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Friday, July 25, 2008
What is the deal with how many pitches a starter throws?
The Mets blew a 3 run lead in the 9th after taking Santana out after 8 innings and 105 pitches. Whoop de doo! A team blew a 3 run lead in the 9th. Call in the National Guard!
So now we have to listen to everyone, including our friend Joe Sheehan at BP, tell us how “pitch counts” have just gone too far.
I have no idea (and I doubt that anyone else does either) how much limiting pitches thrown by young or old (or in between) starters helps to prevent injury or even to improve overall performance. In fact, I (we) have no idea whether it helps much at all.
But we do know that relievers, as a general rule, are much better than starters (you guys know what I mean). We also know that as the game goes on, as a general rule, starters get less and less effective because they get tired and because batters get to see them more and more.
We also can assume that at some point, letting any pitcher throw too many pitches, either in one game, a series of games, in an inning, in a season, or perhaps even in a career, will increase his chances if injury. That, I think, is obvious. Now, whether that point is 100 pitches or 120 pitches is not so obvious, and it probably, like most things, isn’t a “magic point” anyway, and certainly varies among pitchers.
Why do we tend towards a 100 pitch limit for pitchers? First of all, it is NOT a 100 pitch limit for pitchers. The average pitcher is 108, some are 85 (like Maddux at this point in his career) and some are 117, like Livan and Zambrano. But 100 is a magic point only because it is a round number and it is in the “common sense” ballpark. It might as well be 94 or 106, but those are not round numbers. Using 100 as a ballpark number is the same reason we buy 4 yogurts at the grocery store and not 5, and the same reason that golfers say that a putt is 8 feet or 12 feet and not 7 feet or 13 feet. We like round numbers and we like even numbers for some reason.
Anyway, since we know that starting pitchers lose effectiveness as the game goes on, and we know that relievers are particularly effective for one inning at a time or so, can we PLEASE stop this debate about how many pitches a starter should or should not throw? Until and unless teams have only 6 or 8 pitchers in their bullpens (rather than the 12 they have now), just leave your starter in there until you have a better option in the pen, period. If it is close, take your starter out when he is tired or when he has thrown a lot of pitches and you don’t want to risk hurting him even if you don’t know how many pitches that is (before you risk hurting him). If you have crappy relievers, leave your starters in there a little longer. If you have a good pen, take your starters out as early as you can. If your starter is crappy, let him pitch 4 or 5 innings (or 6 if you have a big lead or are down a bunch) and call it a day. It really is no big deal.
But let’s please stop all this yapping! Santana is a 3.50 (in a 4.50 average league) pitcher on the average. After 105 pitches and 3 or 4 times through the order, he is probably a 4.00 pitcher. Surely the Mets have some relievers who are in the same ballpark (4.00 pitchers), and they do (of course). So take Santana out or leave him in. It is no big deal. With him in, you will blow that lead 5% of the time (or whatever it is), and without him, you will blow the lead 5% of the time. Just stop whining about it. Please.