Skenes 124 pitches too much?

Both of those statements are probably true. If you ask Skenes he would probably do it again in a heartbeat, if you ask his agent he's probably ripping his hair out.

I personally don't think he should have got the ball game 1 against 18 win Tulane. If you can't beat them with your 2/3 odds are you weren't winning a national championship anyway. I also understand that is somewhat of a rivalry game and anything could happen. What he did do is save an entire bullpen in the most important weekend (at that point) of the year.

If this were football he would have sat out but that is a different conversation and I have a lot of respect for him going out there and doing what he's doing when there are 8 million reasons not to.

Agree with @PABaseball 100%.

Did he throw all fastballs, offspeed? That matters.

Eveeyone wants to win.

There is much more  abuse among lower level teams.

JMO

@TPM posted:

There is much more  abuse among lower level teams.

What are you basing this on that isn't anecdotal? I'm not saying it may not be true, but are you looking at Synergy data or pitch counts from box scores?

Fully appreciate that you have more experience than most of us on this forum, but feel this is a dangerous statement and perpetuates an idea that anything below pitching at a P5 school is a potential hellscape for a pitchers health and longevity if not backed up by some kind of data.

I didn't say which levels did I?

Let's see, there is JC, D1, D2, D3, etc.

I didnt read the article.

So tonight, Gator starter went 117 pitches into the 9th. Yesterday our starter was close to 100.

About half of their pitches were thrown in low stress innings.

I didn't get the info from reading game box scores or data.

I don't know much about Skenes but I am sure he might have been in the same situation.

All 3 of these guys will be drafted next month.

They have specialized weekly routines, excellent trainers,  along with coaches that do want to win but know how to take care of their guys.

They don't make them throw 100 pitches and tell them to go ride a bike.

LSU won 14-0.  Why did Skenes need to pitch 7 innings?   Stupid and irresponsible, IMO.  The coaches need to be responsible for these young people.  The player won't ever say: "Take me out."

@RHP_Parent posted:

LSU won 14-0.  Why did Skenes need to pitch 7 innings?   Stupid and irresponsible, IMO.  The coaches need to be responsible for these young people.  The player won't ever say: "Take me out."

There probably are reasons.  He has A+ mechanics going, save your bullpen,  he will not pitch for another 8 days and has plenty rest and recovery time.

I think he recently had a poor start in the SEC conference championship and pulled early. So usually when that happens they let the pitcher stay in. Sometimes pitchers seem to need a lot of mental healing as well.

Skenes isn't what I consider a kid.

JMO

Yeah, no reason with that lead.

"Gabriel Romano was a warrior on the mound for Johns Hopkins this week, throwing a 160-pitch complete game to force a winner-take-all game for the Blue Jays in the Division III national championship series. The fifth-year senior left everything he had on the field for his team in his last baseball game ever."

I guess when it's your last game ever, it's ok..... JH lost game 3....

https://www.espn.com/college-b...e/_/gameId/401552614

This box score shows 101 pitch count and 66 strikes 7.2 innings.

Bob

While the issue of pitch count is important the public perception that anything over 100 pitches in an outing is unacceptable is ridiculous. An acceptable pitch count varies with each individual pitcher and can change from game to game based on the circumstances. 80 is a good threshold for some guys and others can easily go 115 if the situation calls for it. The dangerous stress on the arm occurs when guys are throwing at high velocity (95+) without the best mechanics. And hard throwers that are slight of build. Those are the guys that need to be the most careful. IMO too many people are too quick to define a big pitch count as abuse. Sometimes it is. But sometimes it isn’t.

IMO, the most damage occurs in youth pitching when young bodies are still growing and still DON'T have proper mechanics as well as pitchers not getting proper instruction at the college level.

Adbono and TPM

Skenes is 6'6" 240 lbs junior, a  transfer from Air Force Academy. 7 innings, 101 total pitches, his pitched average = 14.2 pitches per inning. "Durable". It was a damp day and Skenes was pitching in "heavy" air.

Many years ago our Pitching Coach at MSU evaluated our pitching charts for one year. We won games, when our pitchers recorded under 14.5 pitches per inning. This requires coaches, who emphasis solid defense. Resulted in a trip to the College WS.

Bob

@Consultant nice post. And yes you must have solid defense to help the pitcher go as deep as he can.

Tennessee's Dollanger threw 111 pitches today. He did his job and it won't affect his draft status.

adbono's post was excellent.  The situation definetly calls for the pitchers to go as far as they can.

What’s the big deal about 124 pitches? Quinn Matthews threw 156 with a five run lead. I guess they were saving the bullpen for tomorrow.

Sent this to my son last month. Good for him if it works. But not a model to strive for.

If you were temporarily managing an asset worth more than $9 million, would you be allowed to do whatever you want before returning it to its rightful owner?  It is not as if the player is really in charge.  The coach is in charge; if you were a minor league pitching coach and left a player in for that many pitches, you'd be fired the next morning.  The coach needs to have more accountability in a situation where the win is not on the line.  Just my opinion here, as always. 

@RHP_Parent posted:

If you were temporarily managing an asset worth more than $9 million, would you be allowed to do whatever you want before returning it to its rightful owner?  It is not as if the player is really in charge.  The coach is in charge; if you were a minor league pitching coach and left a player in for that many pitches, you'd be fired the next morning.  The coach needs to have more accountability in a situation where the win is not on the line.  Just my opinion here, as always.

