So much for pitch counts

No worry! Some US baseball exec. will give them a 100 million dollar contract just in time for their arms to blow out!

I thought their arm was supposed to literally fall off after the 100th pitch?  The experts said so

 

I know how Columbus felt now.

Please identify one expert who said anything like that.

So much for hitting.  You would think on about pitch 500 the batters would have gotten a clue.

Well, I couldn't locate the hyperbole icon, but following in that same spirit...

 

Dr. Nicolas Lewis said "so letting him stay out there despite his pitch count in order to keep a shutout going is nice. As long as you don't let him rip his arm off ...it seems very odd to me as a great way to have a kid's arm fall off someday"

 

And just for good measure, the experts at Hardball Times devoted an article to the subject, When Will Daisuke Matsuzaka’s Arm Fall Off?

 
 

 

One man's hyperbole is another man's straw man fallacy.

 

My point was that nobody has ever seriously proposed that exceeding some magic number of pitches will cause serious injury in any particular pitcher.  The discussion is always about managing long-term risk by avoiding chronic overuse over the course of pitching careers.  

 

If we accept that having "an arm fall off" is a colloquial expression for a significant arm injury or loss of effectiveness, I'm not sure Daisuke Matsuzaka, who has been healthy and effective for, what, 3 of his 8 MLB seasons, and who has a negative WAR since the end of his second season, is the best example to cite. 

Pitch counts are a waste. This is just old fashioned baseball like the days of pickup games and throwing and pitching all weekend at the ballfield. And these guys will last longer than the ones today on a pitch count because today's players aren't tough like they once were. Now they pitch 6 innings and its like WOW.

 

zombywoof- So glad to see you're still on your troll game. Impressive post here.

 

Here is the kids aren't as tough as they once were argument. All through baseball lore is the young flamethrower that doesn't work out and got a "dead arm" or "sore elbow".  No one was sitting around and collecting data on how many of these guys were hanging around in the 40's, 50's and 60's while they "pitched through the pain" and destroyed their arms. 

 

Given the fact that the players were not as valuable it was much easier to toss them overboard and get the next 22 year old farm boy.  A few turned into Feller, Ryan, Ford etc.  But many times those numbers just got flushed. 

 

The old days were never as good as we remember them to be and the current time will become the good old days in 2025 or 2030.  By then we'll be having the debate about the bionic arms the pitchers have and when it used to be a flesh and bone game and that todays kids are wimps compared to Verlander or Strausberg.

 

Thank you, thank you, thank you.  I could not agree with you more.

 

BUT THE KIDS NEED TO KNOW THE OLD DAYS WERE BETTER IN MY OPINION!!!! EVERYTHING WAS BETTER IN THE OLD DAYS!!!! THEY NEED TO KNOW SO THEY BECOME LESS INTERESTED IN THE GAME TODAY!!!! THE GAME TODAY IS TERRIBLE!!!! GET OFF MY LAWN, KIDS!!!!

 

There is also one very big difference between today and yesteryear.

 

Dr. Andrews' studies led him to the surprising conclusion that throwing breaking pitches had no noticeable impact on outcomes.  The big issue was with the amount of use generally, and the related stress.

 

And that stress is much, much greater today because pretty much everyone is throwing so darned hard.

 

Sure, there was Walter Johnson way back when, then Feller, then Koufax and Gibson (though Koufax may be more of a cautionary tale than a counter example).  As Ryan shows, every generation has its genetic freaks, guys who can just do more than the rest of us.  But for generations, pitchers focused on pacing themselves to go 9, and getting maximum velocity was something that a lot of pitchers never worried much about.

 

But I can go around the Richmond, VA metropolitan area this spring and find you half a dozen or more kids throwing 90+ in their high school games.  If you don't throw 85, you may not get on the mound much, and if you're sub-80, you either have to be a crafty lefty or maybe you will get left on JV (or cut entirely).  You just didn't see this kind of stress decades ago.  Sure, there were kids who threw hard -- in a relative sense.  But as a guy who used to blow batters away sitting 82-ish myself, I can tell you, those guys you remember throwing smoke 30-40 years ago do not compare to what you're seeing out there today.  We know much better how to tweak mechanics and condition kids to generate velocity.  But there's no getting around the fact that high velocity brings with it high stress.

