Mariner Pitcher Attrition, 1995-2004
The War of Attrition
–
All pitchers appearing on Baseball America’s Top 10 Prospect lists from 1995-2004, with ranking/year for each year appearing in that list, followed by summary of history.
The Mariners have two pitchers who were named to a Baseball America list in this time who made significant contributions to the major league team without suffering a serious injury that cost them at least one full season:
Freddy Garcia, who came to the Mariner farm system in the Randy Johnson trade from the Astros, and pitched for the Mariners for several years.
Joel Pineiro, who was shut down last year with elbow problems and is pitching this year with reduced velocity and serious mechanical issues. He did, however, contribute several years in the rotation
Two. One who wasn’t in our system long.
Pitchers appearing at least once on the Baseball America Top Ten list: 28
Listed pitchers suffering rotator cuff injuries that required surgery: 5
Listed pitchers suffering elbow ligament injuries requiring surgery: 4
Injuries and transaction dates are drawn from news reports, with local (Seattle Post-Intelligencer/Seattle Times/and so forth) preferred. Because of the nature of this kind of research, I have probably made some minor errors in overlooking injuries to particular pitchers. If you have additional citations that would substantially clarify or correct a listing, please let me know in the comments or by email.
Detailed data:
Ryan Anderson, 1/1998, 1/1999, 1/2000, 1/2001, 1/2002
Suffered multiple labrum injuries and did not pitch from 2002 through 2004.
Cha Baek, 9/1999, 5/2000, 8/2004
Suffered elbow surgery in 2001, had ligament replacement surgery, did not play in 2002. Shut down with elbow soreness in October 2004. Returned to Tacoma in 2005, then placed on the DL with “strained flexor bundle in right elbow” (which is the same mystery injury that Joel Pineiro had last year).
Travis Blackley, 7/2003, 3/2004
Diagnosed with a torn labrum in September of 2004, will miss all of 2005 season.
Lesli Brea, 8/1999
Traded to the Mets for Butch Huskey in December 1998, pitched 11 major league innings for Baltimore in 2000-2001.
Rafael Carmona, 10/1996
Pitched 155 unnoticed innings for the Mariners from 1995-1997 and 1999.
Ken Cloude, 2/1997
Tore his elbow in June 2000 and had Tommy John surgery. Missed 2001 season after rupturing Achilles tendon. Diagnosed with “minor fraying” in his rotator cuff in June 2002.
Dean Crow, 3/1997
Traded to Detroit for Scott Sanders in July of 1997.
Shawn Estes, 9/1995
Traded to the Giants for Salomon Torres in May 1995.
Jeff Farnsworth, 7/1997
Selected by the Tigers in the Rule 5 draft in 2001.
Brian Fuentes, 8/1998, 9/1999
Traded to the Rockies in 2001 as part of the Jeff Cirillo deal.
Freddy Garcia, 2/1999
Eardrums, leg problems, traded to the White Sox in 2004.
Jeff Heaverlo, 4/2000, 6/2000, 6/2002
Tore his labrum early in 2002. Didn’t pitch much in 2004 after a shoulder muscle issue.
Felix Hernandez, 1/2004
Rett Johnson, 8/2003, 7/2004
Left camp in 2004 for personal reasons, spent the year in extended spring training. In 2005 was extremely wild in camp and the team released him.
Damaso Marte, 6/1998, 10/1999
Pitched in five games for the team in 1999. Granted free agency in 2000.
Gil Meche, 1/1998, 3/1999
Injured his labrum, went through several surgeries. Did not pitch in the major leagues from 2001-2002.
Clint Nageotte, 5/2002, 5/2003, 2/2004
Currently on the disabled list with a lower back strain.
Joel Pineiro, 6/1999, 9/2000, 4/2001
Shut down in July 2004 with “strained flexor bundle in right elbow” and the team says no ligament damage was found in examinations.
Rafael Soriano, 7/2000, 9/2001, 2/2002, 1/2003
Had elbow stiffness/pain troubles in the minors. In 2002, had a brief trip to the DL with shoulder soreness. In 2004, started to have elbow trouble while coming back from an oblique muscle strain. After that, he had a long series of elbow problems and DL trips (May, “sprain of the unlar collateral ligament in the right elbow”) ending in August of 2004, when Soriano had ligament replacement surgery on his elbow.
