The answer you’d get is they didn’t throw as hard and didn’t come up wearing themselves out in Little League, travel ball, high school, on the prospect circuit and, in some cases in college like pitchers do now. They didn’t throw year-round because they played football in the fall and basketball in the winter. Now, most young pitchers rarely take time off.
Heck, I worked with an elite ML pitcher in the 90s who at least claimed to not throw a baseball between the end of the season and the weeks leading up to the start of spring training.
Pitchers back then also didn’t have access to a lot of the tools pitchers have today to get bigger and stronger (although some might suggest that’s part of the problem today).
I referenced Don Sutton yesterday. If pitchers in Sut’s generation had a sore elbow they kept pitching. In some cases they blew it out and never pitched again. There was no Dr. Jobe or Dr. Andrews. Bad shoulder, drop your arm slot a little. Adjust. Find a way.
Now, if a guy sneezes, the send him for an MRI. Again, a lot of it has to do with the financial investment. Sutton never pitched for $43.3 million a year or for 5 years and $180 million.
And back to pitchers in Sut’s era and adjusting and finding a way...
If you couldn’t pitch next year, you didn’t get paid. Guy’s were year to year. There were no Stephen Strasburgs making 8 starts over the life of a 7-year, $245 million contract.
Glenn, I predicted he would have difficulties in his first game back due to not being in a routine.
Don't get me wrong. I wish the best for Eury and the Marlins. It's been a rough few weeks for the
team and I believe the players and the coaching staff are doing everything they can to turn this around and I hope they will. It would be interesting to get Jack McKeon's ideas on how he would
go about handling Eury's situation. Jack is a believer that you get a pitcher stronger by pithching
more. He has said a number of times that we are babying todays pitchers today and that is one of
I agree. Leo Mazzone is another good baseball man who has talked about that exact same thing. His track record with pitchers was pretty good, as I recall.
The big difference between today and 10 or 20 years ago, or even more than that, is the amount of money teams have invested in a lot of young pitchers before they even get to the big leagues. This wasn’t Eury’s case coming out of the DR, but if you give a kid $5 million the day you draft him, you’re not going to want to take many chances. Not saying that’s right. I just think that’s the reality.
Great article Glenn.. You know Glenn they brought up Perez again I can imagine to spark some late magic into this team but the way I see it I think 🤔 were done.. this unfortunately is not the same team that was hungry before the all-star break. I just don't know how that team disappeared and know we are playing just so bad with no passion. What's your assessment Glenn is the team tired or were we just playing out of our league. Thanks 👍
I don’t think it’s a loss of hunger. I don’t think anything has changed. As I’ve written repeatedly since April, this was inevitable. It’s all archived for the world to see.
This team is good enough to pile up wins against bad teams, as they did (squeaking by with a lot of one-run wins) during an easy stretch of schedule in May and June. But the schedule is much more difficult in the 2nd half, especially in August and the first half of September, and they’re just not good enough to beat the top 10-15 teams in MLB with any regularity.
The only thing that’s changed is they’re now playing first and 2nd-place teams almost every series instead of 4th- and 5th-place teams.
I laid out the easy 50-game stretch a couple of weeks before it began. They went 32-18 in that stretch. Outside of that, they’re 26-38.
The offense is again bottom of the league. The rotation is short a reliable arm or 2, and the bullpen is inconsistent.
That’s basically been the case all year except when the offense heated up for a bit against bad opposition.
That’s not a lack of hunger. That’s not the manager suddenly forgetting how to run a game.
It’s simply about this roster and the depth behind the top 26 being better than the last few years but not good enough to play with the big boys.
And I’ve been explaining how this was going to play out on this site since April because it’s been obvious all along.
I would say the science is in regard to seeing a pitcher’s innings spike dramatically from one season to the next.
Tom Verducci has written about this at length going back a good 10 or 20 years. Pitchers, particularly young pitchers, whose workload increases dramatically from one season to the next, tend to have a higher risk of injury issues. If you want to Google the Verducci Effect, I’m sure you’ll find some of what he’s written.
My point was never that they should run him out there for 180 innings when he’s never thrown more than 78. If his number is 110 or 130, I think there’s a good argument to be made they should have just let him throw those innings continuously with an extended All-Star break. And when he hits the number, you look at where he is. Does he still feel strong? Is the velocity still there? Is the command still there? If so, maybe you consider pushing him a little more depending on the state of the playoff race. But if you have any questions about his fitness. you shut him down and tell him you’ll see him in Jupiter in February.
read that Article. However, I do agree with your point of view regarding keeping him in the Bigs and keeping him in his routine. I strongly believe he will get back into a good rhythm. But how long will it take? One game or 5?
For their sake, hopefully not long. Verducci has written a lot about it over the years. I referred someone to it earlier in the season and remember finding a bunch of articles.
Has anyone ever studied why many of the old time pitchers could pitch so many innings without ever
having arem problems?
