Who cares how many innings a pitcher throws

[bigdawg2003]

Why do people put so much stock in terms of pitcher use or overuse into how many innings they throw. It's misleading IMO. An inning can be as few as three pitches or as many as 30. Wouldn't pitches thrown make more sense. Yes I know they do track this and people look at it, but just because a pitcher throws 200 innings at age 24 doesn't necessarily mean his arm is gonna fall off. What if he's efficent and throws 85-90 pitcher per nine innings?

[bbor]

If you are going to judge a pitcher by how many pitches he throws...then you would have to break it down even further and go to How hard does he throw...how many breaking ball/fastballs etc etc does he throw?

[oykib]

These things tend to even out over time. Some places like Baseball Propectus track by pitches thrown. But the truth is unless you have a genius, like Greg Maddux, or an idiot manager, 200 innings is gonna work out to a certain number, or at least range, of pitches.

Actually, you're right in that the current hot idea is that it is not pitches thrown, but pitches thrown while tired that affect a pitcher's arm. So, I guess if a guy went 7.1 every game like clockwork it would be a better use of 200 innings than a guy who tended to struggle early, but cruise in later innings.

[bosshogg23]

A factor in innings pitched is that (some) teams dont want young players having to pitch then sit then pitch then sit, etc. 9 times during the course of a game. That tends to wear on your arm as much as throwing 100 plus pitches does.

You frequently will see relievers throw 10-15 pitches in 2 innings and come out. Then next outing throw 25 pitches in 1 inning and stay in the game for one more inning. The stop and start wears on their arms.

[daedalus]

I definitely agree with bosshogg23's point that it matters because of the number of times the pitchers gets up and sits down. But I do think pitch count isn't taken into account enough. A great example is a few years ago when Mark Mulder was amongst league leaders in innings pitch but, if you really look, he apparently didn't have any starts where he threw over 120 pitches. On the opposite side of that coin, Riggleman continues to defend himself with regards to his contribution in Wood's arm problem with his low innings count. But if you look, he was 3rd in the league that year with pitches per start.

[oykib]

One thing that you never see in the numbers is how bad some managers are at keeping the right guys warm in the pen. Some of these morons will have a guy get up two days in a row and not use him, then get him up twice for the third game and expect him to go two innings.

It was so great when Rob Neyer and Rany Jazyerli were doing reports on the Royals regularly. It was always fun to read how they took apart Tony Muser for mismanaging his pitching staff.

[GoldenEagle]

Ah, I love baseball.

Well, I have seen some injuries due to a pitcher overworking his arm. Esp. at the high school level and even more so at the youth level. Coaches try to get too much out of their best pitcher too early in the season and wind up losing them for the rest of the year.

[daedalus]

I remember watching one game where Tommy Lasorda had some reliever warmed up 4 times. Didn't use the dude. Wonderful.