A New Era of Pitching

One of my most frequent readers made an interesting point on Wednesday regarding the coddling of pitchers and the idea of a six man rotation. Baseball is changing, constantly. It's a train that appears to be at a standstill, but if you wait long enough, you'll realize you're at a new depot and didn't even get a chance to look at the scenery. That pretty much describes today's change in pitching philosophy and care.

Just to get a gauge of how insanely different pitchers of this era are to the old days, at the age of 22, Babe Ruth pitched 326.3 innings (Mickey Lolich of the Detroit Tigers pitched 376 innings in 1971 for the Tigers. Holy crap) for a damn good Boston team, starting 41 games, winning 24 of them and amassing a healthy 2.01 ERA. 35 of those, were complete games. Yes, COMPLETE games, though the Babe stopped pitching two years later. Last year, Dontrelle Willis started the most games of any one with 35, and Roy Halladay pitched the most complete games with 7, and the next guy beyond him has 4. Are these guys weak? Or has the game itself changed?

Well, a little bit of both in my book. Guys throw harder now, and they throw a lot more junk, but the counter argument is that we know a lot more about physiology now. Guys know how to recuperate faster and have state of the art equipment to accelerate the healing process, rather then just beer, cigarettes and the ice you kept the beer in. But there's a counter argument, and his name is Nolan Ryan, but don't worry, I'll look at others too.

Nolan Ryan had a 27 year career in the bigs, carrying a sub 4.00 ERA in every single year, but one, which was his last. All in all, he pitched in 5,386 innings, appearing in 807 games, threw 222 complete games and 61 shutouts. Now, Nolan Ryan throws straight gas, and you can't deny that. He's a Hall of Famer, so people can call him an anomaly if they want, but Ryan pitched for over 270 innings five times in his career, over 300 innings twice, however, he still managed a 27 year career, with injuries scattered about in there as age and the innings increased. The argument starts to get a little clearer for innings limit around 1973-1975. In '73 and '74, Nolan Ryan pitched 326 and 332.2 innings respectively. He followed this with 198 innings in 1975, which I'm sad to say, I don't know why, but Ryan only pitched in 28 games, so injury was clearly the problem.

Ryan was a HOFer. How about a non-HOFer, say Mickey Lolich of Detroit Tiger's lore. Lolich was a pitcher for the Tigers from 1963-1975, followed by three short seasons with the Padres and Mets. Baseball-reference.com describes Mickey as having a top-notch fastball that has made him the top left-handed strikeout pitcher ever. With that in mind, Mickey piched 3,638 innings in just 16 years. He pitched more than 300 innings four times, all back to back, and even followed that up with 240 inning season. He pitched 195 complete games, with 41 shutouts, and yet he is not in the HOF.

After looking at these two players and really thinking about it, I've realized that this game has turned more into a business than ever before. In years past, you can't help, but be convinced that these guys threw just as hard, played more games and perhaps in shorter time frames. Hell, Mickey Lolich pitched three complete games in the 1968 World Series and only gave up five runs. So something is different. Something must be very different to see what we see now.

If you go from season to season starting in 1970, you will see that pitchers of the 70's had a limit of 300-360 innings per year, but after 1980, not one pitcher has surpassed the 300 inning mark. From 1980 to 1988, the max innings pitched was around the 280-295 mark and stayed there pretty consistently. In the 90's, it was around 265 innings. In this age, you're looking at no more than 250 IP in the last three years. In fact, only two pitchers have pitched for 270 innings in the last 18 years, those being Roger Clemens and Randy Johnson in 1991 and 1999. GMs are trying to protect their guys as much as possible from the injury bug, but it's almost as if these guys are getting more hurt now than the guys in the 1970's even though they pitch almost 100 innings less a year, or 200 if you're Ben Sheets.

Bluntly speaking, some of these guys are just wusses, while others are just unlucky, get tired too fast or don't have it in them to maintain control with high pitch counts. I wish I could get pitch counts for all these guys. I have a feeling the 100 pitch limit didn't matter to them then. At the same time though, the talent pool in those days was a lot smaller. There weren't thousands of kids trying out and playing minor or amateur pro leagues all over, which brings me to my final discussion of a ridiculously long post.

I understand the concept of the 6-man rotation, but I beg the question, is the talent pool really good enough to have a 6-man rotation? Think about all the five starters out there right now. None of them are particularly exciting. Do you really want to see Jorge De La Rosa pitch just as often as Gil Meche? And does tapering the innings for starting pitchers even more, effect their injury rate? The numbers really suggest no. The pitch limit for minor leaguers and growing men is understandable. You can seriously stunt their growth or cause abnormal growth, but grown men have the ability to prepare their body for anything. If man could pitch 300 innings in 1969 with no such thing as a hot tub in the clubhouse or an ultrasound in the training room or a bikes just behind the dugout, why can't someone do it now.

Let's hear your thoughts.