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Pitch counts and willpower

By Matt DiFilippo
August 1, 2008

I thought about calling this article, "The Devil and Steve Siviski" because Steve Siviski is the one who got me thinking about this. 

Steve Siviski is a college freshman and American Legion pitcher in the town where I live. He's the kind of pitcher baseball people would say is nuts -- in a good way. Last summer, he played quarterback in the state's senior all-star football game, and then threw over 160 pitches in a Legion game the next day.

This past week, Siviski outdid himself. He threw seven innings on Saturday, using just 85 pitches. Three days later, in the game that put his team in the state tournament, Siviski went all nine innings and threw 183 pitches. He'll start again on Sunday, on four days rest. 

To put that in perspective, no major leaguer threw more than 130 pitches in a game last season. This year, it's been done once -- by Ricky Nolasco, who threw 132.

Now, I know there are about a million differences between throwing a lot of pitches in a major league game, and throwing them in a Legion game. The quality of competition, obviously, along with kids starting maybe 15 games a year versus 30-plus. 

Still, there's something I don't understand about modern pitchers. I really don't see a valid reason why there should be any alarm for a starter throwing 140-150 pitches in a game.

There's a poll question on the site about this: "Are today's managers handling their starting pitchers correctly, or are the starters babied too much?" As of Sunday night, 35 of 61 people who answered said the starters were being babied. I'd count myself as one of those 35.

As you probably know, in the 1970s, starters pitched more often and threw more innings. Today's athletes are bigger and stronger, and one would think that conditioning techniques are constantly evolving. Let's put that another way: If conditioning techniques were better in the 1970s, something is definitely wrong. 

Moreover, there are pitchers who threw ridiculous (by today's standards) numbers of pitches and still kept pitching effectively.

Bob Knepper threw 163 pitches in a game in 1979. He was a regular starter for another 10 years. Greg Maddux threw 167 pitches in a game in 1988. He's still pitching today. Yet if Edinson Volquez throws 120 pitches in a game, Dusty Baker is ruining his career. 

I'll tell you what I think has happened. This is one of those ideas that could be completely kooky, even though I've thought about it for a while.

I think starters today are conditioned to believe that they should be throwing fewer pitchers. For years, the mentality was that a starting pitcher should finish what he started. That's not the mentality anymore. 

Today, a pitcher is conditioned to believe that he should be ready to pitch six or seven innings. If he throws well over 100 pitches, he is conditioned to believe that he is making an extraordinary effort.

Psychologically, wouldn't you think that takes a toll? Now, I'm not a Christian Scientist. I don't believe the fatigue and pain from throwing over 100 pitches is all mental. I'm saying that a starter would push himself to go further into the game if that's what he believed he should be doing. Again, this isn't a perfect parallel, but Steve Siviski threw 183 pitches that night because a) he believed he should be in there and b) his team didn't have any better options. 

Side story: Using an old radio broadcast, I recently charted a game in September 1974 when Ross Grimsley went the first 14 innings of a 17-inning victory over the Yankees. Grimsley threw 158 pitches in this game. (Using Tom Tango's pitch estimator, you get 199 pitches for Grimsley. This is a little off, but whatever. The point is, it's a lot of pitches.)

One thing that may explain why pitchers threw more complete games in the 1970s is that the Yankees batters weren't exactly up there to work the count. Grimsley threw 33 first-pitch strikes, and the Yankees swung at 23 of them. In Grimsley's last inning, with 13 innings and almost 150 pitches behind him, Sandy Alomar and Fred Stanley both swung at the first pitch and popped out. 

I think we can state with a pretty good level of confidence that Grimsley would not throw that many innings or pitches today. He would have come out after eight innings and 97 pitches. If not, he would have come out in the ninth. With the score tied 2-2, Grimsley walked the leadoff batter on four pitches. After the next batter bunted, Grimsley walked another batter on four pitches. That put him at 107 pitches, with two on in the ninth inning of a tie game. Today, exit Grimsley, and bring in a reliever who's kicked around with three or four teams.

