# Pitches vs. Innings Pitched, etc.

In the last 20 years or so, there's greater awareness of the effect of pitch counts and innings pitched on pitchers, especially young pitchers. In thinking about these trends, some questions have slowly been forming in my sabernovice mind: Are pitch counts and innings essentially interchangeable, wrt to effects on pitchers' health? Doesn't seem reasonable, since some innings are done in 10 pitches while others can go 30. But what's worse for a pitcher's health, a 2 inning/60 pitch outing, or a 6 inning/60 pitch outing? Or is the effect the same, so that only pitch count matters? Has this type of thing been analyzed anywhere? Is it a simple matter of pitches per inning vs. some factor of innings pitched? That's sorta circular, I know, because innings/innings would just leave us with total pitches, but I'm trying to get my brain around an idea that I'm pretty sure I don't fully grasp. Is that muddled enough, or should I go on?

almost 3 years ago Sabertooth 11 comments 0 recs |

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Well, that’s interesting, my paragraphs got reformatted into a blob.

by Sabertooth on Apr 12, 2009 11:44 AM PDT reply actions

I think this discussion would be fanpost worthy.

Randy Winn is going to catch that. And he'll do it real classy-like too.

by oldjacket on Apr 12, 2009 11:53 AM PDT up reply actions

Thanks! First time anyone’s said that about my formatting problems.

by Sabertooth on Apr 12, 2009 12:13 PM PDT up reply actions

I’ll leave this to Xanthan and the other stats geeks but it seems that there must be some correlation between IP and number of pitches/inning with regards to its effect on a young pitcher. That is, if two 24-year old pitchers throw 200 innings in a season but one throws 500 more pitches than the other, it’s bound to have some effect, no?

My plans for 2009: getting married and attending Tim Lincecum Bobblehead Day.

by Kitspool on Apr 12, 2009 11:52 AM PDT reply actions

"one throws 500 more pitches than the other, it’s bound to have some effect, no?"

I would think so, but if it’s all about pitch counts, then why do we so often use innings pitched per season to determine arm abuse?

That’s why asked the question about the 2 IP/60 pitch vs. the 6IP/60 pitch examples. Are the health effects the same?

What about 6 IP/120 pitches vs. 10 IP/120 piches? Pitch counts are the same, but are paced better over the 10 inning outing. Yet the pitcher is throwing over a longer period of time. Do any of these factors matter?

by Sabertooth on Apr 12, 2009 12:12 PM PDT up reply actions

Baseball Prospectus and Will Carroll

They have done some very good work on the use of pitchers.

To Sum up, IIRC:
Age matters a lot.
IP and # pitches matter a lot, with ~120 pitches being the magic number where you start to see effects in the next few starts
Big jumps in IP over the prior season tend to be bad.
Minor league innings are not as stressful as major league innings.

Pedro Feliz would look great in Dodger Blue.

by irwin on Apr 12, 2009 12:37 PM PDT up reply actions

Thanks. Now let’s take a pitcher who throws 150 innings one year at 20 pitiches per inning, and the next year throws 200 innings at 15 pitches per inning. Other than the extra 50 IP x warmup pitches, has his workload significantly increased? Doesn’t seem like it, since in both years he threw 3000 pitches.

by Sabertooth on Apr 12, 2009 12:52 PM PDT up reply actions

Or you could make it realistic

Figure it for Zito at 150 innings of 40 pitches. And forget the stress on the pitcher. Think of the stress on us. (seriously though, good topic for our statheads to take on for us, although at the end of the day some of the most important factors may still not be in the equation – I’ve got to believe 3000 pitches for Livan isn’t anything like 3000 for, say, Oswalt)

by NearestNorwich on Apr 12, 2009 6:01 PM PDT up reply actions

That example, without more information, would probably not be such a problem. [assuming he made the same number of starts in those two year]. I am not not sure that anyone has ever been able to make such a great jump in command and control.

And this is all speaking in generalities – some pitchers may be outliers like Livan.

This article is a good start and BP has much more on the subject

http://baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1477

Pedro Feliz would look great in Dodger Blue.

by irwin on Apr 13, 2009 9:36 AM PDT up reply actions

I don’t have time to look for links to back this up, but my understanding is that high pitch-count innings are especially worrisome. The argument is that a pitcher is much more likely to get fatigued and be sloppy with their mechanics if he’s already been out there for 20+ pitches. Along similar lines, an inning with a lot of pitches means things probably aren’t going too well for the pitcher. This leads to two potential risks, to my way of thinking:

1) The pitch count got that high because the pitcher “doesn’t have it” that day, possibly due to a mechanical issue, etc. Then you combine the mechanical issue with the extra fatigue from throwing so many pitches without a break, and you have a higher injury risk.

2) The pitcher gets amped up and/or frustrated by his poor performance, and his mechanics break down as a result. Something like what happened to Sanchez after giving up the second jack to Hank White the other day, although I don’t think he had thrown that many pitches in the inning at that point (although he certainly threw a bunch more that inning).

Anyway, all this stuff makes intuitive sense to me, but I don’t recall if anyone’s done extensive studies to see if the facts bear this out.

by dmunk on Apr 13, 2009 9:31 AM PDT up reply actions

Funny you mention pitch counts and sides. Lately I’ve been wonder about them as well.

More along the line how many runs as scored in say a 15 ( +/- 2) pitch side, 20 pitches ( +/- 2) say 25 pitches ( +/-2). Though not as much for mileage on an arm as to gauge if a team really does pay a price for nibbling and how much a charged error typically adds to sides pitch load. I assume the more pitches thrown in a side the more the advantage goes to offensive but so far I have not found much to quantify this advantage – even on a league wide scale. But if anyone has run across a related URL I would love to see it.

Where is my beer & chili dog?

by daveinexile on Apr 13, 2009 6:59 AM PDT reply actions