philliesphhan wrote:[
I dunno, I would just like to read one of these articles that doesn't say something like this:Why are pitchers the only athletes who are going backward? How does it make sense that inferior athletes with inferior training and inferior medical care could do 30-40-50 years ago what modern day pitchers cannot do? How could guys like Steve Carlton, Nolan Ryan, Cy Young and so on down the line toss 300+ innings - effective, dominant innings - often throwing God-knows-how-many pitches while pitchers today are lucky to make 200 innings and rarely make it past the 6th or 7th inning because they’re “around 100 pitches?”
I like whenever people whine about pitch counts, their examples are always these insanely dominating Hall of Fame pitchers. Carlton, Ryan, and CY YOUNG? Wow, yeah, I wonder why everyone doesn't pitch like them.
Since the examples are always world class pitchers, I was kind of curious what the true difference between starters now and in the past. According to baseball-reference, the Innings Pitched per Game Started in 2008 in the NL was 5.8
In 1955, it was 6.3
So, starters then were getting an average of 1.5 outs more per start.
Even if you look at second dead ball era numbers like 1968, it's not as extreme as it's made out to be. The average starter went 6.8 innings, so they still only went about 1 inning longer than they do now. And given how many more CGs were thrown then, that means the remaining starters were awful and only pitching a couple innings.
I agree with you. There seem to be only two schools of though regarding this issue amongst those who write about it. The "pitch counts don't mean anything" school who always mention the stuff you point out. (They always use the outlier examples to illustrate how tough the old timey guys were and why can't today's pitchers be like that). And the other school that preaches 100 pitch count limits and stuff. I don't think either school of though has it correct.
The old school argument ignores the fact that the game changes all the time and pitchers can't cruise through parts of lineups and even large parts of games. The old timey pitchers weren't using their best stuff all game long like they have to today. Writers like this guy always ignore the fact that while pitchers are bigger and stronger and stuff like that -- the hitters are too. And that's why you have to bear down on every hitter pretty much. Most likely, Cy Young trying to get out a modern lineup would go 5 or 6 innings today before crapping out. If he lasted that long. They might actually have to make him a closer.
However, the writer does bring out some good points that can get buried by his use of this technique of glorifying the good old days. His major point -- the one that Carroll agrees with is that pitchers can, and should be, developed to pitch longer into games:
And who came up with that nice round number of 100 pitches? Why not 93 pitches? Why not 107? How in the world did 100 pitches become the gold standard? Because it’s easy to remember, that’s how, which gives you an idea about it’s validity as a measuring stick.
Of course it doesn’t, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing about it.
The reason pitchers can’t handle pitch counts in the 120-140 range in the Major Leagues is because THEY ARE NEVER TRAINED TO THROW THAT MANY PITCHES WHILE THEY ARE BEING DEVELOPED.
Some young hurlers are going to get hurt and nothing that MLB does is going to change that, but you can better prepare your talented young starters for the rigors of the Major Leagues by gradually building up their arm strength and stamina in the minor leagues.
I’m not saying an 18-year-old pitching phenom should be allowed to throw 120 pitches on a routine basis, I’m saying he should be put on a program that will allow him to throw that many pitches on a regular basis after a 2-3 year period of strengthening and conditioning.
With signing bonuses reaching 7-figures in the MLB Draft, the fear of those investments going to waste because of injury has driven teams to try and prevent the unpreventable. In other words, non-baseball people decided out of fear to protect bonus babies with a system than only makes those high-priced hotshots even more fragile.
These are actually decent points. Pitch counts, as Carroll points out, shouldn't be used in isolation. They have no meaning without context. That's really what the writer should have been pointing out. Developing pitchers correctly should be the goal. No one has really figured out the best way to do that. It will be interesting to see how Ryan and the Rangers go about doing this. If the Rangers are truly going to approach this as a pitcher development issue, and not some old timey macho bullcrud thing, they might be on to something.
I'm not really sure what exactly the Ranger program is. The writer really doesn't explain that at all. So it's hard to really criticize Ryan or praise him all that much. But I think the idea of developing pitchers properly and not being tied exclusively to pitch counts makes sense.
The ways pitchers have been used in the past has changed through time. I think starter innings pitched and throwing lots of pitches may have peaked in the 70s. How do you look that up on B-R? I've been a little confused by it ever since they changed the format (being the old codger that I am).
I looked at the starting pitchers for 1955. Robin Roberts led the league with 305 IP. Te rest of the top ten starters in IP had from 216 to 257. Most teams had one or two guys throwing more than even 200 IP. Most starters threw around 150-180 innings in a season. Pretty much all starters made a few relief appearances every year. The whole "back in the old days all starting pitcher were tough and threw 300 innings" stuff is a bunch of hooey.
It's fun to go back and look at how many innings starting pitchers actually threw in the olden days. Most teams had two or three guys who would make 35-40 starts or so. And the rest of the staff would fill in. Schedules were different back than. Lots of off days for travel (by train). The "western" road trip consisted of Pittsburgh, Cincy, St. Louis and Chicago. Every Sunday was a double header.
Times change. But sportswriters who talk about the good old days and getting a lot of it wrong never seem to.