And here's the other thing. Grimsley started four days later. Against Cleveland. Now, granted the Indians were a decent team that year until doing a 1964 Phillies-level tank in September, but still, that's pretty extreme by today's standards. Grimsley went 8 1/3 innings, and lost 1-0 to Gaylord Perry. 

I don't think starters should go in with the goals of 150-plus pitches and extra innings if the game is tied. I do think starters could average 110-120 pitches in a five-day rotation and still be all right.

But I don't think that will happen. If a manager used his pitchers that way today, the media and fans would go crazy, because they "know" that it's abusing the pitcher's arm. The pitcher would start to buy into this after a while, and believe that he was tired. We can't remove those outside influences and change people's thinking over a period of months. It would take decades, and it would have to be done gradually. 

Obviously, there's a breaking point for how much you can ask a pitcher to do before you're hurting him, and I can see why no one wants to find out by reaching that point. But I think today's pitchers area lot further away from that point than we are led to believe.


 

Matt DiFilippo can be reached at allthings222@fastmail.fm

 
 

COMMENTS (22 Comments, most recent shown first)

vtek88
Dude, right on. Baseball Prospectus talked about this in "Between the Numbers" and completely convinced me. Glad to see some pitchers who can still go the distance though, like Roy Halladay.
2:05 AM Oct 4th
 
jollydodger
The bigger and stronger idea is true...but I don't think tendons and ligaments (ie, joints) have changed. Bigger players put more stress on joints (elbow, shoulder, etc).
Statistics show that pitchers usually have very poor starts following 120+ pitching outings, at least recently.
But the main reason pitchers throw less pitches, innings, etc is that they have to throw high-effort pitches to just about every batter. The slap hitters and .220 middle infielders are gone from lineups today. Now, every position player on a team can hit 20+ HR. More players can hit the long ball and more players are patient, with more value being assigned (discovered?) in taking a walk. Its documented that pitchers from bygone eras would only throw hard or precise to the other team's best 2 or 3 hitters. Pitchers can no longer do this.
1:29 AM Aug 11th
 
3for3
One other factor not mentioned is time. I read a quote by Jim Kaat saying the reason he pitched quickly, was, after a few hours his arm would get tired. Games today go far longer, in addition to the other factors mentioned in this thread.

Danny
12:19 PM Aug 5th
 
evanecurb
This is a very good topic and thanks for bringing it up. Like Richie, I am a consumer, rather than a producer, of studies. Here is what I believe to be the consensus of opinion on these matters:

1. It hurts young pitchers to throw too many pitches in a single start or too many innings in a single season.
2. No one knows for sure how many pitches or how many innings are too many. I have the impression that 100 pitches and 200 innings are believed to be safe limits for most pitchers.
3. Studies show that individual starters are more effective on four days of rest than on three, and that pitching staffs as a whole are more effective using a five man rotation than a four man.
4. Individual pitchers are more effective pitching one or two innings than six or seven innings.

The implication of all of this is that older pitchers can throw more innings and more pitches per start than younger pitchers can, but I have never seen a study to verify this. There is no consensus about the best training methods for pitcher durability. The 1990s-early 2000s Braves are often cited as having a better mousetrap. I believe they pursued a course of lots of running and lots of throwing between starts, but I have no idea if this training regimen would have benefits for all pitchers if broadly applied. I find the pitcher usage patterns of the 1970s to be a fascinating contrast when compared with today's patterns. Teams' top starters pitched more starts, more innings per start and more innings per season than they do now, while "ace" relievers such as Mike Marshall, Bill Campbell, and others pitched over 100 innings per season. I am not sure what the impact of these workloads was on baseball as a whole or on the individual pitchers involved. Perhaps some qualitative research (interviews with the pitchers involved) would help to supplement the quantitative studies that have been done.
My personal, totally biased opinion is that the manner in which pitching staffs are structured should be revised to better take advantage of individual pitchers' characteristics. Whereas the typical staff today has rigidly defined roles for ten pitchers (five starters, one closer, one setup man, 1-2 ('one out" guys, and two "middle relief", my staff would have fewer defined roles. There might be:

