Means scratched from Sundays start vs Yankees

[Pickles]

16 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

Gotta hope that this is the truth.  I prefer to believe Elias as I like him and I think he's more up front and honest with information than a guy like DD was.  Obviously there's stuff he can't say, we all know that.  

I'm about 83.7% positive that he's telling the truth here.  Haven't heard any rumors of shoulder/elbow discomfort, strains, etc.  

Like I said above, if he takes the mound to take this start, we can be sure there weren't any injury reasons for this push back.  There's no way they would risk that.

[scOtt]

Roch says it's definitely Harvey Tuesday, Means Wednesday and Dean Kremer Thursday afternoon.

I still have to see Means actually take the mound and be ok. Years of Orioles starter injury woes still have me paranoid about him.

[Redskins Rick]

1 hour ago, scOtt said:

Roch says it's definitely Harvey Tuesday, Means Wednesday and Dean Kremer Thursday afternoon.

I still have to see Means actually take the mound and be ok. Years of Orioles starter injury woes still have me paranoid about him.

Like Weam's famous thread, they all break.

For the most part, they really do.

[LookinUp]

On 5/15/2021 at 7:52 AM, Can_of_corn said:

I respect following the proper process.

If there isn't clear evidence supporting limiting his innings I'd rather they didn't.

I suspect it's actually two things their managing. 1, building up arm strength and 2, total usage. 

I'm not sure what the data says on either, but I believe the standard is to take a significant break from throwing in the offseason for recovery, like 8 full weeks, then to limit pitches earlier in a season while arm strength is re-building. I suspect that he jumped that curve pretty significantly with 113 and that Elias might want to just build in extra recovery time.

That said, could be an injury/soreness too. I'm just spitballing.

[DrungoHazewood]

On 5/17/2021 at 8:26 AM, GuidoSarducci said:

Even with the high K/9 some starters like Scherzer are putting up, they don't pitch enough innings, particulalry early in the career.  E.g, Scherzer's max IP in a single year is 228, Kershaw is 232.   Ryan eclipsed that # 8 times, pitching an insane by modern standards 332 IP in 1974.   Even at his age 42 season he pitched 239 innings.

Unless they change the rules or pitching distance I think it will fall or at least be seriously challenged in the next 5-10 years.  In 230 innings a pitcher would have to average 15 K/9 to get to 384.  At 200 innings you'd need 17.3. 

Last year a couple starters averaged over 14 K/9, Randy Johnson did 13+ that back in the day. Relievers have been as high as 17.7 (Chapman, 2014).  Extrapolate Shane Bieber's 2020 numbers to 162 games and he's at about 330 strikeouts.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

1 hour ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Unless they change the rules or pitching distance I think it will fall or at least be seriously challenged in the next 5-10 years.  In 230 innings a pitcher would have to average 15 K/9 to get to 384.  At 200 innings you'd need 17.3. 

Last year a couple starters averaged over 14 K/9, Randy Johnson did 13+ that back in the day. Relievers have been as high as 17.7 (Chapman, 2014).  Extrapolate Shane Bieber's 2020 numbers to 162 games and he's at about 330 strikeouts.

I'm turning into an old crank because I now think strikeout are fascist and I'm left wondering if we'll ever get players who can put the ball in play consistently. 

[GuidoSarducci]

8 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Unless they change the rules or pitching distance I think it will fall or at least be seriously challenged in the next 5-10 years.  In 230 innings a pitcher would have to average 15 K/9 to get to 384.  At 200 innings you'd need 17.3. 

Last year a couple starters averaged over 14 K/9, Randy Johnson did 13+ that back in the day. Relievers have been as high as 17.7 (Chapman, 2014).  Extrapolate Shane Bieber's 2020 numbers to 162 games and he's at about 330 strikeouts.

Single season, maybe.  Career, I seriously doubt it.   The pitchers that have long careers now tend to not be the high strikeout types. 

[SteveA]

13 minutes ago, GuidoSarducci said:

Single season, maybe.  Career, I seriously doubt it.   The pitchers that have long careers now tend to not be the high strikeout types. 

Really?

[GuidoSarducci]

2 hours ago, SteveA said:

Really?