Denny Stark, 5/1998
Traded to the Rockies in 2001 as part of the Jeff Cirillo deal.
Makoto “Mac” Suzuki, 5/1995, 5/1996, 9/1997, 4/1999
Traded to the Mets in June 1999 as part of the Allen Watson deal. (Not counted in the stats, but had rotator cuff surgery in October 2000 while with the Royals.)
Aaron Taylor, 6/2003
Tore his rotator cuff, required surgery in late 2003.
Matt Thornton, 10/2002
Missed most of 2002 after undergoing ligament replacement surgery. Shut down in August 2004 with herniated disks in his neck.
Ron Villone, 3/1995
Traded to the Padres in the Andy Benes deal in July 1995.
Matt Wagner, 7/1995, 4/1996
Traded after the 1996 season to the Expos as part of the Fassero deal.
Bob Wolcott, 8/1995, 6/1996
Drafted by the Diamondbacks in the 1997 expansion draft (no, really).
Greg Wooten, 6/1997, 9/1998
Never made it.
Jordan Zimmerman, 7/1998
Pitched in 12 games in 1999, and went on the DL after stepping on his luggage in his hotel room. Tore all the ligaments in his foot before the 2000 season while golfing when he got it caught between a ball washer and the wheel of his cart.
(Zimmerman, On Lou Piniella: “I’ll tell you what, Lou is probably the greatest manager in the game. He doesn’t like rookies, and he doesn’t like pitchers, either. That’s obvious. But he’s a great guy, he’s very knowledgeable and he has a great deal of respect throughout the baseball world. Just everything he brought to the table, you learn something new from him every day. Whether it was pitching or hitting or whatever.”)
Comments
57 Responses to “Mariner Pitcher Attrition, 1995-2004”
Very nice. I appreciate this straight up presentation of the facts.
I guess now we can start making speculations as to why this seems to be such a problem for us. Everyone seems to blame Bryan Price and the organizational pitching staff, but are there any specific criticisms of their approach? Too many innings? Letting pitchers retain damaging mechanics? Secret night-time laproscopic labrum cutting?
The other question begged by this write-up is: How does this compare to other MLB teams and their organizations? Unfortunately, I’m guessing there would be a lot of work involved in answering that question, say, about 29 times as much work as it was putting together this writeup?
Nice research, DMZ. I noticed that you decided not to draw any conclusions on this yourself, which is fine. I’m not sure I can draw any either except that the Mariners seem to have bad luck with / terrible handling of their pitching prospects. I would shudder to think that the Mariners Organization would be deliberately getting their pitching prospects hurt, so we can’t assume that whatever is going on is on purpose. However, that doesn’t mean that maybe somewhere along the line, someone may be taking undue risks with the young talent that might be increasing the chances of injury.
I have a hard time believing it’s anybody at the Major League level, since it seems most of the injuries happen / develop somewhere in the minors. That doesn’t mean that the FO policies on such things don’t come into effect somewhere in the minors, merely that I dont think that Lou Pinella, Bryan Price, or even Bob Melvin has done anything to warrant any negative attention regarding pitching prospect handling (despite what many believe about Melvin’s handling of Bobby Madritsch, if the problems are somewhere in the minors, then it might not have mattered whether Madritsch threw 130+ pitches a dozen times or never at all).
I also have a hard time believing it’s anybody at the AAA level. Most outings from our pitchers down there seem to be limited to about 5 innings, regardless of pitch count. I’ve seen Felix, Campillo, and others go deeper into a ballgame then that, but that seems to be something that doesn’t happen often and is limited to a particular game where they’re throwing exceptionally well. Since the AAA coaches appear to be limiting outings to deliberately prevent injury but maintain arm strength, perhaps we have to go lower?
I know next to nothing about the coaching staffs and their policies at the AA level and below, so I am afraid my speculation has to end here and I have to bow to the more experienced to investigate that.