Two starters who pitch every fifth day, regardless of how the remainder of the rotation is affected by this pattern. These two pitchers would start between 35 and 38 games each. The third and fourth starters would pitch on five, six, or seven days rest, starting once a week during weeks when their team played five and about five times a month during most of the year, between 28 and 30 starts each. The remaining starts would be taken up by three pitchers who serve as relievers when they are not starting. These "utility" pitchers would be available for middle relief, short relief, or starting assignments, and would pitch between 80 and 120 innings each over the course of a season. The remainder of the staff would be used almost exclusively in relief. The idea behind my staff model is to maximize the number of innings pitched by the best pitchers on the team without overworking them. Here is how the model would look in terms of innings pitched:

Starter 1: 38 starts @7.5 IP/start = 285 IP
Starter 2: 36 starts @7 IP /start = 252 IP
Starter 3: 30 starts @6 IP /start= 180 IP
Starter 4: 26 starts @5.5 IP + 10 Rel. App. @ 2 IP = 163 IP
Util. Pitch 1: 18 starts @5 IP + 20 rel. ap. @ 1.5 IP = 120 IP
Util. Pitch 2: 8 starts @5 IP + 25 Re. ap. @ 2 IP = 90 IP
Util. Pitch 3: 6 starts @ 5 IP + 30 rel. ap. @ 1.5 IP = 75 IP

The model would vary depending on the makeup of the staff. This particular model might be optimal for the 2001-2002 Diamondbacks or any team with a clear number 1 and number 2 with durability.
12:15 PM Aug 5th
 
MattDiFilippo
Yeah, I tried cramming. Problem was I kept thinking :)
6:13 PM Aug 4th
 
Richie
Oh, and if you're self-conscious about doing too many posts in a row, just cram all your thoughts into single big posts like I do. :-)
2:40 PM Aug 4th
 
Richie
250+ innings 153 times over five seasons means 1.25 pitchers per team each season. In other words, the staff ace and seldom anyone else. So yes, the vast majority of starting pitchers did not throw 250+ innings per season.

And to be persnickedty, I associated "heavy innings" with 300 innings, not 250. If hitters see one more pitch per plate appearance now than they did 35 years ago, that would make today's 200 innings about equal to then's 250.

And again, my real issue is 19-year-olds throwing anywhere near to 160 pitches.
2:38 PM Aug 4th
 
MattDiFilippo
Sorry for the third post in a row, but Charles, I did want to say that was a very interesting theory. I think it makes a lot of sense as presented.
11:42 AM Aug 4th
 
MattDiFilippo
C.C. Sabathia threw 241 innings last year to lead the major leagues. From 1970 to '74, pitchers threw 250 innings in a season 153 times in five years. That's way more than a handful.

But your point about quicker innings could very possibly be true. If it is, I still think it's only part of the reason.
11:41 AM Aug 4th
 
MattDiFilippo
I've talked to plenty of people who said they played baseball every day all summer. One guy I talked to said his team even kept stats. Maybe this was more prevalent in Maine because there was less to do. :)
11:34 AM Aug 4th
 
Richie
A mere handful threw heavy innings in the 70s. You're picking and choosing your data points, Matt. Yes, a 4-man rotation coupled with an extra inning a start for the best 1-2 pitchers on a team meant heavier innings. But 300 was not the norm. And I'm confident they were cheaper innings, too. Hitters just didn't work the count then the way they do now. And many more banjo hitters, who you could come in on without much fear.

I was young in the 60s. Nowhere I know of, city or country, did they play baseball every day in the summer. City kids had plenty of things to do in addition to baseball, country kids had work to do. Neither of my parents, one city and one country, spoke of kids playing baseball every day when they were growing up. When we did play, we took turns pitching, so everybody could try having fun at it. I believe it was the same for my parents, too.

