Throw It
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by user Harold Friend
There has been great emphasis on pitch count in recent years. Last night, in a game between the Toronto Blue Jays and New York Yankees, A.J. Burnett made 121 pitches over 8 1/3 innings. Yankees' broadcaster Michael Kay was besides himself, unable to comprehend why Burnett, who had a history of injuries and who signed a lucrative five year contract with the Blue Jays, was permitted to make "so many pitches." Kay was correct in his conclusion that Burnett had made a lot of pitches, but was he right that it was a bad thing?
Let us examine the estimated pitch counts of some of the pitching greats at various stages in their careers. Nolan Ryan pitched for 26 seasons (27 if one considers 3 innings in 1966) and faced 22,575 batters. The first season in which he pitched over 200 innings was 1972, when at the age of 25, he pitched 284 innings for the Angels. Ryan started 39 games, completed 20, and had a 19-16 record. He faced 1154 batters and averaged 121 pitches a game, interestingly the same number Burnett threw in his game against the Yankees.
The following season, the first in which there was a designated hitter so American League lineups were now deeper than those in the Senior Circuit, Ryan was 21-16, having started 39 games and completing a remarkable 26. He faced 1355 batters and averaged 134 pitches a game. It was during this 1973 that Ryan struck out a record 383 batters.
The greatest average number of pitches per game came for Ryan in 1977, when he averaged 142. It was a season that could not happen today. Ryan won 19 while losing 16. Nothing unusual although today few pitchers get 35 decisions. He pitched 299 innings, which does not occur in today's game. Now comes the bizarre statistic. Ryan allowed only 198 hits in his 299 innings, but he walked 204 batters. No one is allowed to walk 204 hitters but Ryan did. He also struck out 341 hitters, which means that of the 1272 batters he faced, 545 never put the ball in play. If Michael Kay were the Angels broadcaster, he would have been apoplectic, and who could blame him?
Nolan Ryan's friend, Roger Clemens, had a similar career. In 1986, his first over 200 innings season, Clemens was 24-4, pitched 254 innings, faced 997 batters and averaged 116 pitches a game. The next season Clemens faced 1157 batters and averaged 124 pitches a game, the most of his career.
A pitcher extremely similar to Ryan and Clemens was Bob Feller, who might have thrown harder than either. Then again, maybe he didn't. In any event, Feller pitched for the Cleveland Indians from 1936-1941 and from 1945-1956, missing almost 4 seasons to the defense of freedom. In 1946, Feller pitched 371 1/3 innings. The Indians played 1388 innings, which means that Feller was on the mound 27% of the time the team played. Amazing.
That same season, 1946, Feller started 42 games and completed 36. Read that slowly. He completed 36 of 42 starts. And it wasn't just Feller. Hal Newhouser completed 29, Boo Ferriss completed 26, and Dizzy Trout completed 23. Real men completed what they started.
Feller was 26-15, faced 1512 batters, walked 153 of them, and struck out a then record 348. He averaged 129 pitches a game.
Okay, Ryan, Clemens, and Feller were fireballers who struck out hitters. How about Warren Spahn, who struck out hitters but was not a strike out pitcher. Spahn had a great season in 1951, winning 22, losing 14, starting 36 games and completing 26. He faced 1289 batters and averaged 124 pitches a game.
Now to the modern era. No data are readily available for a pitcher's actual pitch count, but it has been estimated that 3.75 pitches per plate appearance is accurate.
Bartolo Colon won the 2005 Cy Young Award. He made 33 starts, completed 2 of them, pitched 222 2/3 innings, and faced 906 batters. Colon averaged 6.7 innings per start and faced an average of 27.5 batters per start. Multiplying an average of 3.75 pitches per batter by 27.5 batters means that Colon made about 103 pitches a game.
Today's experts claim that making "too many" pitches will hurt a pitcher. But Ryan, Clemens, Feller, and Spahn never had a sore arm. There are many causes for developing a sore arm, but pitching too much is not the primary cause.
The most common causes of sore arms are overload, overuse, improper conditioning, and the most critical of all, improper mechanics. The pitcher, pitching coach, and manager must protect the pitcher from making too many pitches in any one game, which is referred to as overload, but the problem in today's game is the "one size fits all" approach. The fact that one pitcher must be limited to 105 pitches or less doesn't mean that another pitcher cannot have a higher pitch limit.
Pitchers must be given sufficient rest between starts, but Whitey Ford is a prime example of a small pitcher who had no trouble pitching on three days rest. When he did develop a problem, it was a circulatory problem, not an arm problem. Tom Seaver, because he relied on hard stuff and used his legs for pushing off the rubber, usually needed an extra day of rest.
Improper conditioning usually leads a pitcher to rely more and his arm and less on his body for power. Terry Forster got too fat, which eventually contributed to his already present arm problems.
Improper mechanics can ruin a career. Fatigue develops and injury usually follows. Pitchers who "short-arm" the ball and don't follow through properly usually have problems.
Pitchers who put too much strain on the elbow or the shoulder or on another part of the body will develop problems, but such pitchers do not have to pitch a lot for problems to arise. Terry Forster is an excellent example. Forster had a short-arm delivery that put great strain on his forearm and elbow, which resulted in bone chips and other arm problems throughout his career.
Today's game is a different game compared to thirty or forty years ago. Starting pitchers are not expected to pitch complete game victories. They are expected to go six or maybe seven innings and "give their team a chance to win." Pitchers with one great pitch that can be effective once through a batting order have careers as star relief pitchers or closers when in another era, they would be sent to the minors to develop another pitch.
Walter Johnson started 666 games for the Senators, completing 531 of them. He won 417 games, pitched a total of 5914 2/3 innings, and faced 23,749 batters. Walter Johnson averaged 274 innings a season. He is considered among the greatest of all pitchers.
Mariano Rivera has appeared in 699 games, remarkably close to the number of games Johnson started. Rivera has won 58 games, saved 401, pitched a total of 858 innings, and faced 3446 batters. Mariano averages 82 innings a season. He is considered the greatest of all closers.
References:
http://www.tangotiger.net/pitchCounts.html
http://www.tangotiger.net/pitchcount2.html
http://www.baseball-reference.com/r/ryanno01.shtml
http://www.baseball-reference.com/c/clemero02.shtml
http://www.baseball-reference.com/f/fellebo01.shtml
http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/AL_1946.shtml
http://www.baseball-reference.com/j/johnswa01.shtml
http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/team/player.jsp?player_id=121250
http://www.baseballtips.com/armfatigue.html
Date
Sat 07/22/06, 7:49 am EST
