These guys wanted you to avoid pitchers like Dan Haren and C. C. Sabathia and Scott Kazmir in 2008. They also warn that some pitchers on these lists will get hurt during the next 5 years. This is all great advice.

all of these theories are hogwash. If it isn't 100% perfect, we should discount it and just assume since its Phillies players, they'll be fine.

I would like to see Amaro sign another starting pitcher.

We may well need 6 to 8 starters or even more over the course of the 2009 season.

I wonder, re: the 3,400+ club, if the effect on the Phillies' pitchers will be mitigated somewhat based on the fact that the threw their pitches over more games; 3,400 pitches over 37-38 starts rather than 34 for the typical starter. Generally aren't high pitch-count games (120+) worse than throwing the same number of pitches over a greater number of games?

Actually, I think the abuse a pitcher takes as an amateur is a big factor in future injuries. And I think the number of "long innings" a pitcher throws might be more important than either total innings or total pitches. But no one has done any kind of good study on either and I ain't gonna do it.

I don't think criticizing a theory that posits that between 3 and 12 pitchers of a list of 19 are going to get hurt is too out of line.

Further, I don't think it's necessary to get all bent out of shape that has pitchers like Dan Haren, John Lackey, CC Sabathia and Johan Santana on it.

I'm all for any idea that contributes to our understanding of this great game. But this theory is really half baked in my view. It essentially states that some guys who pitched a lot last year will get hurt this year. I'd bet if you made a list of guys who threw between 3000 and 3400 pitches last year you'll get similar reasults. Same for between 2500 and 3000.

Basically this is a list of pitchers who were really good last year or whose teams went a long way in the playoffs or both.

Figuring out how to keep pitchers healthy and effective or how to determine who will do so is an area of study that is difficult and involves a LOT of factors. Pitching mechanics. total innings, increase in innings, total pitches, long innings, abuse as a youngster, injury history and probably other stuff seems important. I'm not one to get too worked up over any one or two factors here. Predicting which pitchers will be healthy in a given year is pretty difficult to do. I have some pretty legitimate doubts about the rule of 3500 or whatever this theory is called.

I like the use of Freddie Garcia in one of these articles. Essentially Garcia pitched a lot of innings one year. And sure enough he hurt his arm. Eight years later.

FTN wrote:all of these theories are hogwash. If it isn't 100% perfect, we should discount it and just assume since its Phillies players, they'll be fine.

Holy smoke. Dan Haren, CC Sabathia and Scott Kazmir are Phillies? Yikes, Ruben is a genius.

LoneStarPhan wrote:I would like to see Amaro sign another starting pitcher.

We may well need 6 to 8 starters or even more over the course of the 2009 season.

i think they have enough depth now. if they need to use it all then we're screwed anyway.

LoneStarPhan wrote:I would like to see Amaro sign another starting pitcher.

We may well need 6 to 8 starters or even more over the course of the 2009 season.

That's the norm though isn't it? Last year the Phill;ies were remarkably healthy. Only JA Happ made "emergency" starts -- a total of 4.

The Mets had 6 non rotation pitchers start start 17 games. The Cubs had 5 non-rotation guys start 24 games. The Dodgers had 5 start 20 times.

I think it's pretty normal for a team to use eight or ten starters during the course of a year.

Here's an interesting item from BP regarding college pitchers:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/artic ... entMessage

I really think it's here, in college (and high school too, some of those guys get abused even worse) that young arms get damaged to the point where no rule of 30 or any other kind of rule will prevent future arm injury.

These very young arms are getting used like mature big leaguers -- sometimes even worse than that.

In the comments some guy has pointed out Strasburg's pitch counts so far. He looks like a future fungible pitcher.

I think college coaches have become a bit more responsible. Strasburg isn't going to work in relief a few days after starting, and if he doesn't go over 115 too many times, he should be ok.

FTN wrote:I think college coaches have become a bit more responsible. Strasburg isn't going to work in relief a few days after starting, and if he doesn't go over 115 too many times, he should be ok.

isn't his out pitch a 90+ MPH slider? shouldn't the max effort delivery+high torque slider+multiple 115 pitch outings+interest from jim bowden tell you that he's gonna bust?

there's no evidence that any one pitch is worse than another if thrown properly.

FTN wrote:I think college coaches have become a bit more responsible. Strasburg isn't going to work in relief a few days after starting, and if he doesn't go over 115 too many times, he should be ok.

If crossing the 105 pitch barrier is a big deal for big league pitchers, why is throwing 115 pitches OK for college pitchers?

smitty wrote:

FTN wrote:I think college coaches have become a bit more responsible. Strasburg isn't going to work in relief a few days after starting, and if he doesn't go over 115 too many times, he should be ok.

If crossing the 105 pitch barrier is a big deal for big league pitchers, why is throwing 115 pitches OK for college pitchers?

i think college pitchers only pitch once a week, which might make 10 more pitches a little more bearable. shorter season helps too.

ReadingPhilly wrote:

smitty wrote:

FTN wrote:I think college coaches have become a bit more responsible. Strasburg isn't going to work in relief a few days after starting, and if he doesn't go over 115 too many times, he should be ok.

If crossing the 105 pitch barrier is a big deal for big league pitchers, why is throwing 115 pitches OK for college pitchers?

i think college pitchers only pitch once a week, which might make 10 more pitches a little more bearable. shorter season helps too.

Could be.

But I thought the theory was that pitching while fatigued is what hurts your arm and that after 100 or 105 pitches fatigue sets in. Plus, these guys are really young. Strasburg is what -- 20?

Im not saying its ideal.

But whats clear here is you're just looking for an argument.

When I stress that over 105 is bad, you tell me its not bad. Now it is bad.

Actually, I don’t really think 105 pitches is bad or good. What I have been saying for a while now is I think young amateur pitchers endure a lot of stress and damage to their arms and this might make arm injury inevitable, regardless of their PAP score or their rule of 30 status or any of those other theories that don’t seem to hold up well to close scrutiny. And I thought this BP article addressed this in a pretty cool way. I’d like to see more study along these lines.

This is what you insist is true:

All of the research done on this says that when pitching fatigued, you cause exponential damage to the arm. And that damage begins to magnify around 105 pitches.

I'm wondering why this is so true for a 24 year old big league pitcher and not true for a 20 year old college pitcher.

The Tampa Bay Rays believe, sort of (I don't see this online. It's from Gerry Fraley in the USA Today Sports Weekly:

Last Season's success has not changed Tampa Bay's philosophy on player development. That means that Price could go from World Series reliever to Class AAA starter in April.

Tampa Bay believes that to give young pitchers as much protection from injury as possible their workload should be increased by only about 25 innings a season.

It's a hard-and-fast rule that the Rays are unlikely to overlook with as valuable a pitcher as Price, the top pick in the 2007 draft.

Including the postseason, Price worked 129 1/3 innings last year, his first professional season. Having a starting pitcher with a limit of about 155 innings in the majors all season would tie a manager's hands.

The Rays could limit Price's appearances in the minors and bring him to the majors during the season with significant innings still in him.

"To have him start a season in the majors would be a significant jump," Maddon says. "I'm not saying we won't do that. But if we do, he's one guy we'd really monitor as he builds up the innings.

"Jumping a guy from 130 to 200 innings, that's not something we relish doing."

Which to me sounds like a hard-and-fast rule which they would never break unless they wanted to.

Good for Friedman and the rest of the them. Cue a Reynolds, Leiter, Larkin "back in the old days" rant on MLB Network tomorrow.

The Rule of 30 is so overrated. Just let guys throw lots of pitches. No rule applies to 100% of people, so why have a rule. I think.