Originally Posted by
edabbs44
I'm not blowing off pitch counts and innings limits. What I'm talking about is the assertion that elevated pitch counts and/or innings automatically equals break down. Comments like these:
I understand that the more you pitch, the more wear you are going to have on your arm. I don't think that I need to read up on any studies to tell me that.
I agree with the concept, but do we really have true evidence that pitchers break down at a materially higher clip with more use? Or can we really say that Prior's fall was a direct result of the use he endured in 2003? I think that is an awfully big leap and probably has more to do with the bias against Dusty Baker in the sabermetric community than anything else.
Prior missed the first two months of 2004 with an achilles injury, who knows what that did to his season. In 2005, Prior led the majors in SO/9 and also was on his way to a pretty solid overall ERA campaign (more so than he finished up with) until he took a line drive off his elbow. ERA of 2.93 before, 4.07 after.
I don't disagree with the sentiment but it is really hard to look at this as an absolute. For every Prior we can go through a number of pitchers who have appeared to have been overused who haven't gotten injured, yet. But that's a convenient part of the argument, pitchers do tend to get injured no matter what the usage. Liriano was babied. Joba Rules. I can link the Webb/Johan/Peavy thread again. On the other end of the spectrum, Verlander was ridden pretty hard in 2009 and has been pretty good since. People were fainting after what happened to CC in Milwaukee...I think he's been ok as a Yankee. But I'm sure that if one of these guys ends up with an injury, we'll get some sort of in depth analysis about usage. And if they don't get injured, they'll just be some sort of superfreak that defied the odds.
Again...my argument isn't that pitch counts and usage limits are dumb. Quite the contrary It's more about how trying to link a specific 10 start stretch or even one season to an injury while ignoring everything else. Including human nature.
Eh...I'd be a proponent of soft limits, but to freak out b/c of one specific number is a bit much. Give a guy an extra day of rest, limit him some after throwing a lot the start before, keep an eye on usage if you are either headed to the playoffs or completely out of it. Absolutely. But stop the presses because you hit the magic 110 pitch number? No.