Tom Verducci has written at least two pretty in depth articles on this type of issue, referencing Strasburg in part.
In the one written in January, before the season started, he discussed the history of young pitchers who have a dramatic increase in innings in a single year and the downside evidenced the following year:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.c...er.effect/index.htmlIn a more recent article he used the Padres organization to illustrate his point.
When the Nationals played in San Francisco, one of their executives was interviewed and this topic discussed. What came out if the Nationals have done considerable background and medical work on the impact of increased innings on those coming of TJ/UCL surgery. The biggest concern disclosed in the interview was the resulting impact on the shoulder in the first few years post TJ and the dramatic innings increase.
Since far fewer pitchers return to pre-injury form post serious shoulder issues, this was one stated reason for the caution.
While it is not scientific or medical, Verducci's following this issue for 10 years is certainly helpful and interesting on this discussion, I think:
"The extra work comes with a price. And the toll usually shows up the following season.
For more than a decade I've been tracking this price, which I call the Year After Effect, and which some places, including internal metrics used by at least one organization, referred to as the Verducci Effect. I began tracking it because Rick Peterson, when entrusted as the Oakland pitching coach with the golden arms of Barry Zito, Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder, believed in managing the innings for a pitcher from one year to the next. Too big a jump for too young a pitcher would put a pitcher at risk the next season for injury or regression.
From his philosophy I used a rule of thumb to track pitchers at risk: Any 25-and-under pitcher who increased his innings by 30 or more I considered to be at risk. (In some cases, to account for those coming off injuries or a change in roles, I used the previous innings high regardless of when it occurred.) I also considered only those pitchers who reached the major leagues. Mariners GM Jack Zduriencik, for instance, agrees that major league innings create more stress than minor league innings, so the effect is more profound.
The Effect has become easy to see over the years. In just the past six years, for instance, I flagged 55 pitchers at risk for an injury or regression based on their workload in the previous season. Forty-six of them, or 84 percent, did get hurt or post a worse ERA in the Year After.
Two out of the nine pitchers I red flagged last year actually stayed healthy or improved: Gio Gonzalez of Oakland (since traded to Washington) and Ivan Nova of the Yankees. More typical, though, were the regressions last year by David Price, Phil Hughes, Mat Latos and Brett Cecil, all of whom I red-flagged -- and all lost life on their fastball and saw their ERA jump by more than half a run. (The troubles for Hughes and Cecil were especially alarming and showed immediately in spring training.) Similar scenarios occurred with pitchers I red-flagged in the past, including Cole Hamels, Chad Billingsley, Rick Porcello, Mike Pelfrey, Josh Johnson, Joba Chamberlain and Scott Kazmir."
