Take a chance on Thor?

[MFS62]

I don't know how it factors into the current situation, but I recall on those 8 man staffs, the starters would throw in he bullpen two days after their start to "get loose". And if needed, they would pitch in relief that day. IIRC, pitchers did that several times in the 50's and 60s. (Mel Stottlemyre even got a save and Juan Marichal got a save against the Mets)



I don't know if today's pitchers have the same off- start throwing schedule, but if they came into some games it might ease the strain on the bullpen.



Later

[roger_that]

Thank you for that insight. Pitchers last about 15 minutes between career-ending injuries, and MLB is breaking their own arms patting themselves on the back on the fantastic way they're protecting pitchers' arms. Crazy.



Who the hell changed my avatar, btw? Looks nothing like me.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy MD wrote: But ... maybe they should. With no data to cite (currently at hand, anyhow), my strong impression is that all the conservation of usage isn't sparing these guys the injuries.

That's a quantity v. quality issue. They're conserving innings pitched but throwing way harder and more often. Hence, the injuries.Theyre like cars. You drive a car at an average speed of 80MPH, it'll be in the shop more often than if you drove it more but slower.



I wouldn't harbor expectations of what pitchers today should or could do based on how they pitched 45 or 50 or 60 years ago. That game is gone. As gone as the dead-ball era.

[Edgy MD]

Yeah, I know they are throwing way harder and more often. And I'm suggesting there's probably an upside to not doing that.



The funny thing about baseball history is that, despite pitchers pitching vastly different workloads, going from pitching nearly every game to every other game to, ultimately, every fifth game, as time progressed, 300-game winners and 200-game winners are mostly distributed evenly across eras ... until now.



Amos Rusie threw about 3700 innings and won about 250 games across 10 years. A hundred years later, Jack Morris did about the same, but it took him 18 seasons. And any number of people did about the same despite wildly different eras and philosophical approaches and workloads. We can look at an all-time list and see these two guys more or less side by side.



If every single pitcher who comes along who might be better than either of them* can no longer approach those numbers, as they have all through baseball history, neither the pitchers nor the game is being well served. And a smart team might do well to look at that and philosophically zag as everyone else is zigging.



* Both, I think represent something near the back end of the roster of Hall of Fame starting pitchers.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy MD wrote: Yeah, I know they are throwing way harder and more often.

Remember how much Nolan Ryan stood out with his 100MPH fastball? There are at least 20, maybe 30 pitchers today who can throw as hard if not harder than Ryan did.

[Edgy MD]

I understand that. Although there are a folks now arguing that Ryan's fastball was faster than the technology of the time suggested, I certainly understand that.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy MD wrote: I understand that.

I know. Just wanted to get that out, though. It's a good point. Ryan was obviously special in that he could throw his high heat all game long. And for decades. I don't think he ever sustained a major injury. Remarkable. If I remember, I think the worst "injury" problems he suffered were over his recurring blisters in the late 60s as a Met.

[Edgy MD]

I just find it remarkable that we're going to be asked to seriously consider Stephen Strassburg's career for the Hall of Fame a decade from now, because despite his underwhelming case, the state of starting pitching in this era is such a blood bath that virtually none are able to exceed his case. And if we don't intentionally change the way we approach things, few or none will appear going forward.



Either that, or we'll end up going back in time and elevating cases from decades before that suddenly shine more brightly. Eddie Whitehill. Joe Niekro. Luis Tiant. Kenny Rogers.



Perhaps both.



Putting aside the league-wide philosophy, I just can't look at the record of the Mets with the pitching staff they had in the generation of 2015 and say that they did everything as intelligently as they could have. And I want the Mets to be smarter than everybody else.

[Benjamin Grimm]

In 2022, the only Met who pitched enough innings to qualify for the ERA title was Chris Bassitt. There was only one in 2021: Marcus Stroman. In 2020, it was only Jacob deGrom. This year, only Kodai Senga has a reasonable chance. If this trend continues, there may come a season where nobody in the league qualifies. I'm certainly expecting a year when no Met qualifies. It may even be this year.

[batmagadanleadoff]

There's talk of lowering the IP threshold to qualify for the ERA title and other rate stat titles, recognizing that starters' IP's are down and continuing to trend in that direction.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I hadn't heard about that, but it makes sense. Maybe 120 (or three quarters of games played) would be reasonable?

[Edgy MD]

That would strike me as backwards thinking.



But I'm sure MLB would tell me over and over again that they asked me and I demanded it.

[roger_that]

Maybe they should just award the title to any pitcher who throws a 9 inning shutout. If two manage that feat, they can share the honor.

[Frayed Knot]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I hadn't heard about that, but it makes sense. Maybe 120 (or three quarters of games played) would be reasonable?

