This is the main problem, as I see it. There is no universal iron clad rule that applies to every pitcher. But there are a number of guidelines that are very hard to refute;

a.) The pitching motion is very unnatural in terms of the way the human body works, and no matter how clean your mechanics are, you are going to do some type of damage to the arm at some point.

b.) The better your mechanics, the less damage you will do to your arm. Randy Johnson has exceptional mechanics, especially someone of his height and frame, and that has allowed him to have a freakish career, where he's thrown a ton of pitches in a ton of innings.

c.) Pitching will fatigued causes more damage to the arm than pitching in an unfatigued state.

d.) Determining fatigue level is a very difficult task.

If you take those 4 principles, I think they can be applied to lots of the theories out there today. The best pitchers in the game are often those that have the best mechanics, which allows them to pitch in a less fatigued state, causing less damage to their arms, and allowing them to have longer careers.

I think the smart teams, teams like the Red Sox, are starting to realize that this is an inexact science with general parameters. And if you follow those parameters, you are more likely to reduce the risk of injury for young pitchers. Pitchers will still get hurt. Guys with bad mechanics will still get hurt. But if you set up precautionary procedures, you can lower the risk to an extent.

That's a good summary. It's hard to say where the Phils rank amongst the other teams in these areas but given the nature of the club you'd have to think they aren't at the cutting edge.

lethal wrote:

phuturephillies wrote:This is the Yankees plan with Chamberlain, and whether they have the stones to go through with it, who knows.

Bye bye Joba Rules?

"I want him as a starter and so does everyone else, including him, and that is what we are working toward and we need him there now," Steinbrenner told the New York Times. "There is no question about it, you don't have a guy with a 100-mile-per-hour fastball and keep him as a setup guy. You just don't do that. You have to be an idiot to do that."

Hank's turning into the George of the 70s and 80s. I love it.

I loved this part.

Mussina] just needs to learn how to pitch like [45-year-old Phillies pitcher] Jamie Moyer," Steinbrenner said, according to The Times. Moyer is known as a crafty pitcher who doesn't have an overpowering fastball."

First time I've heard someone say that in a while.

Interesting article on seven risky pitchers for 2009. Of course, our Cole is right near the top of the list. These seven guys broke the "Rule of 30" by a bunch:

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2009/1 ... update-7-r

smitty wrote:Interesting article on seven risky pitchers for 2009. Of course, our Cole is right near the top of the list. These seven guys broke the "Rule of 30" by a bunch:

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2009/1 ... update-7-r

I saw that and tried to find evidence suggesting that Cole might not be at quite as high risk... but there's not much to support that idea. His K rate was down a bit, but his pitches per batter and per inning barely moved--I think something like 0.1 each. The point Floppy sometimes makes, that he primarily throws the less-stressful fastball and change, I guess is relevant. But I do expect him to miss some time this year, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if a major injury is on the horizon.

But flags fly forever, and I think he'll get paid--especially since Hamels seems like the sort of guy who would work his ass off in rehab and perhaps come back as good as ever.

Unfortunately, it's only a matter of time.

Hamels broke the rule of 30 before to no great ill effect. In fact, when you check out young future aces, many of them broke the rule of 30 and defied the Verducci Effect.

As explained in the article, some of the Verducci Effect can be explained by guys who are not really all that good having a good year so therefore they pitch more innings. The next year they return to the mean.

There are lots of caveats to this thing as Bendix points out. We'll see what happens to these seven. The large increase in innings is certainly a concen. But I think it's far from certain doom.

When did he break it before? I don't know the exact details of the rule, but I would think 04 and 05 wouldn't count for much since he only threw 16 and 35 innings.

Hamels was on Verducci's list after the 2006 season. And Hamels pitched better in 2007 than he had in '06. Here are some interesting articles discussing the Verducci Year After Effect:

http://baseball-fever.com/showthread.php_t=72835

http://sabermetricresearch.blogspot.com ... rking.html

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/artic ... er-effect/

Another worrisome indication:"the 3400 Club."

We've got three members. Now, this is a function of success: had the Phils not made the playoffs, I don't think any of our guys would have made this list, so we're happy with that tradeoff. But it's still a sobering reminder that when we're thinking about Happ/Kendrick/Carrasco, the likelihood is that we'll see more than one of those guys taking a large role in the Phils' rotation.

So basically our top three starters are all toast.

Woody wrote:So basically our top three starters are all toast.

Probably one or two of them. Flags fly forever...

This is simply a predicting tool, but yes, certainly there has to be some worry.

Boy it's gonna be a boring season with all the top pitchers hurt

Get ready for Adam Eaton, #3 starter.

Lest anyone forget, the Phils are WFC while giving approximately 1/3 of the 2008 starts (50) to Adam Eaton and Kyle Kenrick, who put an ERA+ up of about 77.

Your April/May rotation:

Blanton
Moyer
Eaton
Happ
Park

Eaton Park?

In that article the author makes a "bold" prediction that between 3 and 12 of the 19 pitchers listed will get hurt this year. Wow. That's really going out on a limb there. You could list 19 Lutehran pitchers or Aries pitchers or any other category of pitchers and make the same prediction I'd guess.

Those 19 pitchers include many ace or near ace pitchers. I think you'd be pretty happy if your staff included any 4 of those guys.

smitty wrote:In that article the author makes a "bold" prediction that between 3 and 12 of the 19 pitchers listed will get hurt this year. Wow. That's really going out on a limb there. You could list 19 Lutehran pitchers or Aries pitchers or any other category of pitchers and make the same prediction I'd guess.

Those 19 pitchers include many ace or near ace pitchers. I think you'd be pretty happy if your staff included any 4 of those guys.

Not the mention he stole the whole concept from another website...

http://www.fantasyphenoms.com/greener.php_id=317


According to the comments section, Verducci even linked to this article last year, so he obviously knew about it.