs found Yadier Molina's hip.

[jerichoholicninja]

"He wasn't raised and trained in the U.S. so he should have a decent major-injury-free career. Not having his arm babied his whole life should keep him pretty healthy. "

 

You don't honestly think it's that simple, do you?

Not exactly that simple but it will have a lot to do with it. We have babied our pitchers to the point that it is now detrimental to their long term health. Their whole life they have limitations placed on what and how much they can do and then when they get to the majors they are expected to exceed those limitations and then when they do - they get hurt. Players from Latin America haven't had those limits and have shoulders that have built up enough strength to take the abuse of pitching and pitching a lot.

[logan82]

or Champman succeeded despite his arm not being treated well. We don't know at what rate others pitchers in his situation had arm problems.

[TooLiveBrew]

Players from Latin America haven't had those limits and have shoulders that have built up enough strength to take the abuse of pitching and pitching a lot.

 

Unless they were signed at 15 or 16 by big-league clubs & tracked through the MiLB system. If I'm understanding correctly, your stance is that pitchers who defect from Cuba are more durable than other pitchers?

[homer]

I don't think we know if babying arms helps or hurts either. People talk about guys throwing 300+ innings on a regular basis but I'm sure there are guys around today that could do that (Sabathia for example). What you don't hear about are the thousands of guys who "blew their arms out" in the minors and ended up selling insurance for a living. I'm sure there were just as many if not more in the 50's and 60's that went that route as threw ungodly number of innings.

[CheezWizHed]

I'm not so sure our high school and college ranks really baby their pitchers either. There are plenty of stories about guys throwing 150+ pitches in a game or larger amounts of innings, etc... Its not until the minor leagues that they are monitored and regulated on those type of metrics.

[DuWayne Steurer]

I don't think we know if babying arms helps or hurts either. People talk about guys throwing 300+ innings on a regular basis but I'm sure there are guys around today that could do that (Sabathia for example). What you don't hear about are the thousands of guys who "blew their arms out" in the minors and ended up selling insurance for a living. I'm sure there were just as many if not more in the 50's and 60's that went that route as threw ungodly number of innings.

You go to any website, and look at pitchers in the early part of the 20th century, and it's clear to see that the vast majority of the "toughguys" that threw 300-350 innings a year were done in 4-5 years. It's easy to point out Walter Johnson and Cy Young and say "look what they did', but just like now, they were the *exception to the rule* as far as guys who could do that year in and year out for more than a few years before their arms turned to jell-o.

 

I love it whenever someone uses a Hall of Famer as a comparison to why players should be able to do something routinely. (Not that anyone has done so in this thread, but it happens)

[Fatter than Joey]

You go to any website, and look at pitchers in the early part of the 20th century, and it's clear to see that the vast majority of the "toughguys" that threw 300-350 innings a year were done in 4-5 years.

 

I don't think this is the case... I did a query on BREF and I looked at pitchers since 1947 that pitched 300+ innings. I used 1947-2010 since that was a choice on BREF, and I am not familiar with many pitchers at the "turn of the century".

 

77 Pitchers have accumulated 300+ IP since 1947 -- of those 77, 48 were seasons pitched by a HOFer. 26 were pitched by guys not in the HOF, but by pitchers that had long and largely successful careers -- guys like Wilbur Wood, Denny McClain, Bill Singer, Jim Kaat, Bert Blyleven, Claude Osteen, Vida Blue etc....

 

3 pitchers jumped out at me as having shorter careers, Vern Bickford, Dave Goltz, and Randy Jones -- I don't know a lot about Bickford, Goltz won 20 games for the Twins in 77, threw over 300 innings, and had 2 solid seasons after that, got traded to the Dodgers and fizzled out.

 

Randy Jones however, won 20 games for SD in 1975, threw 315 innings in 1976, won 22 and the Cy Young, and then blew out his arm, and was pretty much done pitching effectively by 1980. Randy Jones fits the description of the pitcher you outline above -- however, after looking at the actual stats, I would conclude that your overall premise is false -- granted I didn't look at the "turn of the century", again, because I am not very familiar with those pitchers -- but guys were throwing 300+ innings well into the 70s.

 

All that said, I am not proposing we have Manny Parra throw 300+ innings for us next year -- but I can only find one, maybe 2 or 3, pitchers that pitched 300+ innings since 1947 that was out of baseball in 4-5 years.