We compare innings from other eras because that's what we have, we don't have pitch counts. Leastwise easy access to them. But of course the number of pitches is what matters. How many pitches were Palmer's 300 innings of '69? No doubt less than 300 innings worth of pitches today. but do we have much of an idea how much less?

I believe the top 3 pitchers on MLB teams could and should throw a few more innings than they do, tho' the season now bumping up against November gives me a bit of pause there. I'm aghast - to the extent I get aghast about things baseball - at the notion that a 19-year-old Siviski throws 163 and 180 pitches, and it's seen as somewhere between admirable and "heyyy, no one knows if it's good or bad for the kid. Carroll and Wilton and etc. are just pretending they know."
11:47 PM Aug 3rd
 
rezk42
Matt,

Perhaps there's a selection process happening. Here's the idea: In days of old, 16-18 year olds would pitch 160 pitches every 3 days, especially the most talented ones. A large percentage would get injuries, making them ineffective at a very young age; these pitchers would often never get close too the majors. Some small percentage turn out (because of their inborn physical characteristics) somehow to be able to sustain these kinds of workloads for long periods of time. These would be more likely to keep pitching until they reached the majors, and once there would tend to be durable.

Now that coaches are more careful about young pitchers, the fragile ones don't get weeded out, so you end up with more pitchers at the major league level who can't deal with the high workloads. So the pitchers might be getting individually stronger and better conditioned, but more are reaching the majors who are predisposed to being damaged by heavy work loads.

That's a theory anyway. Don't know how you'd find evidence to support it.
10:34 PM Aug 3rd
 
MattDiFilippo
I don't think a starter should go out and try to throw 180 pitches, or even 160 pitches tomorrow. I'm saying it's very possible the current way of looking at things is the wrong way, and that starting pitchers are shying very far away from their limits.

As to whether 183 pitches is harmful, I don't know for sure, and neither do you. I am sure the same studies you talk about would say Bert Blyleven, Tom Seaver, Jim Palmer et al were suicidal for throwing as many as they did at a young age, if they did so today.

This pre-dates me, but a generation ago, kids grew up playing baseball every day during the summer, and they would play all day. I guarantee you no one was capping the pitchers at 100 pitches or keeping them on a rotation. I'm 100 percent sure kids threw over 200 pitches in a day sometimes.

I talked about this with a college coach recently. He said, "I don't know whether there are so many Tommy John surgeries because kids are throwing too much, or they aren't throwing enough." John himself said that the arm gets STRONGER the more you throw, and said that rest will make the arm feel better, not strengthen it.

Let me ask you, Richie, why do you think pitchers could throw so many innings in the 1970s?
10:22 PM Aug 3rd
 
Richie
Yet Bill did criticize Billy Martin for working his starters too hard, or leastwise linked their pitching lousy in following seasons to Billy's overworking them. What evidence was he basing that 'overworking' on? Has he since backed off from that assessment?

One of Earl's axioms was that young, rookie pitchers start off in long relief. Ergo he so limited their innings.

You also still seem to be agnostic with regard to Siviski's pitch counts. Like, "maybe it's too much, but hey, maybe it's not". The injury guys from Baseball Prospectus and Roto Times massively disagree with that, Craig Wright disagrees with that, your quote from Bill suggests that he disagrees with that. I see it as a very bad thing to be open-minded about. Leads to glory-mad American Legion managers playing Russian roulette with teenagers' arms. Russian roulette with 5 loaded chambers and 1 empty one.
12:34 AM Aug 3rd
 
MattDiFilippo
Was Fidrych an overuse injury? I thought I heard some story that he hurt himself clowning around in spring training the next year.

I thought Cain sued the Tigers because they forced him to come back too soon after an injury (as opposed to a heavy workload at a young age).