 

You can also watch old films and notice how pitchers pretty much used mixing of pitches to keep guys off balance.  While everyone tried to hit spots, very few guys took the mound with the expectation of pinpoint accuracy.  These days, I can watch any day's "Baseball Tonight" show and see a dozen HR's attributed to a pitcher missing his location by maybe 3-4 inches.  So you're not going to see guys just loosely letting a ball fly.  There is stress over each pitch, and the margin for error is non-existent.  To me that's why you don't see many complete games these days.  It's not because guys aren't strong; they are.  They can hold their velocity through 9 innings, no doubt.  But can they keep pinpoint accuracy after they hit 100 pitches?  Not many, not often.

 

I don't think there's ever been a time when anyone expected a guy to throw 92-95 with pinpoint accuracy for 110 pitches or more.  There was a time when you didn't have to, to complete a game.  Now that you would have to, it's just not done much.  And recognizing the evident frequency of injuries and trying to do something to stave them off is obviously judicious.

What’s up with the rubber ball? And rubber ball league in HS.  Do all of the HS’s in Japan use that?

 

Watching that thing bounce it’s really hard to believe that no one could score in the first 49 innings.  The ball appears to bounce high off of the dirt, but the outfielders don’t play that deep,  either the hitters are terrible, the bats are way beyond BBCOR, or  the pitching and defense is fantastic.  One must really have to square up on that ball to get any good result.

 

A couple of things that caught my eye was between innings the 1B rolled on to the RF and he fired it to 1B and I don’t think I have ever seen two middle infielders play as drawn in as these guys. Must be no fear of a hard shot with that ball.

 

 I would like to see the season stats for these guys, maybe a batting average of .125 leads the league?

 

Both pitchers were pretty efficient, 700 plus pitches for 50 innings.  That’s a great season for most HS and college players. What does 0 earned runs for 49 innings do to an ERA.   I also wonder why they keep a pitch count?  What do the coaches use it for, what would the conversation be in the dugout after the 45^th inning, “ yea we’ll let him go for another 200 or so before we warm up the reliever”

 

I bow to the two pitchers who performed so well for the marathon game. Quite a feat. Just keeping the mental focus required to perform for that duration is incredible. I can't believe anyone thinks that is remotely healthy for an arm of any age.

Midlo makes a great point.  If you look at the innings pitched prior to the live ball in 1920 you'd see guys like Cy Young starting an average of 45 games and making another 7-10 appearances over a 6 year span.  He was averaging well over 400 innings a season.  Over 22 years he struck out 200 only 2 times.  He was pitching to contact

 

You could get away with that when you could chuck it up and let them hit it as hard as they want and it wouldn't leave the yard.  Much less stress.

 

The live ball, hitter friendly parks, bigger/stronger hitters, better bats and better hitting approaches all are much tougher challenges for pitchers now.

 

 

the only hedge I would give on pitch counts is a number of say - 85 at 12yrs, or 100 at 16 or 120 at 18 is not the same to all arms. Some arms either young or old are much looser then others and can certainly throw more pitches. others get tight at a young age after use and take days to clear up...I believe in limiting pitches and I think most of the good programs out there do that, however I do believe there is some variable to what is a proper number for each arm.

 

When i was coaching I never let a 9,10,or 11 go more then 60 to 70, 12yr old go over 90, I never let a 13 go over 105 - the truth is most of the kids didn't ever hit a top end of the number but one or two that were loose guys did occasionally throw a full number in a game.

 

In fairness there is some disagreement in baseball on pitch counts, Ripken who I believe is fairly respected and seems to have the best interest at heart doesn't even count pitches. They use a rolling 6 which counts innings over games...it doesn't count pitches or days off. I don't think that logic adds up but it is a legit arguement if somebody wants to make it. I would assume some doctor somewhere convinced Cal that the pitch count is overrated. There are also long toss programs out there where kids are throwing a tremendous amount of throws between starts....not sure anyone knows for sure.

 

I had to google that myself. Apparently "soft baseball" is mostly for younger kids in Japan, but some high schools also play it. It dates back to the post WWII when resources were scarce and they played without gloves or other protective gear. Also was a good way to get younger kids playing with minimal equipment.

 

Best I can tell, the ball weighs about 4.75 ounces. I was hoping a very light ball would help explain the crazy pitch count, but no luck. I guess it also promotes pitching to contact, but 700 pitches is 700 pitches. Those pitchers aren't exactly lobbing the ball in either.