[jerichoholicninja]

When I played in college we were ridiculously babied. Our starters never threw more than 80 pitches in a bullpen session and were then expected to go out and pitch 6-9 innings twice a week. I was a reliever and in our practices before the season started we would throw 20 pitch sessions every three days and never threw during the season. I know it can't be that way at every college but pitching so little so infrequently not only inhibits the development of arm strength but stunts the players learning how to pitch. What Nolan Ryan has implemented in Texas will hopefully become common place in baseball soon and pitchers will pitch more and get hurt less.

[mothershipconnection]

or Champman succeeded despite his arm not being treated well. We don't know at what rate others pitchers in his situation had arm problems.

 

I think the only plausible reason that "non-babied" pitchers would seem more durable is that those who had genetic tendencies to blow out an arm were weeded out at an early age due to abuse. Those who don't burn out at 17 in those conditions may have a luckier phenotype. Perhaps you wouldn't see that in a player who was slowly brought along, as stress may not catch up to his arm until his early-to-mid-20's.

[Diskono]

I don't think we know if babying arms helps or hurts either. People talk about guys throwing 300+ innings on a regular basis but I'm sure there are guys around today that could do that (Sabathia for example). What you don't hear about are the thousands of guys who "blew their arms out" in the minors and ended up selling insurance for a living. I'm sure there were just as many if not more in the 50's and 60's that went that route as threw ungodly number of innings.

Yep. There are a bunch more teams now, so more pitchers are needed. I'd bet that the number of guys capable of throwing 300+ innings is roughly the same as it always has been, but they're spread pretty thin now.

[RockCoCougars]

"He wasn't raised and trained in the U.S. so he should have a decent major-injury-free career. Not having his arm babied his whole life should keep him pretty healthy. "

 

You don't honestly think it's that simple, do you?

Not exactly that simple but it will have a lot to do with it. We have babied our pitchers to the point that it is now detrimental to their long term health. Their whole life they have limitations placed on what and how much they can do and then when they get to the majors they are expected to exceed those limitations and then when they do - they get hurt. Players from Latin America haven't had those limits and have shoulders that have built up enough strength to take the abuse of pitching and pitching a lot.

I agree with you 100%. Pitch counts and other forms of babying seem to create injuries rather than prevent them. I highly doubt that Satchell Page ever had a pitch count.

[sveumrules]

MLB lineups are just too much stronger and there is too much new technology to compare NOW to an era even as close as even the 70s. In the 70s, nobody had slugging 2B, SS, CF and pitchers threw 85% effort fastballs to the bottom halves of most lineups and really only dialed it up when they needed to. That to me is the main reason there were more CG and IP overall during that time.

[greeg35]

Has mound height been debunked?

[endaround]

Japan doesn't "baby" their pitchers and they're often done by age 30

[GAME05]

how do we really know he was treated tenderly in Cuba?

[jerichoholicninja]

Japan doesn't "baby" their pitchers and they're often done by age 30

Obviously only the best come to MLB but Dice-K just turned 30 (although he's had a very injuries lately), Shigetoshi Hasegawa pitched into his late 30's, Kaz Ishii is still pitching in Japan in his late 30's, Kenshin Kawakami is 35, Masa Kobayashi is 36 and still pitching in Japan, Hiroki Kuroda is 35, Hideo Nomo pitched until he was 40 in the majors, Tomo Ohka is 34 and still pitching in Japan, Hideki Okajima is 34, Akinori Otsuka pitched until he was 36, Takashi Saito is 40, Kaz Sasaki pitched until he was 37, Koji Uehara is 35, Masato Yoshii pitched until he was 42. Once again these are only the best of the best that come to America from Japan but just skimming their injury history major arm injuries were rare. Only 2 lost significant time due to elbow injuries and another 2 due to getting hit in the head. I was surprised to find out that Kei Igawa was 31 and I believe the injury that has cost him the last year and a half is an ankle injury.

[cwolf2012]

Hitters are much better now than they were back in those days. Pitchers have to expend a LOT more effort per pitch in the current era than ever before. They also throw with significantly more break/spin, and they throw sliders.

 

They are also much more valuable to a franchise than ever before, so yes, they don't take chances.