I understand your point, though. Lots of young pitchers have collapsed from heavy workloads. Steve Busby is an obvious example (in his case it's been traced to one specific game).
12:21 AM Aug 3rd
 
MattDiFilippo
The correlation I'm trying to get at is that I think today's athletes, being stronger, should be able to handle heavier workloads. I would also think that conditioning and coaching would improve over the years, and allow the teams to assess the situation better and do a better job of preventing overuse injuries. Earl Weaver did a spectacular job of keeping his starters healthy and throwing major innings year after year. Usually, in baseball, when one person or team does something uniquely successful, the other teams figure it out. I'm surprised that didn't even come close to happening in this case.

I'm not saying young pitchers should be throwing 160, 183 pitches. I just find it fascinating that a pitcher in American Legion ball is doing something endurance-wise that we would never see from a professional at any level. It's like saying an NBA team would never run 100 straight "suicide drills," because it could cause injure the player, but that high school players do 120.

Like Jongro says, the trick is quantifying it: Where is that breaking point? None of us know for sure right now.

Also, my point was not just that the young pitchers I mentioned from the 1960s and 70s pitched that much without getting hurt. My point was that it was not at all unusual for pitchers at that time, and we would absolutely NEVER see that today.

Maybe it does indeed make more sense to "baby" the starters, in a sense, especially the young pitchers. I still feel it's very possible we're going too far in that regard.

Bill pointed out in the Historical Abstract that there is little to no evidence to suggest that pitching 300 or so innings in a season was harmful to the starters in the early 1970s. I'd love to find out why that's the case, but yet today's starters have to stop long before that level of workload.
12:01 AM Aug 3rd
 
Richie
I don't see why you believe there should be a correlation between strength + speed and not getting hurt. A stronger + faster Bill competing against a stronger + faster Ted is supposed to reduce injuries exactly how?

I would (very lightly) suggest that stronger and faster means (a very few) more pitching injuries. It becomes more important to throw your very hardest so as to make sure strong fast hitter Ted doesn't knock your pitch into the next county, or go careening around the bases after banging it off the outfield wall. If pitcher Bill is also stronger + faster, well so what? Does him about no good at all.

You seem to be positive on that Siviski kid throwing 160 and 183 pitches. Are you? Your quote from Bill J. suggests that stuff should be "assiduously avoided".

Jongro sums up my position more succintly than I've phrased it anywhere here. Except that I've got more than a gut feeling as to what it would show.
10:38 PM Aug 2nd
 
Jongro
Yes, Koufax, Drysdale, Marichal, Gibson are in the Hall of Fame. But Koufax was done at 30. Drysdale was done at 32. Marichal had his last good season at 33. Gibson lasted longer, but didn't have his first 200-inning season till 25, and didn't go 250 till 27.

Certainly there is anecdotal evidence of pitchers who survived hard work at early ages. There are always outliers.

But there's also anecdotal evidence, your Dick Drotts and Les Cains and Mark Fidryches, of bright stars who were finished much too young.

The trick is quantifying it. Perhaps a start might be to take sets of all pitchers who threw 200-plus innings at age 20, at 21, at 22, and compare their later careers with those who didn't get similar workloads until age 25, 26, 27, etc.

My gut feeling is that you'll find as a whole, younger pitchers are more vulnerable to overwork, and that it's risky to put a big workload on a starter until he's 24 or so.
9:32 PM Aug 2nd
 
MattDiFilippo
The four guys you mentioned (Koufax, Drysdale, Marichal and Gibson) are all in the Hall of Fame. I think that suggests that workload being all right as much as it does being a problem. Are you trying to say these guys would have been better under current conditions? If so, how much better is very open to debate.

Second, Bill also said the following things:

"Craig (Wright)'s original work, I believe, suggests that pitch counts of 130 to 150 may be perfectly OK for mature pitchers with no history of impingement syndrome, but that they should be assiduously avoided for immature pitchers, and for certain other "vulnerable" pitchers. That still sounds very reasonable to me."