Perhaps we have to accept that maybe we’re just having a terrible streak of bad luck. Perhaps we have to go back furthur to find more corrolating evidence? I know we’ve had pitching prospects before 1995 such as Hansen, Holman, Fleming, etc. And maybe back furthur to the days of Mark Langston, Mike Moore, etc.
I do know this: If this is a problem somewhere along the chain where a coach or coaches and their policies are somehow influencing an alarming increase in injury, then it needs to be corrected. Another thing I’d like to investigate is whether or not other ballclub’s farm systems have had similar problems in development of pitching prospects and see if maybe our problems are simply “par for the course” with the purely crapshoot nature of talent development.
In short, good thought provoking research there. We need to explore more avenues before making any kind of conclusions.
What he said.
Maybe it’s the type of pitchers the M’s like to draft which happen to be more susceptable to these injuries. Most of these guys are 200 lbs. tops, which is relatively like for as hard as many of them throw. My guess is that what they really need to be doing is encouraging their pitching prospects to gain 20-30 pounds.
Posts like this make me scared about Felix. {knocks on wood really really hard}
Nice research Derek. Now, if only we could get similar research from all the other MLB organizations to see just how the M’s compare. It may well be that the M’s have had more pitcher injuries than other teams, but it’s important to note that pitchers are highly susceptible to injury, and a good number of prospects get cut down or see their value diminished.
One thing I’d like the see the M’s doing (I’m not aware of it if they are) is to start using the bio-mechanical pitching labs that put pitchers in motion-capture suits and allow experts to get true representations of the pitcher’s motion, allowing for sophisticated analysis of mechanics, possible differences in how different pitches are delivered, and allows for means of comparisons for a pitcher (has he changed his delivery post-surgery for example).
re 4
Interesting thought. I can certainly believe that sort of thing may be a factor (and that it MIGHT be prevented or amelorated by a different weight training regimen).
Still speculative, of course….
Or that pitching the way professionals do is very hard on the human arm.
Most visitors to this site understand that hits in bunches or “clutch hitting” could be random noise, or that good pitching in the 9th inning is noisier but no more significant than good pitching in the 6th inning.
Let’s keep a similar open mind about the possibility that the M’s record with pitchers comes down to chance. And that it may not even be bad by MLB standards.
“(despite what many believe about Melvin’s handling of Bobby Madritsch, if the problems are somewhere in the minors, then it might not have mattered whether Madritsch threw 130+ pitches a dozen times or never at all).”
Counterpoint: Melvin’s near criminal treatment of Gil Meche.
IP in 2001: 0
IP in 2002: 65 (at AA)
IP in 2003: 186.1
That’s not how you treat a pitcher coming back from a major injury.
Oops — clarification. Idiot Fan, you seem open to the idea that we’re looking at bad luck. Didn’t mean to imply you weren’t.
My additional point is that we don’t know if these is even particularly bad luck. In other words, we don’t know if there’s anything that needs explaining here. Perhaps it just looks bad.
That’s really great basic research. It’s surprising that you give “Doyle” his own pseudonym for safety’s sake, but are willing to put Felix’s name right there in the middle of that very ugly list. I literally winced when I saw his name in there. Can you just take him out before he trips on his shoelaces? I don’t think it’s responsible journalism to leave his name up there like that.
Good research! While the number of injuries IS alarming, it is also alarming to see that Freddy and Joel (and maybe Gil, and Villone) are really the only 2 (or 4) “Uber” pitching prospects that have made any significant contribution to ANY major league team. I was surprised to see that even of all the pitchers that were traded away, none of them amounted to much either! I think that this really points to what type of pitchers we draft. Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems like the M’s like to go after low polish high talent/upside pitchers (like high schoolers and foreign talent). And in the minors these guys can get by and look great on their raw talent alone. However their raw abilities and mechanics either eventually hurt them, or their mechanics are “fixed” and they fizzle and never pan out on the major league level.
Interesting stuff, it sure would be nice to know the cause of the attrition, but if anyone knows (in the org) they sure won’t be telling us, so all we’ve got is speculation.
If Felix gets hurt our never makes it as a big leaguer it will be the M’s biggest failure yet. Please, God, let Felix stay healthy and be as amazing as we all hope he can be!
