but the title excites me.

Verlander …who must by now have nightmares featuring beautiful, naked women who turn into Fredbird mid coitus.

RB, you don’t know how disturbing that image is!!

From the Detroit News:

By [Verlander’s] own admission, the first inning, in which he faced eight batters, wore him out.

“I was exhausted,” Verlander said. “I’d never been like that before. I don’t know what it was. Maybe the humidity. Towards the end of the first inning, I was gassed.”

But there is one factor that just cannot be accounted for. Every individual is wired differently. There are some people who “like” the pressure. They may even thrive on it. These are often the closers, men who eat the ninth inning like a bowl full of yummy pasta.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are your post-traumatic stress disorder types, who break like eggshells the second the wheels come off.

And then you have all sorts of odd social flavors. Where would you put a man like Zambrano, who bulldozes the opposition, but can flip a switch and go on “tilt” if he feels like he’s being shown up?

Bottom Line: the human “X” factor cannot be measured. Some people actually NEED pressure and perform better because of it. Others crumble like a house of cards.

There has been quite a bit of discussion on this lately, so here are some links from other sources.

Sky at BtB has tried to compile links to various articles: Pitch Count Theories

Tom Tango was discussing the same article by Poz yesterday: The Magic of 100 pitches is new?

I won’t try to summarize all of them but what I take from them is that it doesn’t have any effect of the present but can extend the length of a pitchers career.

Lots of people make this argument, but it doesn’t hold up if you understand adolescent physiology. Kids under the age of 16 generally have an open growth plate in their elbow at the Medial Epicondyle. The ONLY way to prevent an avulsion fracture or the premature closing of that growth plate is to limit overuse.

I have talked to stress experts like Dr. Robert Sapolksy of Stanford and he agrees that all pitches aren’t created equal; a pitch thrown in a high pressure, competitive game situation is likely to be more damaging than one throw in a sandlot game.

So I think part of the solution is limit the number of organized games that kids play.

Throwing a large number of pitches in one inning is much more stressful than a similar number spread out.

I think this is valid.

Throwing with men on base is more stressful than throwing with bases empty.

I think this is valid.

One reason is that you are more likely to develop a timing problem due to the need to get to the plate faster in order to prevent steals.

Pitching with men in scoring position is even more stressful.

I think this is valid.

Breaking balls are more stressful than fastballs and changeups.

I think this is true for sliders and cutters but not for curveballs.

Easy innings are less taxing in general, and allow a pitcher to get into a rhythm.

I think this is valid.

You might be able to build up a per-inning or per-appearance WHIP and multiply that by some stress factor.

However, as I think about it I’m not sure how much you would get out of that. I’m pretty sure that Mark Prior would put up consistently good WHIPs. His problem is mechanical, but overuse probably accelerated his breakdown.

I also know that Francisco Liriano was putting up absolutely historic WHIP numbers and other ratios right before his injury. His problem is that he was a fastball/slider pitcher. The same thing was true of Kerry Wood before his injury.

to pat myself on the back.

I’m calling it now Duncan will go yard tonight, earning himself almost daily playing time, deservadely(no idea how the heck that is spelled, or if it’s even a word) or not
by STLRegalia on Jun 16, 2009 3:28 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

How does one whale on a pitcher? Do you throw the large beasts toward the mound? Do you grab the tail fin and swing the creature soundly, hitting the baseball out of the park? Or do you simply fire harpoons at the hurler, hoping to extract ambergris from his exploited remains (assuming you are claiming aboriginal rights to do so legally)?

[/silly rant on misused words]

I think there are relief pitchers that only throw out of the stretch, thus this could possibly be changed to “Any pitch thrown with a runner on base is doubled.” If we’re only talking starting pitchers, then this does not matter nearly so much.

link. It’s a detailed FAQ and breakdown of all the nuances of PAP, including a lot of discussion about tangential topics that aren’t exactly quantifiable. Tons, tons, tons of info there that touch on a lot of what RB has mentioned here and the BP team’s take on it.

/fixed

Isn’t Tony’s thing not that high-pitch counts are necessarily bad, but that each time a pitcher goes through a lineup again batters do exponentially better. You know, the fourth time you see the same pitcher you are much more comfortable hitting him. So for him it is less about protecting the pitcher’s arm and more about going with his typical 7th, 8th, and 9th inning relievers.

I know that whole relationship is endogenous (pitchers who face a batter the 4th time by the 7th have obviously been knocked around a bit more than pitchers who face the minimum) but the stats I’ve seen show it to be true.

Has the BP group or others made a firm distinction between pitch counts and batters faced and their relationships with in-game performance? It’s just another reason for low pitch counts.

and I don’t know what effect this has had on pitchers or position players, but I do know that baseball up until sometime in the early eighties outlawed weights from training rooms and discouraged players from using weights at all, believing that it caused a player to become “muscle bound” a term you hear seldom used today but meaning it caused loss of flexibility of the body and therefore more prone to muscle injury.

This makes sense to me especially for pitchers. I think pitchers should run and excercise a lot and not mess with weights.

