23 Comments

I think Randell gets some starts in Greensboro and Masey should be piggyback situation(maybe with Ercolani) until he figures some stuff out. He might need a trip to the development list and a plane ticket to Pirates City.

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What happened to Iverson Allen? He started off hitting well and has disappeared.

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Retired. Killer crossover back in the day.

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Hurt

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Yes. Can the Pirates keep minor league

players on the field?

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This is cool info to look at and I'm guessing innings the previous year is one of many variables that should be used as a guide. Since the major leagues are spread out for a longer period of time, I'm guessing the average innings per week are actually down for some of these pitchers which might not be as stressful in the comparison. Another variable is what the pitchers are doing between starts. Is it better than what they were doing in the minors or college? The one concern I do have is for pitchers that are throwing with max effort.

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Pitchers get *more* rest between starts in college and MiLB, not less.

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Not sure we are saying the same thing.

1. Skenes pitched 123 innings at LSU in a season that lasted between 100 to 110 days. MLB is 180 plus days long, so we have to look at more than just straight innings, imo.

2. Having an extra day off for a college pitcher is nice, but I was more implying that the conditioning in between starts is probably better in the majors...... but who really knows.

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gotcha.

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IIRC, the previous "guidance" re: innings pitched was to limit the increase to no more than 10% of the highest number (I probably have that wrong) -- so Skenes, for instance, would be limited to 13 innings more than his 129 from 2023 (142 total).

Is there still a standard out there that teams use to monitor load? Based on past precedence, medical advice, or simply hunches? Certainly every pitcher is different and circumstances differ (e.g. returning from injury). Would the pirates be insane to let Skenes (for instance) go to 150 innings? 170? 190? Is Ashcraft dangerously flirting with disaster since he's well past his previous max?

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For a while there was a concept of "HIgh Stress Pitches" instead of just pitch count. Is that still a thing?

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if you can't measure it, it doesn't exist...

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Jul 19·edited Jul 19

High Stress pitches can be measured, problem is: It hasn't been in real game situations.

Brain activity, heart rate, muscle tension have been examined in simulated game situations. (still not the same)

I get the premise, but it's not a cross the board rule. Some people perform better or worse, others move toward panic while others refocus and calm themselves.

So unless players play lab mice in real game situations it's flawed and like you said "can't measure it."

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Jul 19Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

The Verducci Rule was no more than 30 innings over the previous high and has been largely discredited, to my knowledge.

Like pitch counts in general, there's some exceptionally squishy science here beyond that basics of the human body not being design to repetitively through objects overhand.

Imagine how fire these games would be if we evolved to throw overhand before we evolved to make better weapons! ;)

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Jul 19Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

Verducci. What a pud. Every spring he’d trot out some recycled article about how baseball was dying for this reason or another. This is the only sport where writers continually trash the product.

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author

At this point, I think very few people have really any concrete idea. More just building trust with the pitchers to be honest about their bodies.

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And each pitcher is a different book - credit due the Pitching Coach who can establish the proper line of communication and know each pitcher's "tells" of stress (correct that because all pitchers have stress) - identifying unusual levels of stress is where I wanted to go.

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Jul 19Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

It feels very much like a somewhat educated dice roll.

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Jul 19·edited Jul 19Liked by NolaJeffy(BnP)

Amen, I worry about quality more than health in this context.

Feels awfully tough to expect no drop in stuff or command when extended drastically further than ever before, which probably ain't great for the middle of a pennant race.

Health then probably becomes a wash. If a kid is slipping in quality, seems a reasonable proxy for elevated health risk.

If stuff and command is maintained, seems hard to argue there's some underlying degradation in health.

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Ironically he got hurt, but I feel there was an article somewhere beginning with questioning if Braves would limit Strider (pre-2023). And it pretty much said Braves weren't going to limit anyone so long as they appeared healthy

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Nice article by JJ Cooper, BA May 2024 with a title of "More Harm Than Good?" and a lead of "Dramatically scaling back young pitchers' workloads has failed to keep them healthier"

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I'm guessing the White Sox are not going to follow that model with Garrett Crochet since he has gone from 54 innings, to 0 to 13 innings and he is currently at 107 innings. The Sox either don't believe in that model are they are serious about getting rid of him.

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