Before casting blame on the coaching staff’s handling of pitchers I would be very curious to see a similar analysis of the other MLB clubs. Are the Mariners the only club (besides the obvious Cubs) who have this high rate of pitcher attrition or can similar patterns be seen in a majority of clubs?
I’m working on the “similar analysis of other MLB clubs”. However, doing this kind of research is tedious and slow, so I thought I’d push this one out first to put some numbers and an organizational overview in front of readers to see what improvements can be made, and so forth.
Not implying that you’re derelict in your duties, DMZ! You didn’t draw conclusions – I’m just saying to those who are drawing conclusions that we need a bigger picture. If it’s a league-wide problem, maybe these pitching coaches should have a symposium on “How to Avoid Disabling Your Pitchers.”
Or teams draft a lot of pitchers for the same reason frogs produce a lot of tadpoles — most of them don’t make it. Pitching as hard as the pros do just puts enormous amounts of stress on the arm. Guys who work construction are hurt all the time — they get dead arm or tendinitis or torn-up joints from swinging hammers or lifting nail guns or just waving paint brushes over and over. If people are going to do stressful, repetitive activities, it may just be that medicine can only help to a certain small degree.
Again, without a league-wide survey that spans years, all we can do is guess.
And maybe someone could write to blogs for other teams asking for a similar survey? At the very least, it would be interesting to find out if other teams’ fans feel like their prospects get chewed up at a high rate.
I’m doing such a survey myself, to ensure consistency. Please be patient.
The Royals are another team that has an incredibly high rate for pitcher breakdown if i remember correctly…they havn’t been able to develop really any reliable pitchers (ecept maybe Greinke, but that is yet to be seen). that along with the fact that they spend no money and let all their good hitters get away (Dye, Beltran, Damon, etc) except Sweeney is why they’re so bad.
the things is though, which team has the most (percieved) “good luck”? obviously, its the A’s. every time they have an uber-pitching prospect on the way, they usually at least ARRIVE (Zito, Mulder, Harden, Hudson, Blanton..even Aaron Harang) even if they face injury at some point down the road. i’m sure they’ve had their share of injury’s, but why is it that they get there prospects to the big leagues? obviously, it has something to do with their drafting philosophy, but also they take great care to keep their prospects healthy because (obviously, since they lack of payroll) they can’t afford not to. their former pitching coach (Rick Peterson) always got high props from Zito and the other guys if i remember..they did an article about that in USAToday a while back on that. I think thats the part of A’s philosophy that the big market teams should try to follow, obviously if you have the money to spend on marquis free agents you should, but not promoting the health of your prospects as much as possible is just incompetent.
ya, here’s the url if anyone’s interested:
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/nl/mets/2004-03-30-peterson-pitching-coach_x.htm
Derek, stone soup.
Why don’t you post links where some of the raw data can be found. People who read you could chip away slowly at the mountain of data, like ants.
Another article on the same subject:
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/07/08/tech.baseball/
especially interesting that they bring up Jose Rijo…not much he ended up doing but simply being healthy enough to get back to the bigs is amazing.
why, when the M’s fo prides themselves on being “state of the art” and having every possible thing that a player could want in their facilities (i remeber them doing a feature a year or two ago on some on how they installed a cool looking hot tub that had some theraputic use, and how they thumped their chests over the matter), have we heard absolutely nothing about them looking into it? it seems if they have such problems with there pitching prospects, expecially with mechanics and repeating delivery (how many prospects have we seen up here with great control of their stuff? at some point pretty much every “good” M’s pitcher i can remember has had a bout with wildness, but except maybe Pineiro and Garcia, i can’t remember them going through a streak of having impeccable command. there seems to be something to what Andrews has set up…why didn’t they send Joel there during his 10-day layoff if they wanted him to improve his mechanics?
I’m not sure how you draw conclusions even based on numbers because there are so many variables. How do you isolate those variables? How do we know that an individual’s genetics don’t contribute more to an injury than use?
I think you may find correlation, but without finding causation, what can you do to change results? I think at the and of the day it will boil down to randomness. I guess try different paths are use multiple philosophies at once. Use a diverse approach to what kind of arms you draft or sign out of other talent pools. Perhaps there is some merit to the idea that more high-school pitchers flame out than college ones. College pitchers may have already weeded themselves out with the same attrition rate.