"Most injuries to pitchers are not the result of chronic overuse; some are, particularly to young pitchers, but most are not. ... Backing away from the pitcher's limits too far doesn't make a pitcher less vulnerable; it makes him more vulnerable. And pushing the envelope, while it may lead to a catastrophic event, is more likely to enhance the pitcher's durability than to destroy it."

This is me again. As to the studies Will Carroll and others cite that they young pitchers will get hurt if they throw "heavy innings" -- I'm guessing these are recent studies. But look at the pitchers from the late 60s-early 70s.

Jim Palmer threw 305 innings (plus 25 more in the playoffs) at age 24.
Ferguson Jenkins threw 289 innings at age 23.
Bert Blyleven threw 278 innings at age 20, 287 at age 21 and 325 at age 22.
Tom Seaver threw 278 innings at age 23.

None of today's young pitchers are throwing anything like that many innings, but the studies you mention say they'll get hurt anyway. That's my question -- Why? Shouldn't today's pitchers be able to throw MORE without getting hurt. Today's athletes are stronger and can run faster than ever before. But the pitchers get hurt easier? It doesn't make sense.

(Oh, and you mentioned Gooden and Gary Nolan. I think Gooden's drug addiction had something to do with him falling so fast. Johnny Bench said Nolan would get pumped on amphetamines before he pitched, so much that he would be talking nonsense. So other factors besides overuse may have caused their injuries.)

8:40 PM Aug 2nd
 
Richie
Bill on this site, offering a defense for carrying 11+ pitchers, said it's been shown that many/most major league pitchers are clearly more effective throwing an inning at a time. From his research of 20+ years ago he concluded that Billy Martin was overworking his starters, predicted those pitchers would thus fall apart, and they did.

Will Carroll (Baseball Prospectus, along with the whole staff thereof) cites studies showing young pitchers should not be throwing heavy innings. If they do, they get hurt. The Roto Times injury guy (forget his name, maybe it's Rick Wilton) says likewise. I'm a consumer rather than producer of such studies, so no I can't cite them by name, but I thought it was clear in baseball research that young pitchers should not be throwing heavy innings.

All the he-men of the 60s - Gibson, Marichal, Drysdale, Koufax - none of them lasted long enough to win 300 games. None of them came close. Gibson tops at 251.

Matt, you don't 'attitude' your way past a sore arm.
6:25 PM Aug 2nd
 
MattDiFilippo
Richie,

Thanks for reading and commenting.

I don't think there is an a definitive way to determine the best way for using starting pitchers, or to determine how many pitches a teenager should be throwing. The best way would be to take hundreds of sets of players with equal ability, and then have them throw various numbers of pitches. But how do you prove that they started with equal ability? And how do you account for the other factors which could lead to injury and loss of effectiveness.

My point was not that I have any answers, or that I have presented hard or even strong evidence that I am correct. My goal in writing this article was to further the discussion, and come closer to finding out the answers to the questions I asked. Why ARE today's starters throwing fewer pitches, when they pitch less often?

Of course, if I didn't make my goal clear in the article, the onus lies on me as the writer. If you'd like to throw some evidence out there to support your opinion, I'm all ears (or eyes in this case).


4:22 PM Aug 2nd
 
Richie
You've presented nothing but anecdotal evidence in this article, which is to say you've really presented no evidence in this article. My understanding is that the research evidence is overwhelming 19-year-olds shouldn't be throwing 110 pitches, never mind 183.

Why is it that the best 20-year-old hitters become the best all-time hitters, but the best 20-year-old pitchers become the Gary Nolans and Doc Goodens of baseball history? Is it not proven that pitchers are more effective throwing 1-2 innings at a time than they are your manly 9-innings at a time?

My idiosyncratic opinion is that teams should go with 4-day starting rotations, with their best 3 starters throwing 40+ games a year of 5-6 innings apiece. But I wouldn't toss that out there as anything more than my idiosyncratic opinion, not without first bothering to dig up some honest-to-gosh evidence supporting it. You're arguing the 'flat earth' position, and you're defending it with an unloaded gun.
11:39 AM Aug 2nd
 
 
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