The answer you’d get is they didn’t throw as hard and didn’t come up wearing themselves out in Little League, travel ball, high school, on the prospect circuit and, in some cases in college like pitchers do now. They didn’t throw year-round because they played football in the fall and basketball in the winter. Now, most young pitchers rarely take time off.
Heck, I worked with an elite ML pitcher in the 90s who at least claimed to not throw a baseball between the end of the season and the weeks leading up to the start of spring training.
Pitchers back then also didn’t have access to a lot of the tools pitchers have today to get bigger and stronger (although some might suggest that’s part of the problem today).
I referenced Don Sutton yesterday. If pitchers in Sut’s generation had a sore elbow they kept pitching. In some cases they blew it out and never pitched again. There was no Dr. Jobe or Dr. Andrews. Bad shoulder, drop your arm slot a little. Adjust. Find a way.
Now, if a guy sneezes, the send him for an MRI. Again, a lot of it has to do with the financial investment. Sutton never pitched for $43.3 million a year or for 5 years and $180 million.
And back to pitchers in Sut’s era and adjusting and finding a way...
If you couldn’t pitch next year, you didn’t get paid. Guy’s were year to year. There were no Stephen Strasburgs making 8 starts over the life of a 7-year, $245 million contract.
Glenn, I predicted he would have difficulties in his first game back due to not being in a routine.
Don't get me wrong. I wish the best for Eury and the Marlins. It's been a rough few weeks for the
team and I believe the players and the coaching staff are doing everything they can to turn this around and I hope they will. It would be interesting to get Jack McKeon's ideas on how he would
go about handling Eury's situation. Jack is a believer that you get a pitcher stronger by pithching
more. He has said a number of times that we are babying todays pitchers today and that is one of
the reaseons why
they are getting injured more than in the past.
I agree. Leo Mazzone is another good baseball man who has talked about that exact same thing. His track record with pitchers was pretty good, as I recall.
The big difference between today and 10 or 20 years ago, or even more than that, is the amount of money teams have invested in a lot of young pitchers before they even get to the big leagues. This wasn’t Eury’s case coming out of the DR, but if you give a kid $5 million the day you draft him, you’re not going to want to take many chances. Not saying that’s right. I just think that’s the reality.
Great article Glenn.. You know Glenn they brought up Perez again I can imagine to spark some late magic into this team but the way I see it I think 🤔 were done.. this unfortunately is not the same team that was hungry before the all-star break. I just don't know how that team disappeared and know we are playing just so bad with no passion. What's your assessment Glenn is the team tired or were we just playing out of our league. Thanks 👍
I don’t think it’s a loss of hunger. I don’t think anything has changed. As I’ve written repeatedly since April, this was inevitable. It’s all archived for the world to see.
This team is good enough to pile up wins against bad teams, as they did (squeaking by with a lot of one-run wins) during an easy stretch of schedule in May and June. But the schedule is much more difficult in the 2nd half, especially in August and the first half of September, and they’re just not good enough to beat the top 10-15 teams in MLB with any regularity.
The only thing that’s changed is they’re now playing first and 2nd-place teams almost every series instead of 4th- and 5th-place teams.
I laid out the easy 50-game stretch a couple of weeks before it began. They went 32-18 in that stretch. Outside of that, they’re 26-38.
The offense is again bottom of the league. The rotation is short a reliable arm or 2, and the bullpen is inconsistent.
That’s basically been the case all year except when the offense heated up for a bit against bad opposition.
That’s not a lack of hunger. That’s not the manager suddenly forgetting how to run a game.
It’s simply about this roster and the depth behind the top 26 being better than the last few years but not good enough to play with the big boys.
And I’ve been explaining how this was going to play out on this site since April because it’s been obvious all along.
My thoughts exactly! The move to the
Minors and the way he was handled ruined
his routine and he was not properly prepared to return. Also, what
Scientific evidence made the Fish arrive at
the decisions that were made? I haven’t found any?
I would say the science is in regard to seeing a pitcher’s innings spike dramatically from one season to the next.
Tom Verducci has written about this at length going back a good 10 or 20 years. Pitchers, particularly young pitchers, whose workload increases dramatically from one season to the next, tend to have a higher risk of injury issues. If you want to Google the Verducci Effect, I’m sure you’ll find some of what he’s written.
My point was never that they should run him out there for 180 innings when he’s never thrown more than 78. If his number is 110 or 130, I think there’s a good argument to be made they should have just let him throw those innings continuously with an extended All-Star break. And when he hits the number, you look at where he is. Does he still feel strong? Is the velocity still there? Is the command still there? If so, maybe you consider pushing him a little more depending on the state of the playoff race. But if you have any questions about his fitness. you shut him down and tell him you’ll see him in Jupiter in February.
Thanks for the reference. I’ve never
read that Article. However, I do agree with your point of view regarding keeping him in the Bigs and keeping him in his routine. I strongly believe he will get back into a good rhythm. But how long will it take? One game or 5?
For their sake, hopefully not long. Verducci has written a lot about it over the years. I referred someone to it earlier in the season and remember finding a bunch of articles.