And it certaily wouldn’t hurt to look at biometrics and use technology to its fullest…
BTW, wasn’t Mike Hampton a product of our system, or was that before your date window?
I’d like to see injury rates for Rick Peterson’s teams.
Delegate, Derek, delegate!
Here is an Major League Player with 14 years pitching who has solutions
to the problems brought up here.
Dr. Mike Marshall pitched fourteen years of major league baseball. Now, he wants to share the trade secrets that enabled him to set the four most prestigious closer relief pitching records.
1. Most appearances – 106
2. Most closing innings pitched – 208
3. Most consecutive appearances – 13
4. Most games finished – 84
http://www.drmikemarshall.com/
Who believes he has solutions to the problems brought up here.
Hey, if he’s a doctor, I believe him.
Didn’t Derek Lowe ever make the list?
All kidding aside… I do remember a season when Mike Marshall had 100+ appearances for the Dodgers. He was amazing for a year or two. But looking at all the history of relievers who were over-used. Okay, that dates me.
Didn’t Derek Lowe ever make the list?
Well, he’s not on there, so no. He also never made a Red Sox list.
While the Mariners may be state of the art, that doesn’t necessarily correlate with the rest of the system. I worked for the Rainiers last summer. The weight room there is worse than the one at my college. My academically-oriented, bottom-of-the-league division three college. They don’t have a single machine, only freeweights.
It seems that, in developing pitching, the Mariners focus their attention in directions other than injury prevention. Pitchers in Tacoma routinely had awful mechanics, which were reinforced while coach Rafael Chavez focused on the mental aspects of pitching. The post showing Gil Meche’s innings totals was rather informative. If Pitcher Abuse Points could be assembled for the Mariners’ farm system, it could be quite revealing.
On the subject of how it is done in other organizations, I remember reading several interviews with Rick Peterson when he was hired by the Mets. In virtually all of them, he mentioned how proud he was of the fact that Oakland’s “pre-hab” got them to the point where they did not have a single pitcher go down with an arm injury in 2003–in the entire system!
It seems that this is a bit more than bad luck. Unfortunately, it also seems that the Mariners disagree.
The bottom line is, you can’t avoid a problem and blame it on bad luck. Throwing up our arms and saying “ho hum” won’t solve the problem.
They need to go back to square one and analyze the way they conduct pitcher training.
As much as I enjoy being within walking distance of Cheney Stadium, something has to be done about it or AAA Baseball in Tacoma is assuredly gone.
I’ve been in the clubhouse there and it’s about as good as an unfinished basement. The Mariners need to take ownership of their farm system instead of relying on each franchise to step up and make things better at each affiliate.
If you could control or influence the end result of your future products, wouldn’t you take the necessary steps to build that future?
The philosophical culture in Seattle needs to change or it’ll be tough to advance in the future.
#29: Marshall is not a medcal doctor. IIRC, his doctorate is in kinesiology. He was one of the first to break down pitching mechanics using video.
While he was a player, Marshall had to fight with his managers to get used as often as he believed (and showed) he was capable of being used. People in baseball didn’t buy into his theories then, and they still don’t today.
Speaking of other former Ms pitchers, I was watching the Padres game last night when I heard a familiar name – Brian Falkenborg, who pitched a few seasons in Tacoma.
He promptly gave up a home run to Derrek Lee.
Just a unsubstantiated thought that might be interesting to consider.
(Or could this be a follow up on one of the things Marshall proposed.)
Maybe there is a problem coddling pitchers in the minors then pushing them once they get called up. I seem to recall several prospects doing fairly well in their rookie year as there workload increased then dropping off fast or getting injured. I look at the Braves organization than seem demand longer outings of their prospects and more work between starts than most organizations and would like to see how they compare.