 

The mound looks kind of low, but both pitchers land in a huge hole they dug out.

 

And did you notice the crowd... on the 4th day of the game. There must be several 1,000 people there!

 

I also found some commentary that suggests that this game is now the poster-game for changing the pitching culture in Japan. There is at least some faction that believes they need to start looking at western ideas about arm care.

Originally Posted by Midlo Dad:

…You can also watch old films and notice how pitchers pretty much used mixing of pitches to keep guys off balance.  While everyone tried to hit spots, very few guys took the mound with the expectation of pinpoint accuracy.  These days, I can watch any day's "Baseball Tonight" show and see a dozen HR's attributed to a pitcher missing his location by maybe 3-4 inches.  So you're not going to see guys just loosely letting a ball fly.  There is stress over each pitch, and the margin for error is non-existent.  To me that's why you don't see many complete games these days.  It's not because guys aren't strong; they are.  They can hold their velocity through 9 innings, no doubt.  But can they keep pinpoint accuracy after they hit 100 pitches?  Not many, not often.

 

I don't think there's ever been a time when anyone expected a guy to throw 92-95 with pinpoint accuracy for 110 pitches or more.  There was a time when you didn't have to, to complete a game.  Now that you would have to, it's just not done much.  And recognizing the evident frequency of injuries and trying to do something to stave them off is obviously judicious.

 

I can’t believe you haven’t accepted that velocity isn’t a very sound way to judge a pitcher’s fatigue.

 

Actually, the only think I take great issue with is that I’ve never believed any pitcher had pinpoint accuracy in the way people perceive dart throwers as having accuracy. In darts where the thrower is 5 times as close, throwing an aerodynamic projectile not affected by weather, and certainly doesn’t have someone he’s throwing at sending the dart right back at him faster than he threw it, the target will be often be missed by several inches, But for whatever reason, there are a great many who really believe in their hearts that a baseball pitcher can be just as accurate just as often.

 

What I think happens is, it takes such a high degree of precision to throw a ball 50 odd feet with different timing one literally every pitch, as pitchers begin to fatigue, the mechanics of their precision varies more than usual. That wouldn’t be so bad, but the difference of a millisecond in timing or the hand being a quarter inch up, down, in, or out makes one heck of a lot of difference at the plate.

I will admit, they must've been effective to throw 50 shutout innings. Shame on both offenses. Make an adjustment after 15 AB's.

 

Apparently, the starter on the winning team was still fresh as they ran him out there to finish the championship game for another 77 pitches. In 2 games over four days he threw 786 pitches.

 

No matter how you feel about pitch counts, for a HS student in any country that behavior is child abuse.

 

The bats even the BBCOR are better than they were 75-100 years ago.  The milling allows for better refinement of the wood too.  All of it was in the context of the game changing in 1920 following the Black Sox and the live ball being introduced and Babe Ruth starting to hit them out.

 

From that point forward the game was revolutionized for pitchers and they have had to work harder to get batters out with each generation of new players.   

@JH. see you are the real troll here. So instead of disputing that TJ  surgeries are up and  pitched innings are way down, all you got is calling out a troll. Yes. We can see you got credibility. Now enjoy the farewell tour you posted to see who strokes the ego. Later

Prove the causation, we'll all wait while you do, though we won't be holding our breath.

Go find a pitcher today who will throw 300+ innings in a year. Good luck. Now exhale

The last one I can find was Steve Carlton in 1980 who threw 304.  For what it is worth the Innings leaders numbers before that typically ranged from 280 to 325.  In the last 45 it has declined to more like 225 to 250.  Roughly 60-75 less innings a year.

 

5 man rotations knocking 6 or 7 starts out of each frontline starter (33 starts vs 40) and bullpen usage are the obvious reasons.  Pitch counts became an issue long after the trend was established.

 

I wish there was a way to know how many TJ would have been done in the 20's to 70's so there could be an apples to apples discussion of this topic.

