Worst news of the season
DMZ · August 24, 2005 at 8:19 am · Filed Under Mariners
Hargrove is concerned about protecting Felix. His idea of what that entails, though… from the PI:
“At this point, we’re probably looking at a 170 (cumulative) innings,” Hargrove said. “We’re still going to watch his pitch count; we won’t want him to go over 120, 125 pitches. But no matter what, he’s not going to reach the (maximum) innings.”
120, 125 pitches an outing for a 19-year old running up on his inning limit is crazy. If he hits 120 at any point this season Hargrove should be fired for negligence before pitch 121.
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158 Responses to “Worst news of the season”
As for the game vs. the Twins at Safeco, he didn’t look tired to me at the end either.
‘Way back around 120. Frozenropers said: August 24th, 2005 at 3:10 PM Would be interesting to see where a guy like Roger Clemens falls into the studies. One would assume at the extreme other end of the pitch count studies as he’s been one it seems like, has had a lot of high pitch count games in his career, yet managed to avoid any major injury over the course of a long career.
Clemens was originally drafted out of high school by the Mets, but did not sign. He had a short pitching career at the University of Texas at Austin (Longhorns) between 1982 and 1983 with a W-L record of 25-7, and signed with the Red Sox after being drafted.
Later in 1984 Clemens pitched a total of 81 ADDITIONAL innings in the Red Sox low minor leagues. He debuted for the Red Sox at age 21 in 1984, pitching in 21 games (4.32 ERA) with a total of 133+ innings, after pitching 39 innings at Triple-A Pawtucket.
To quote a passage at http://www.baseballlibrary.com, “He finished the 1985 season 9-4, but shoulder troubles limited him to a disappointing 15 starts and he was forced to undergo surgery on August 30.” Of course he turned around in 1986 and finished the season 24-4 with a 2.48 ERA, winning the Cy Young, AL MVP, and All-Star Game MVP that year.
He had shoulder problems again in 1990, but was able to start 31 games, and in 1993 was on the DL twice, but able to start 29 games. He started 24 games in the strike year 1994. Clemens started the 1995 season on the DL (this is where Red Sox fans got the idea he was “out of shape”). He started only 23 games that year. Clemens didn’t land on the DL again until his first year with the Yanks, 1999.
Thanks for the info Karen…….so how many innings did Clemens actually pitch in 1984? Was it 81 + 133 in the majors for a total of 214?
That paragraph doesn’t make sense. He didn’t pitch 81 innings in the low minors during 2004, then pitch 39 innings at AAA plus another 133+ innings in the majors that year did he? For a total of 253 innings at the age of 21?
Anyone know what type of shoulder injury Clemens has surgery for in 1985? As that seems to be the only real injury he’s had that required surgery during his whole professional career. Of which he only missed half a season and followed the surgery up by winning the Cy Young the following year.
Looks like you mis-translated some of your information there Karen.
Those 81 innings Clemens pitched in the “low minors” was during 1983, not 1984 and the majority (52 innings) were actually at AA.
So his innings pitched in his professional career looks something like this……
1983 – 81 innings of pro ball (not sure what his college innings were that year)
1984 – 172 innings split between AAA and the majors.
1985 – 98 innings (season ends on August 30th with surgery)
1986 – 254 innings
1987 – 281 innings
1988 – 264 innings
1989 – 253 innings
1990 – 228 innings
1991 – 271 innings
….and the guy hasn’t made less than 24 starts in a season since. Would be interesting to see what kind of pitch counts he threw during some of those games during his early years. I’d bet they ran ’em hard those days.
This is way up there in the post and no one is probably reading this anymore, but this will make me feel better.
The stats lead us to believe that high pitch counts lead to worse starts the next time. I don’t think its the high pitch count that makes the pitcher worse next time. Remember, correlation does not mean causation, which is often confused on this board. If you have a high pitch count, it means you are probably pitching very well or better than your average start. Your next outing is likely to be more averge, or in other words, worse than your previous start. Its really just a reversion to the mean.
If anyone (DMZ or Dave) reads this and responds, it will make my night. Otherwise, I’ll just revel in my theory all alone.
That’s a thought, and it’s true that people are variation and not steady number generators.
But that’s not the case even with pitchers who are really good and can fairly consistently throw that many pitches without risking the game if their managers let them. If you shut them down at 100, you get a start of relative qualty A next time. 110, B, and so on.
Or, to put this another way, if you have SuperAce, and he throws 140 pitches, his next start won’t be normal SuperAce, it’ll be more Ryan Franklin-like.
Yes, thanks for making my night DMZ! That’s an interesting theory. Assuming that’s true: if I’m the manager I only let my guy pitch more than 100 or 110 if the game is very close, he is pitching very well, and the game is very important (pennant race).
If all of those scenerios aren’t in effect, managers should shut down their pitchers. This was a good discussion, thanks everyone.
My estimate for the number of pitches thrown by Clemens, and a few others can be found here:
http://www.tangotiger.net/pitchCounts.html
It also includes a column for actual pitches thrown by Koufax.
(Age is calculated as year minus birthYear)