A few examples:
Bob Wolcott
Dave Fleming
Ken Cloud
Gil Meche
Rafael Soriano
Got a couple of not so stellar appearances then the DL:
Clint Nageotte
Travis Blackly
Matt Thornton (Back now somewhat)
Aaron Taylor
Rafael Soriano (On both lists since he has had both experiences)
Re: 33 Thanks for the info…its obvious that the minor-league system of the M’s needs to be held more accountable by the M’s FO. sure wish Rick Peterson was here instead of Brian Price, and teaching his “prehab” mantra throughout the system, rather than just here. Hopefully the FO is more careful with Felix than they were with Blackley and Nageotte, and makes a special effort to correct any mechanical mistakes he has (which, just from what i saw/heard in spring, are either not very numerous or very obvious).
Great work albeit depressing results. But one huge boo-boo. Never mention the name “Scott Sanders” in my presence again. GRRRR!!! We coulda had Sterling Hitchcock or Bob Wolcott or anyone, ANYONE! as our fourth or fifth starter in 1997 and had that loser instead! GRRRR!!! (Didn’t we trade Hitchcock straight up for Sanders, or am I thinking of someone else.)
One minor correction (with apologies to wabbles): we traded Crow with Scott Sanders (and Carlos Villalobos) to Detroit for Omar Olivares and Felipe Lira. (I looked it up in my 1998 Super Register, which I still have lying around. Believe it or not, I do have a life.)
I guess this also raises a couple other questions.
Are all the “good young arms” we kept hearing about all these years simply a myth or a sales job, a la Toronto Blue Jays? (The Jays got really good in the late 90s at hyping prospects for trades who never seemed to live up to that potential for their new team.)
Why don’t we have any more “good young arms?” Is that from losing draft choices to all of Gillick’s free agent signings?
And, perhaps the most troubling question, were these “good young arms” legitimately good and our system just couldn’t develop or exploit that goodness properly?
Yes, The Ancient Mariner, you’re right on how we got rid of that pitcher I won’t name. But we obtained him in December 1996 from the San Diego Padres for Sterling Hitchcock. Yes, the same Sterling Hitchcock who pitched his team to the World Series in 1998.
Scott Sanders, Omar Oliveres, and Felipe Lira all mentioned in one post? I can’t believe the memories that just stirred up. Back to therapy for me.
I’ve always thought that, but I have no evidence to back it up.
Anyone know of a good web resource with a history of the M’s drafts?
How much of this is bad handling of pitchers, and how much of it is bad DRAFTING of pitchers, and how much is luck?
Looking at that list, I only see a few names that ever had a serious shot at stardom, injuries or no injuries. Even Anderson was widely regarded as a prospect because of his freakish body and delivery, not because of anything he’d actually accomplished.
I don’t think it’s stupid trading, because the only pitcher on that list who’s had anything like success elsewhere either is Freddy. I don’t think losing out on Denny Stark is what’s holding us back.
I guess I’m still in the dark about what, specifically, a pitching coach, or an organization overall, does to make good pitchers. It’s easy enough to say “well, all these injuries, he must be doing something wrong” or “no pitchers in the org, our drafting needs to get better” but HOW?
I mean, I haven’t the foggiest what the answers to the most basic questions imaginable are, things like
Have the Ms drafted pitchers appreciably worse than other teams?
Have the Ms drafted pitchers as a higher or lower percentage of total draft picks than other teams?
Have the Ms drafted a significantly higher or lower number of total draft picks than other teams?
Have the Ms suffered more serious pitcher injuries than other teams?
Have the Ms drafted a particular TYPE of pitcher more than other teams? I.e., tall/short, fastball/junkball, speed/mechanics, college/high school, lefty/righty, Muslim/Greek Orthodox, or whatever?
And of course the toughest question of all — if every team started with exactly the same quantity and quality of pitching talent, who would end up with the best results, and why?
Unfortunately, to be meaningful this survey probably has to delve deeper than just the top 10 prospects. What percentage of pitching value in any year comes from former top 10s?
Please, contribute such a survey on each of the questions posed.
I’d like to see some Mariner minor league workouts; I know from personal experience you can damage your rotator cuff bench pressing too much weight – are they having weight lifting competitions?
Regarding free weights though; they are better than machines since benching with dumbbells works a lot of small muscles in the balancing process; you need your small muscles to be in “good harmony” with your big muscles if you want to avoid ligament strains and all that when you do a physical activity outside of the gym.