Also, I can remember when teams discouraged and in some cases outlawed players playing golf during baseball season, with the belief that it messed up a hitter’s timing. I don’t know where that is true or not but a lot of baseball people believed it.

Comments a thoughts welcome. I’m sure I got something off base here and this needs some tweaking:

S = (r + 2b) (1+ m) + ([(r+2b)^2].5) / |L| + 1

S refers to pitcher stress r refers to regular pitches (fastballs and changeups)
b refers to breaking pitches
m refers to MISP
L refers to the lead at the time of the pitch

The absolute value of L + 1 captures the idea that in games where the pitcher is far ahead or far behind in runs he is going to be under a less stressful situation. Tie games will be most stressful (L would be zero).

([(r+2b)^2].5) — half the squared number of regular plus twice the number of breaking pitches — captures the idea that pitches will have an additive but non linear fatigue effect. This term probably needs some work (as it’s seems pretty messy to me). Some of you math and stats nerds should chime in.

Hopefully this formula is a start. Or maybe it’s total crop. But it was a way from me to drink coffee for a few minutes and not work.

This is from Gordon today:

“Fans keep dwelling on big-picture concerns for this franchise, such as whether Pujols will walk as a free agent 2 ½ years from now.

But it’s the little things -– like one great at bat at such a critical juncture -– that can make all the difference in this sport."

Really? I thought it was Bernie Miklasz and Brian Burwell who were “dwelling” on whether Pujols will walk. Are they the “fans” you are referring to? And is he really suggesting that if Pujols does walk in 2.5 years that the Cards will be okay as long as Yadi takes good at bats at critical junctures? This is just a terrible piece of writing.

And circling back to the topic at hand — Did folks see the story about the UT closer who pitched 13 innings in relief a couple of weeks ago, 12 1/3 of which he no-hit the other team. He threw 169 pitches. Pretty amazing performance. I think he was drafted in the 4th or 5th round.

I missed the game last night and was shocked to see the Cards won 11-2. As i checked the box score I expected to see 3 or possibly even 4 HR’s from Pujols.

How else could we score 11 runs?

in a gasoline suit, I’d consider it.

He seems to be in a terrible mood and is acting like a complete asshole most of the time. I don’t remember him being this negative in years past.

Marsupials do.

Because their fast.

RB, I should start by saying I like your hypothesis and I like the way you’re thinking about it.

My concern is that you may end up measuring an effect rather than a cause of pitcher injury. Most pitching injuries – in my understanding, which is somewhat rudimentary – begin gradually and end with a pop. A labrum starts fraying, a ligament gets tighter and thinner, etc., with every pitch the pitcher makes.

So, if a pitcher has a lurking injury, like an elbow ligament that has grown thin and tight and rubs against bone in the pitcher’s mechanics, this lurking injury could damage his control leading to . . . more walks, more big innings, and more “high-stress” outings. Then, some time later – three weeks, ten months, whatever – his ligament would give way with a pop and he’d have a season-ending surgery.

If we used your theory on this imaginary pitcher, we’d seem to affirm your hypothesis. However, what is really going on is not that the pitcher got injured because he threw high-stress innings, but he threw high-stress innings because he was injured.

I have no idea how you sort out these problems. I wish I had a better idea. Conversely, there are clearly pitchers who are doing just fine who just have a crap outing. And those high-stress outings probably do have a negative effect on pitchers. I just don’t know how you prevent the pitchers with lurking injuries from the pitchers who merely have a bad day.

the mound a couple of inches cut down on pitcher injuries?

and hopefully their plate discipline last night will be emulated going forward… it’s as if there was a big talk, like we had hoped. Tony going from his be agressive at the plate to a more patient mantra. I just don’t want to see us go into an offensive draught for 4 or 5 games because we scored all the runs last night… which is something we’ve been doing the last few seasons.

I texted this to Tackle Box last night, this season is so weird that Wellemeyer will pitch a complete game shut out tonight. Just hoping for a “quality start” however.

If you really want to see if their is any correlation. Is compile data between hurt and non hurt pitchers than look for patterns to separate them.

How many guys did we draft again?

I haven’t read any comment because I’m working and only have so much procrastination time, so I apologize if this has already been suggested.

But maybe after a certain number of pitches (15 or so?) you could multiply the pitches.

Example:
First 15 pitches just count as 15 points.
For the 16th pitch, multiply the 15 points by 1.1 = 16.5
For the 17th pitch, multiply 16.5 × 1.1 = 18.15
Then repeat until the end of the inning.

Those numbers are just an example, but I think the concept could be useful. Maybe moreso for individual plate appearances, or pitches with runners on base, etc.

not just last night in the FL series as well. mostly certain individuals been having good abs..even the other night in a loss several guys worked the count and got the rook from CLE out…one problem they waited til the 8th inningg i think..the difference yesterday is that they were having scrappy abs in the early innnings…

i think this is some hope maybe at least we arent seeing the Xbox 360 7 pitch inning

Here’s the thing…the concept of rigidly adhering to a pitch count isn’t necessarily the best idea. However, I remember reading an SI article from like 2003 or 2004 about The Cubs Boy Band of Dusty, Larry (Rothschild), Mark, Kerry, and Carlos and how Dusty and Rothschild basically tossed their middle fingers at pitch counts. I think we all know what happened to Kerry and Mark. I think they would have broken eventually because they both have, IMO, inefficient deliveries and, well, they’re pitchers and pitchers break. But I can’t shake the feeling that being abused to no end by Dusty in his campaign to prove that baseball is played by men and stats and research is dumb and so on played a significant role in the Kerry Wood/Mark Prior Greek tragedy (Woodtigone Prioristeia?)

after meeting with him, per Joe Strauss.

