Dwight Gooden threw a lot of pitches at a very young age.
At Baseball Analysts, Rich Lederer has been having a discussion about Dwight Gooden's unrealized great career. The question, spurred by Bert Blyleven's comments about Gooden's drug use, is whether pitching too many innings was also a factor in his decline. Even sportswriter Bob Klapisch gave an opinion, claiming that Gooden's decline was totally due to drug abuse.
There's no doubt that Gooden ruined his career (and, more importantly, his life) by taking drugs. But there's also very little doubt that he was overused at the tender ages of 18, 19 and 20. In that first year, 1983, he had an incredible record for Single A Lynchburg, striking out 300 and walking 112 in 191 innings. I applied Tangotiger's pitch count estimator to those numbers and found that Gooden threw an estimated 3,356 pitches at Lynchburg. So far this year, only three major league pitchers have thrown more often. As I said, he was 18 at the time.
Mets' manager Davey Johnson saw Gooden pitch in the minors, and he convinced General Manager Frank Cashen that Gooden was ready for the major leagues in 1984. Johnson was right, as Gooden went on to compile a 2.60 ERA with 276 strikeouts in 218 innings. He threw approximately 3,475 pitches, including 15 games in which he probably threw over 120 pitches. I estimate that he threw 142 pitches on September 1 and 140 on July 27. He was 19.
Next was 1985, the year Gooden dominated hitters as few pitchers ever have, with a 1.53 ERA and 268 strikeouts in 276 innings. That’s a lot of innings; in fact, only two major league pitchers have reached that mark since (Charlie Hough and Roger Clemens in 1987). Did I mention that he was 20 years old at the time? I estimate he threw 4,068 pitches that year, including 153 on October 2 after throwing 140 in his previous start. There were five games in which he threw at least 140 pitches.
For a bit more perspective, I applied Baseball Prospectus's Pitcher Abuse Points (PAP) to Gooden's pitch count. BPro's research indicates that every pitch thrown in excess of 100 pitches in a start has a wearing effect on a pitcher's arm. In fact, it is exactly research like this that has led to a new understanding of how to handle young pitchers.
According to PAP, Gooden racked up 437,598 PAP in 1984 when he was 19. This year, only strong-armed Livan Hernandez has surpassed that score. Carlos Zambrano is second at 160,000 (a total for which the Cubs' manager has been criticized by some Cubs' fans). In 1985, Gooden reached over 820,000 Pitcher Abuse Points. Baseball Prospectus doesn't have PAP stats for all years listed, but it appears as though that figure has been exceeded only once in the last 10 years, by the aforementioned Hernandez.
I glanced through Davey Johnson's great book covering the 1985 season, Bats: The Man Behind the Miracle, and found several references to Gooden's workload. Johnson was aware of Gooden's workload; in fact, Cashen urged him to do something about it. Johnson didn't.
Of course, I would prefer Doc only throw 250, 260 innings. But you have to take into account that Dwight doesn't throw as many pitches in a game as most power pitchers. He's unusual. Nolan Ryan will throw 150 pitches in a ballgame. Dwight seldom gets over 140. Most of the time it'll be between 100 and 130. So the strain is less.
We certainly have a different attitude about pitch counts today, don't we? Nolan Ryan was truly unique in his ability to handle a large number of innings. But it's also worth noting that he was rested more often early in his career, and he didn't reach Gooden's level of Innings Pitched until the age of 25.
I'm not saying that drugs didn't ruin Gooden's career. Of course they did. But if we don't also remember that Gooden was tremendously overworked at a very young age, we'll have forgotten an important lesson.
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