Gary has brought it up a couple of times though it's wasn't clear (or I don't recall) whether it was just him ruminating on the subject or if he was talking about an ongoing discussion within MLB.

[MFS62]

Where do you draw the line with reducing the requirements for an league leadership?

Are they going to drop the plate appearance minimum and retroactively award the batting title to Hurricane Hazle for hitting .403 in 155 PA in 1957?

Of course they shouldn't. And wouldn't.

The game has changed, but since they still (for now) play 162 of them, I'm against reducing any standards.



SABR members, has this (the reduction of requirements)come up for discussion? (Posted while FK was posting)



Later

[dgwphotography]

When did pitchers stop running in the outfield before games? Maybe they should stop going max effort every pitch, and learn to actually change speeds and keep hitters off balance.

[batmagadanleadoff]

One of the factors at play here putting stress on pitchers, (among many others) is that today's hitters are simply better than their predecessors. They have access to more and better information and foods and vitamins, and so they can train better. And they're motivated to train better and longer and to start earlier because a player today who can establish himself as a regular everyday playing player will likely earn anywhere from 20 or 30 million dollars to hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of his baseball career. They just know more stuff today. Just like your typical 10 year old today probably knows way more about sex than we did when we were 20. I remember watching Reggie Jackson play live and in real-time and thinking to myself that he was some kind of a behemoth. But he doesn't look much bigger, if at all, than today's typical second basemen.

Edited August 30, 2023 by Guest

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

There would be nothing stopping a club, if it felt like, to select pitchers based on something other than velocity.



But hitters might have something to say about how sensible it is.

[Frayed Knot]

Two biggest factors in the changes in pitcher usage (IMO of course).



- hitters are better and especially bigger

Seaver et al regularly faced 165 lb middle infielders and other 'bat control' types or defensive specialists, who, for the most part, they KNEW couldn't

hurt them so, unless a base hit was going to beat you there, it was easy to switch to pitch-to-contact mode while saving bullets for later.

Today we see 215 lb middle IFs who can take a hurler out of the park to the oppo field so in-game 'resting' is less of an option.



- pitchers are better also!

this has the effect of narrowing the talent gap between your top starters and the guys in the pen. So when your childhood starters, certainly the top

three anyway, were facing a lineup the 3rd or 4th time around it's likely that, even somewhat fatigued, they were still a better bet in the 7th or 8th

innings than all but maybe your ace reliever. The result is starters in the game longer to pick up more decisions thanks in part to lower pitch counts

containing fewer max-out ABs.





If teams could find more guys who could pitch you a 'Maddux' (CG w/< 100 pitches) then, great.

Good luck with that.

[Edgy MD]

I'm not sure I agree with that.



If all that's going on is that hitters are better and pitchers are better, then we wouldn't have such a grossly detectable change. It'd be largely a standoff.



What has happened is the game is played more at the extremes — more homers, more strikeouts, more walks, more hit-batsmen. More hard outs, fewer soft hits. But the worst hitters — even if their bodies are a different shape and their failures are executed differently — are still the worst hitters by a similar margin. They're just palookas who go .180 / .250 / .360 / .610 instead of slappers who go .240 / .315 / .305 / .610.



I'm not asking for Greg Maddux or anybody's childhood starters. I'm asking for teams to reconsider how they're deploying their effective pitchers — using them less than ever but seemingly breaking them more frequently. Mostly, I'm asking that of my team.

[Frayed Knot]

btw, all this comes on the heels of SF's 35 y/o Alex Cobb's near-no-hitter Tuesday night.

He lost it with one out in the 9th but stayed in to finish the game with six additional pitches

which brought him to 131 overall, tied for the most in MLB over the last five seasons.

[ashie62]

Why chase thor? He's finished. Start fresh

[ashie62]

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: They didn't throw 98 mph fastballs and 90+ mph sliders in the 1950s.

Feller did

[Frayed Knot]

None of us here are old enough to have seen Feller, but my guess is that he didn't throw those speeds as often as today's pitchers do.

[Edgy MD]

=ashie62 post_id=136339 time=1693438856 user_id=90]
Why chase thor? He's finished. Start fresh

[Fman99]

Somehow I lived 50 years without knowing who Amos Rusie was

[Edgy MD]

The Hoosier Thunderbolt!

[roger_that]

Who's your thunderbolt?



Who's your Thor?



Who's your daddy?

[whippoorwill]

=Fman99 post_id=136350 time=1693442580 user_id=86]
Somehow I lived 50 years without knowing who Amos Rusie was

[Edgy MD]

[fimg=600]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FOIU93lXMBgl3Pn.jpg[/fimg]