The pitch count era

[Hallas]

Just now, Moose Milligan said:

I thought the opposite...remove some of the seats from behind home plate, move home plate and the entire infield back.  

Those are pricey seats though, they probably wouldn't want to do all that.  

In all honesty though, leave Fenway alone.  It's not it's fault that the Sox play there and the fans for the home team are insufferable.

you can't really do that without also removing seats along the foul lines, because the width of the field increases when you move home plate back like that.

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, Moose Milligan said:

Did we?  I think you have us confused with Aaron Judge.

Would be interesting to go back and look at that thread with that announcement.

Visually, I've gotten used to looking at it.  Thought it was ugly at first, not so much anymore.

Biggest issue I had with it was the aesthetics.

And I still think it could have been made a lot less jarring.

My guess is they were on a tight timetable and budget.

[Moose Milligan]

1 minute ago, Hallas said:

you can't really do that without also removing seats along the foul lines, because the width of the field increases when you move home plate back like that.

True.

[Moose Milligan]

1 minute ago, Can_of_corn said:

Biggest issue I had with it was the aesthetics.

And I still think it could have been made a lot less jarring.

My guess is they were on a tight timetable and budget.

It's a statement piece.

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, Moose Milligan said:

It's a statement piece.

Yes.  It makes a statement about how cheap the prior owner was.

[emmett16]

We don’t know exactly how to prevent injuries but we do know that pitchers get injured when they are fatigued.  Once a pitcher hits 20+ pitches in an inning or 80+ pitches in an outing they are Fatigued and entering the danger zone.   Especially in today’s age of max effort pitching.  Pulling them in those scenarios aren’t going to avoid all injuries but it will help limit them.  
 

That plus the stats on pitchers going through the lineup a 3rd time.  Pretty much a no brainer when you see the numbers.

Edited May 30 by emmett16

[emmett16]

4 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Biggest issue I had with it was the aesthetics.

And I still think it could have been made a lot less jarring.

My guess is they were on a tight timetable and budget.

I think it looks pretty cool. I dig asymmetry.  

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, emmett16 said:

I think it looks pretty cool. I dig asymmetry.  

I think it could have looked cool.

 

[emmett16]

Just now, Can_of_corn said:

I think it could have looked cool.

 

I’m have a sneaking suspicion that when they do the next major stadium overhaul, the fence might get a little face lift.  

[SteveA]

4 hours ago, Frobby said:

This thread comes from a brief discussion @Philipand I had last night about pitch counts.  

BB-ref doesn’t have any pitch count data from before 1988, so we’ll never know how many pitches Jim Palmer or Mike Cuellar or Dave McNally pitched in a typical game. But looking just at the data from 1988 is pretty interesting.  

That year, the average pitches per start was 96.  There were 597 games where a pitcher met or exceeded 120 pitches, and 140 different pitchers did it.  Mark Langston did it 20 times.  13 pitchers had a game where they topped 150 pitches, topped by Greg Maddux at 167 pitches.  

Last year, the average pitches per start was 85.   There were 4 games where a pitcher met or exceeded 120 pitches, and nobody did it more than once.  Alex Cobb topped the list at 131 pitches.  

We’ve had this same discussion countless times regarding the innings thrown by starters, but I thought it was interesting to look at it from the context of pitches.  The idea of pulling a pitcher from a no-hitter after 103 pitches, like the O’s did with Bradish a few days ago, would have been pretty laughable in 1988.   Now, it’s barely even debatable.  

The general theory is that pitchers today don’t pace themselves, but go max effort on almost every pitch (even if it’s breaking stuff they’re trying to create max spin), whereas back in the day pitchers coasted along at 90% effort unless or until they needed to “reach for something extra.”   The ability of almost any hitter to knock one out of the park means that pitchers can’t coast like they used to.  But sometimes I wonder how so many guys could throw a massive number of pitches compared to today.  I don’t really want to rehash the whole “today’s pitches are soft” debate, but it’s really striking how much the game has changed in the last 36 years, to say nothing of the previous years where pitch count data isn’t available.  

The one game where Cobb got to 131 last year, he had a no hitter until 2 were out in the 9th inning.  He did stay in after the hit and strike out the last batter, but that was clearly an example of a manager letting a veteran go for that shot at a no hitter, pitch count be damned.    I wonder what the high pitch count was  in 2023 that wasn't that one particular extraordinary circumstance.

Cobb, by  the way, was shut down in September and  had surgery after the season last year and hasn't recovered.   But I don't know if you can blame the high pitch count -- the injury/surgery were to his hip.

[OriolesMagic83]

Mike Flanagan threw a  165 pitch complete game in the 1979 World Series.  He had won the Cy Young the year.  He was very good but not dominant after that.  Maybe that was just his year or maybe that was too much on his arm.

[HowAboutThat]

35 minutes ago, NCRaven said:

They pushed back 1/3 of the wall at Oriole Park and half the Hangout lost their collective minds.

To be fair, half the hangout is usually pretty close to losing their minds anyway… Ask me how I know.

 

[DrungoHazewood]

1 hour ago, Can_of_corn said:

How are you going to push the walls back at Fenway?

I imagine heavy construction equipment, government authorization to move Landsdowne St., and a lot of money. But I'm not totally opposed to Moose's idea.

[DrungoHazewood]

42 minutes ago, OriolesMagic83 said:

Mike Flanagan threw a  165 pitch complete game in the 1979 World Series.  He had won the Cy Young the year.  He was very good but not dominant after that.  Maybe that was just his year or maybe that was too much on his arm.

I had to go look to see what on Earth happened that he threw that many pitches in a complete game, and bb-ref says it was 137 pitches in Game 1. That's a little more believable. 11 hits, four runs, two earned, one walk, seven Ks.

Hard to tell cause and effect, but his K rate did drop from 6.4 in '79 to 4.6 in 1980 and his ERA was up over a run a game.

[DrungoHazewood]

1 hour ago, Can_of_corn said:

Yes.  It makes a statement about how cheap the prior owner was.

If he was that cheap he would have told Elias he could move the LF wall just as soon as he pays for it out of his own pocket.

I never really thought Pete or John was cheap, so much as they refused to spend money on the priorities I believed made sense. I mean, there was that season where they probably allocated $75M to Danys Baez, Steve Kline, Jamie Walker, Jay Payton, and Kevin Millar. That's not cheap, it's just foolish.