Not the first time they’ve over pitched him. I completely agree with you. Unless a school is willing to pay a kid his projected worth, they should proceed as though they would have to.  I think 124 is high but 156…come on.

Just another example showing college coaches DO NOT CARE about a kid's pro career.    Their job is to win games, now.

In the other camp,  124 pitches over 9 innings with 7 days rest and then not pitching again for another 7 days is hardly overloaded.  These aren't pre-developed 12yo playing 4 games in a weekend and coach making them pitch 2 of them and the other two behind the plate, then going off to team #2 and Dad having him pitch again during the week.  He's a 6'6" 247lb elite athlete who probably spends 50% of his college days in the weight room doing active recovery.  I'd say he was handled pretty appropriately.  Now if this was coming off of 3 days rest or asked to close a game the next day or two, there would be a beef.

You can't just take a pitch count in isolation and form a one sided argument. Kudos to OP for setting it up as a question.

PS.  the 124 pitch game was a 7-2 victory over 9 innings pitched.  the 14-0 game was the 7.2IP in which he threw 101 pitches 8 days later.

@Master P posted:

Just another example showing college coaches DO NOT CARE about a kid's pro career.    Their job is to win games, now.

Cliff Gustafson wrote the book on that subject. He was one of the foremost authorities in the history of college baseball on riding a pitcher to death.

@adbono posted:

Cliff Gustafson wrote the book on that subject. He was one of the foremost authorities in the history of college baseball on riding a pitcher to death.

Back when TJ surgery wasn’t so common one of Wayne Graham’s (Rice) pitchers would almost always be drafted in the first round. Almost every time in their first pro season it was discovered they needed TJ surgery. Graham rode his pitchers like a rented mule to win.

@adbono posted:

Cliff Gustafson wrote the book on that subject. He was one of the foremost authorities in the history of college baseball on riding a pitcher to death.

Yup, Clemens would pitch 9 innings then close the next 2 games.

How about Oregon's Grayson Grinsell?  Threw 62 high stress pitches in 2.1 innings on Fri as the starter, then asked to pitch again yesterday.  Injured on his 11th pitch.  Seems like that's worse than pitching 124 pitches in 9 relatively low stress innings, and then having a lot of rest before and after?

124 over 9 is pretty efficient at less than 14 pitches/inning. Now, I thought they should have been able to win their region without him doing that but that is a different discussion.

Texas just put in their ace to close game 3. He threw 110 2 days ago.

Research has shown one of the very few reliable predictors of athletic injury is a high acute to chronic workload ratio. Applied to pitching that means throwing a lot more pitches than they normally do. A pitcher throwing X pitches is meaningless without the context of how many pitches they usually throw. A pitcher who normally throws 20 pitches throwing 80 is much more dangerous than a pitcher who normally throws 100 throwing 110.

The Washington Post is obsessing on this issue, and I assume they have received a lot of blowback from their previous articles.  Here's their most recent one, by Jesse Dougherty:

https://www.washingtonpost.com...seball-pitch-counts/

Highlights:

...Dan Latham, Stetson University pitching coach: “All pitches aren’t really created equal. Seventy-five high-pressure pitches where you have a 30-pitch inning, traffic on the bases, every pitch is kind of a do-or-die, is different than throwing 100 grooving pitches, everything is easy, up-down, fast half innings, on and off. I just find the fatigue is different for those things, and the breaking point and where they hit that level of fatigue that turns into injury is just going to differ game to game.”...

...More than anything, MLB pitchers are hooked before high counts because it’s not statistically sound to have them face a lineup a third or fourth time. In the evolution of the sport, greater concerns about arm injuries have coincided with a data revolution that’s flipped the conventional thought on starter usage....“MLB teams have decided it’s not smart to push and push pitchers for a lot of reasons,” Brewster said. “Is part of that to mitigate injury risk? I’d imagine so, yeah. But no one at that level is shy about not wanting their pitchers to see hitters three or four times in a game. Popular strategy can almost appear like risk-averse medical practice.”....

....With a pitcher’s UCL — the elbow ligament repaired by Tommy John surgery — injury risk rises with pitch counts because the UCL starts to bear even more stress than it should. Brewster explained that, at the beginning of an outing, the muscles around the UCL are fresh and able to offload the stress created by torquing the arm and elbow over and over. But as those muscles tire, the UCL absorbs more of the strain, heightening the possibility of immediate injury or cumulative damage.  This makes recovery and preparation that much more important.  Mathews, for example, had thrown at least 100 pitches in 15 of his 17 starts this season, building him up for a big workload in June (though not for 156 pitches, a lot of people might credibly argue). Skenes has topped 100 pitches in 11 of 17 starts and thrown at least 110 in five. .....

Wait, you are saying that the Washington Post is obsessing over something that is a non-story?!?  No way!!!!

I’m a big fan of pulling a pitcher before he turns the lineup over for a 3rd or 4th time. If you have a big lead and low pitch count, let him go. Otherwise, change things up and get the starter out.

The Washington Post should stick to being wrong about politics.

My point was that they are correcting themselves and providing more nuance, in line with much of what was said here.  And I find that interesting, too.