Kind of - I'm thinking more of the pitchers like Lincecum who rely almost exclusively on velocity blow out their arms by the time they're 30.  Whereas guys like Greinke last longer.  Greinke did throw pretty hard when he was younger, and did actually lead the league in strikeouts one year.   But after his fastball declined he was able to reinvent himself,  his K/9 went down and is hovering around 7-8.    Nolan Ryan averaged 9.5 K/9 for his career, Lincecum was pretty close at 9.3.  For his career Greinke has averaged 8.2.  Curt Schlling another guy who pitched into his 40s was at 8.6.  But he barely eclipsed 3000 Ks. 

I see Scherzer has averaged 10.7 for his career, and Kershaw is at 9.8 so of course there are exception, and you'd think they might be on pace to beat Ryan.   But Scherzer is 36 and hasn't yet hit 3000 yet, though almost certainly will this year, and Kerhsaw is 33 and only has 2500.   Nolan Ryan had a bit over 5700 Ks, so Scherzer would have to make up 2700 Ks for the rest of his career - basically as many as he already has over his 15 some year career.  So maybe if he played until he was 51.   

So I guess the problem is more the lack of innings.  Still I'm pretty confident that no pitcher is going to come close to Ryans record.  If Scherzer plays long enough - like maybe until he's 44 - he might eclipse 5Ks.  But I would bet on him not doing that. 

[Moose Milligan]

Ooooooo it's John Means Day!

[DrungoHazewood]

7 hours ago, GuidoSarducci said:

Kind of - I'm thinking more of the pitchers like Lincecum who rely almost exclusively on velocity blow out their arms by the time they're 30.  Whereas guys like Greinke last longer.  Greinke did throw pretty hard when he was younger, and did actually lead the league in strikeouts one year.   But after his fastball declined he was able to reinvent himself,  his K/9 went down and is hovering around 7-8.    Nolan Ryan averaged 9.5 K/9 for his career, Lincecum was pretty close at 9.3.  For his career Greinke has averaged 8.2.  Curt Schlling another guy who pitched into his 40s was at 8.6.  But he barely eclipsed 3000 Ks. 

I see Scherzer has averaged 10.7 for his career, and Kershaw is at 9.8 so of course there are exception, and you'd think they might be on pace to beat Ryan.   But Scherzer is 36 and hasn't yet hit 3000 yet, though almost certainly will this year, and Kerhsaw is 33 and only has 2500.   Nolan Ryan had a bit over 5700 Ks, so Scherzer would have to make up 2700 Ks for the rest of his career - basically as many as he already has over his 15 some year career.  So maybe if he played until he was 51.   

So I guess the problem is more the lack of innings.  Still I'm pretty confident that no pitcher is going to come close to Ryans record.  If Scherzer plays long enough - like maybe until he's 44 - he might eclipse 5Ks.  But I would bet on him not doing that. 

That's the thing about Ryan.  He almost did play until he was 51.  He finally snapped that ligament at, what, 46?  It's not going to be broken by some average guy, it'll be someone at the extremes.

A good rule of thumb for career records is how many years of current league-leading performance does the record represent?  If it's less than 15 the record is in jeopardy.  If it's more than 20 it's safe.  The current level of league-leading strikeout performance for a pitcher is roughly 275.  That's 20.7 years to get to Ryan's record.  It's pretty safe.

[DrungoHazewood]

Also... Verlander, Scherzer, Greinke, and Kershaw are all in the top 30 in career strikeouts.  Depending on how long they pitch they could all reach or pass Walter Johnson, who was the leader for something like 60 years and threw 5900 innings.

The other thing I failed to mention in my prior response to @GuidoSarducci is that career marks rely on longevity, and how long you play in the major leagues is dependent on how well you pitch.  Strikeouts and quality are very closely tied together.  For well over 100 years, if you take the lists of the highest strikeout pitchers it will include 80-90% of the best pitchers in the game. Probably the best single indicator of how long a pitcher will remain effective and in the Majors is strikeout rate relative to league.

[Pickles]

So Means looked fine to me.  Obviously not his best performance, but for those concerned with his health, I think tonight should have alleviated their concerns.

[SteveA]

6 minutes ago, Pickles said:

So Means looked fine to me.  Obviously not his best performance, but for those concerned with his health, I think tonight should have alleviated their concerns.

Yep.  As long as he didn't get hurt getting hit by that line drive.  He stayed in the game but we all know how that can feel a lot worse the next day.