I have this continuing problem with discussions of ther being some sort of "epidemic." There was a short discussion last night on mlb tv. I was, at least, happy to hear someone mention the common denominator of late external rotation mechanics. However, there's a logic problem with the whole premise. Everyone involved in this discussion wants to point to an increase in the number of TJ surgeries as proof positive that there is an increase in arm injuries. Logically, this makes no sense. The only thing that an increase in the number of TJ surgeries proves is that there is, indeed, an increase in the number of TJ surgeries. It's even been proven that there is no coorelated increase in the number of days lost to the DL for arm injuries. It is more than anything proof that TJ surgery is more accepted and used earlier and more often than in the past (maybe a positive trend?). Now, it may well be that injuries are on the increase, but this is a weird way of proving it.

 

Additionally, if you accept this line of logic, then you would have to accept the logic that a trend toward decreased innings pitched in the majors and a more focused effort to reduce and limit pitch counts at the youth level has NOT led to fewer injuries, but to MORE injuries. Again, I reject the premise, so I'm not ready to argue that this last statement is my position.

How many have heard of Pete Donohue?  He won 103 games by the time he was 25 and lead the NL in innings pitched in '24 and '25 when he turned 25.  He was done at 31 and never the same after age 25.  Sounds like with a little better care and who knows about TJ he might have been a HOF guy instead of a Reds HOF guy.

 

I found this in 10 minutes of searching.  I'll bet I could find dozens or hundreds more.  Blowing out arms meant nothing in the old days.  Happened all the time and the guys just got tossed to the side.

 

FROM THE REDS HALL OF FAME WEBSITE:   

 

Many baseball historians credit him with the development of the change-up that became an integral part of a pitcher's repertoire. Unfortunately, those seasons of many games pitched damaged Donahue's arm. He was 6-17 in 1927, 7-11 in 1928 and 10-13 in 1929. He labored through his final three seasons, 1930-32, with the Reds, New York Giants, Cleveland Indians and Boston Red Sox, winning only eight games while losing 11 before leaving the Major Leagues for good. His record after 1926 was 31 wins and 51 losses, but his lifetime Major League record was 134 wins, 118 losses, 571 shutouts and 2,112 innings pitched.

 

We pitched nine innings when I pitched. We didn't go five or six innings and get credit for a win.

- Pete Donohue

Tommy John Surgery didn't exist in the good ole days. You can't say TJS is proof that pitch counts and innings limits don't work when that thing literally didn't exist ~40 years ago. Not only that, I don't know how much the UCL needed to be torn to recommend TJS when it first started, while now I think it's ~25%.

I don't think everyone subscribes to that faulty logic (I know I don't). My concern is that elbow and shoulder injuries are happening at most age levels in baseball, and the medical community doesn't appear to have scratched the surface on what precisely is causing them. And they haven't shed much light on why these injuries happen to some and not others, when many appear to be doing the same amount of throwing.

Injuries have always happened and if the discussion were about the fact that we need to address that problem, I'm in. However, every story on this begins with something like, "TJ surgeries are at an all time high," or "Dr. x reports that he is doing more TJ surgeries and he performs TJ operations on increasingly young patients." Then, the word "epidimic" always comes into play. Thw question is always, to me a false one. If the question is, "why, after a hundred years of this, do we not do a better job at protecting arms?" that would be a legitimate question. But it isn't the question we keep hearing. What we hear is "why are arm injury rates increasing?" That question presumes that injury rates are up and it's always based on the same faulty logic concerning surgery rates.

 

By the way, of course TJ surgery rates are up on youth pitchers. Fifteen to twenty years ago, how many parents would have even concidered taking a kid in to a surgeon for a sore arm? That kid would have simply stopped pitching. Today we pay a LOT more attention and are a LOT more likely to seek specialized help.

 

I'm just frustrated that people in the field spend too much time trying to figure out why more pitchers end up injured today than yesterday (based on a false assumption) and less time trying to figure out what the factors are. If you accept the former logic, you spend useless time comparing what pitchers do today compared to what they did in past times when you should be looking at the problem from a biomechanical standpoint.

I agree with your assessment, but I think all of the flawed TJ “analysis” in the media is bringing more attention to the issue and will prompt more real research.

 

MidAtlanticDad, roothog,

 

Very good points which I agree with 100%.

 

Maybe we should consider the great big number of pitchers that are able to return from arm injuries because of things like TJ surgery vs. what happened in the old days. Guess you wouldn't be able to call that an epidemic, though.  

 

BTW it could be said there are many epidemics going on these days.  Laser surgery, hip replacement surgery, knee replacements, heart transplants, people living longer, etc., etc.  Are these all epidemics?  Or do they all pertain to medical advancement?