A lack of machines might be no accident.
A great study to get under way; people have been clamoring for answers for quite awhile, and it will be nice to be able to say “yay” “nay” or “eh” in regards to this question.
I agree with Kirk in #6 – I’d like to see similar data for the other MLB teams. However, I’ll bet that Seattle is in the Top – er, Bottom 5 in pitcher health, as measured by any reasonable metric.
Re: DRAFTS
A friend sent me an Email that contained instructions for how to access this information:
Access Baseball Almanac. Put “amateur draft” into search, click on, for example, 1988 (for some reason, only some of them appear on your screen). Then once you have one year, over on the lower left (scroll down) you can click on “previous year” or “next year.”
BTW, BP’s WILL CARROLL should be mentioned in this thread. He’s done some yeoman work in the area of pitching injuries, through interviews, his BP column (“Under the Knife”), and his recent book, SAVING THE PITCHER.
Re: (# 44 and # 49) DRAFTS
Here’s a better one: http://tinyurl.com/brug4
Also: TOTAL BASEBALL contains a list of the 1st ten selections for each year of the draft.
I heard that Oakland does not allow their minor legue pitchers to throw over 85 pitches a game. Two outings ago Feliz threw 98 pitches, and the outing before that I think he threw in the high 80′s. This is off the top of my head so forgive me if I am wrong. Having a kid throwing 98 pitches when he recently turned 19 is crazy.
I remember last year seeing Travis Blackley pitching too deep into games, he was 21 at the time.
I believe them having their pitchers on too high of pitch counts is their main cause of injury. They are having them pitch like they are pros, and not like people trying to learn.
Re: PITCH COUNTS – The other night, I heard MIKE BLOWERS say that he didn’t believe in pitch counts. He seemed to feel that MECHE’S main trouble is that he hasn’t been “stretched out,” that the reason that PRICE visited him was to tell him that management expected him to finish the inning despite his already being over 100 pitches.
I thought that the jury was no longer out on pitch counts. If that’s the case, Mike should get with the program.
Mmmmmmmm… sort of.
Pretty much, 120+ is really bad, and reduces a pitcher’s effectiveness in the short and long term, and it gets progressively worse with each additional pitch. 100-120 is not a death sentence, but it’s possible cause for concern.
Re: (# 35) DOCTOR – You’ve probably heard of Dr. JACK RAMSEY and
Dr. BILL COSBY. There’s something about the word “Doctor” that makes many holders of Ph. D.s and D. Ed.s want to be so addressed. (And if you take them for medical doctors, so much the better.)
Pardon the comic definition. If I had a doctorate, I might not repeat it (though I think I would). The teller of it, a Pancho Gonsalez, a history professor at the U of Texas, DID have a doctorate. He said,
“A Ph. D. thesis is the transferring of bones from one graveyard to another.”
The National Pitching Association, url below, has some interesting thoughts on the subject. Tom House was the momentum behind this organization which counts the following people on its board of advisors: Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson, Mark Prior, Robb Nen, Orel Hershiser, Dave Dravecky, Bobby Valentine, Dusty Baker, John Young, Tom House, Gary Heil, Jim Brogan, Glenn Fleisig, John Iams, Arnel Aguinaldo, Dr. Lewis Yocum, Dr. Rick Heitsch, Dr. James Andrews, Dr. John Conway, Dr. Hank Chambers, Dr. Todd Lanman.
Generally, the Mariners throughout their organization use “balance point” as their foundational “teach”. It is recognizable by watching the pitchers glove hand which is usually to the side of their body and low and visually looks like they are yanking on their arm. This causes huge shoulder torgue and with time causes injury. Some of the pitchers achieve an elbow forward posture of their pitching arm as they approach release point, causing tommyjohn…
House works with Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens, Mark Prior and others. Many people think he’s got the safer approach figured out. It also improves perceived velocity…
http://www.nationalpitching.com/
Another interesting source is throwmax.com. The site owner is the brother of a former major league pitcher. He says many of the Mariners throw improperly. I don’t know if they are taught that by the organization.
I’d like to point out that Dusty Baker is on the advisory board of the National Pitching Association.
jason