I can only imagine how having this meeting and then being rejected would effect Greene’s anxiety issues.

It was basically the survival of the fittest arms. Guys that didn’t have rubber arms burned out after a few years in the minors. And even upon making it to the majors, short careers were the norm (8-10 years), not long ones.

I don’t think arm injuries are more prevalent than they work. Look at a roster of any old time team, chances are good at least one of the starters had a freakishly short career (and the rest 8-10 years).

Look at the Cardinals in the 30s. Dizzy Dean’s career was cut short as we know, but what about his brother, Paul? He had 2 great years with the Cardinals, then basically his career was over at age of 23…(he played a few years more, but very sparingly and not effectively)

Couldn’t downtime between pitches thrown be a factor as well?

Examples:
Length of time on the bench between innings
If the Cardinals put up 6 runs in an inning and the SP sits on the bench for 20-30 minutes between innings, does the “warmed up” factor go away, creating the potential for injuries since he is no longer stretched and ready? I know they get warm up pitched before each inning, but the different between resting for 5 minutes and 30 minutes could be a big factor, especially after all of the pre-game warm ups, and even in the days leading up to a start. Muscles perform best when they’re stretched and warm.

Rain delays
Same as above, but exaggerated even more. Without looking at numbers, it seems like pitchers who return after a delay see wild variations on their ability to pitch successfully. Then again, it would be hard to determine if this is caused by pitcher downtime or the opposing hitter’s downtime, since both are delayed equally.

1. of days rest*
   This is taking it to the extreme, and i know that articles have been written about four-day rest vs. five-day rest, but have these studies been tied to injury risk? (If they have, post a link. I’m interested.)

Maybe this should be studied as a separate project, but it seems like the timing of innings could be a factor just like the number of pitches thrown.

I just saw that Joe Maddon picked Trey Hillman and Don Wakamatsu as his All Star Game Coaches. Little guy sticking up for the little guys I guess. Good for him.

I was just looking at the standing and the parity of the NL. 13 of the 16 teams right now are in a playoff spot or no further away than 4.5 games away from one. The Cardinals currently lead the Wild Card race. So with every Cardinal win we separate our self farther from the pack and with every loss they get closer.

If we get hot and start winning than they will say we don’t need to trade for anyone. If we start to lose more than no one will deal to us since they are still in the playoff hunt.

I just pray we get lucky and hot at the right time.

after a little small ball, 1st & 3rd 1 out bunt single

I just don’t think it is even in my Top 100 favorite movies. It is a good looking movie but I just didn’t like the character’s at all in the movie.

1. Schumaker 2B
2. Rasmus CF
3. Pujols 1B
4. Duncan LF
5. Ludwick RF
6. Molina C
7. Thurston 3B
8. Wellemeyer P
9. T.Greene SS

likely as not nobody will see this now, late as I am to the party.

But something to keep in mind for your system is fielding the position as well. Comebackers, infield pop-ups, dribblers & Baltimore Chops, but above all the much-maligned bunt all force the pitcher to get out of the comfort zone and move around. He has to back up plays at the plate, etc. The more runners are getting on, the more of this stuff is happening, further taxing the pitcher physically as well as mentally.

A pitcher who has a really awful follow through, falling off the mound and what not, is IMHO vulnerable to a team that is skilled at bunting and can get several pushed back in the pitcher’s direction, away from the charging 1B & 3B.

So that my reply to questions about what work I have done for whom and with whom doesn’t get lost in the shuffle, I’ll re-post it here…

During the 2007 season I did some free consulting for a cross checker for the Mets. I looked at 30 or so of his top pitching prospects, including David Kopp. I was bummed the Mets didn’t get Kopp (the Cards took him 2 picks before the Mets were about to take him), but I was glad the Cardinals did. I did some work for the same guy in the early part of the 2008 season, but we parted ways half way through the season when he tried to dramatically increase what he asked of me and never lived up to promises he had made to start paying me for my time. We also don’t see eye to eye when it comes to hitting.

Most people assume my contacts are all with the Cardinals, but most of the people I know are with other organizations.

My highest-level hitting client is a guy named Andres Torres, who is the Giants’ fifth outfielder. What I did with him was help him move from linear (Ichiro) to rotational hitting mechanics, with Pujols as his new model. I helped him understand what Pujols did and why. Andres is a very gifted athlete and has dramatically improved his numbers, and in particular his power numbers. He also had an insane Spring Training. Two days ago he hit a bomb into McCovery Cove in SF.

http://sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com/media/video.jsp?content_id=5064441&c_id=sf