Hey Brute, what was Waldis Joaquin’s injury?

As you noted, it’s difficult to get and interpret historical data by months and starts. I was going mostly off of milb.com for the most part, so I didn’t see that the starts that Pucetas and Tanner missed were in April and not at the end of the season. Regardless of that, it’s obvious that the Giants did make a conscious decision to limit the innings of 2/5ths of their rotation, as compared to Adam Cowart and, to a lesser extent, Ben Snyder (since Snyder started 2 more games than Pucetas and Tanner I’m assuming that they stopped his part of the “dual starter” experiment earlier).

Secondly, a pitcher can most definitley have a “tired arm” at the beginning of a season, baseball history is full of such examples from the lowest minor leagues to the majors. Especially when the pitcher has been overworked the previous year. As I’m sure that you know, the term “tired arm” is a catch-all phrase to describe most injuries, stiffness, loss of flexiblility and loss of arm-speed that a pitcher suddenly develops and can’t initially be diagnosed by the medical staff as a specific injury. So, the fact that Nicholson would have a “tired arm” this season, after pitching 175 innings between Augusta and SJ last year is not surprising.

Thirdly, pitching in simulated, or even “real”, games in extended spring training does not at all compare to the stress and strain that pitching every 5th day in a competitive league. You can’t seriously be saying that the non-regulated games that Bucardo pitched in during 2007, 08, and 09 compare to the innings that he has, and is scheduled to, pitch this year? Let’s look at the buildup of his innings. In 2007 he threw 60 innings in the DSL, in ‘08 he threw 51 innings in the AZL and in ’09 he threw 81 innings in the NWL. This year he is on a schedule to throw more than 170 innings (including playoffs). There’s no way that Bucardo was throwing anywhere near the 90 innings per year (the difference between this year’s innings and the highest number of innings that he pitched in any prior year) in extended ST in 2007-09. That’s the minimum he would have to have averaged to simulate the jump in innings he’s scheduled for this year. I also totally disagree that extended ST innings at all compares to a 50+ game competitive college ball season, where a #1/#2 pitcher is getting around 14 starts (and often throwing 120+ pitches per start) and around 100 innings – not to mention spot relief outings and the pre-season innings they throw before the games start to count.

Fourthly, you put your finger on a key point, but didn’t recognize it. Yes, all of the other 5 pitchers that were on my list were college draftees, and they ranged in age from 22 to 24 years old when they took the large jump in their innnigs pitched. All 5 would have pitched significant competitive innings in their final college seasons in the same year that they then went on to S-K to pitch between 29 and 83 innings. Therefore, the actual innings they pitched that year was almost certainly over 100, and much closer to the 148+ innings that they then threw for Augusta and SJ the following year. The age difference between Bucardo and those 5 guys is the huge red flag that you ignored. The vast majority of experts will tell you that it’s much worse to pile on the innnigs for younger kids. That older and more physically mature bodies can better handle the heavy workloads and a big jump in workload. Bucardo is only 20 years old (won’t turn 21 until Oct. 18th), and he’s not physically robust – he’s charitably listed at 6’1", 155 (I’ll bet he’s closer to 6’, 150). The Giants should consider that before they go and have him pitch 170+ meaningless innings. One thing I will agree with you on thougn, is that there really is no advantage to sending a starter to the pen to keep his innings down. If you’re going to do that, you might as well just have him stop pitching altogether. The only real compromise to consider is to have him keep his scheduled starts, but only let him throw about 50 pitches tops in each start.

The others went from one of the best pitching parks in all the minors (Yes, a better one than Dodd stadium) in a strong pitching league to one of the best hitter’s leagues, if not the best, in the minors. A 50% success rate might be argued as being more than fair for pitchers succeeding at the next level in those circumstances. In fact, if you look at the six other pitchers who had more than 40 innings at Augusta in 2007 who pitched at San Jose in 2008, and draw a line of ‘sub-par’ at, say, 3.50 ERA, then you get the exact same 50% success rate.

This part doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. First off, Adam Cowart actually was promoted to SJ in Sept. 2007 (probably for the playoffs since milb.com doesn’t list this) and started 2 games, and pitched relief in 1 game, for a total of 17 innings. This made his IP come out to 193, and not the 169 that I previously stated. Cowart’s numbers (including peripherals) in SJ were better than his averages for Augusta that year. In 2008 Cowart was promoted to Conn. (he skipped SJ) and so he didn’t have to pitch in the hitter’s paradise that is the Cal League. He was only able to pitch 141 innings in Conn. that year (a drop of 27% from 2007), and though it wasn’t close to what he did in 2007, he did have a somewhat promising April and May, but his performance declined into the summer to the point that he only got in 21 innings in August and Sept. and was even taken out of the starting rotation. In 2009 he was demoted back to SJ to start the season, pitched 18 very poor innings as a reliever, and hasn’t been heard from sense. To summarize, he pitches 192 very effective and promising innings in 2007 between Augusta and SJ. In 2008 his performance deteriorates so much that he can only get in 142 innings, and in 2009 he’s out of baseball after 2 months.

As for Oseguera, if the overuse and huge jump in workload that he was put through in SJ in 2007 (167 innings vs. the 29 innigs that he threw in 2006 at S-K) wasn’t more than a little responsible for his shoulder problems that occurred from the very beginning of the season in 2008 for Conn. (when he could only throw 56 ineffective innings) , then you’ve stumbled onto a surprising discovery – extreme workloads for a pitcher that has a past history of arm troubles is the key to his recovery. The Giants should have been treating him with kid gloves knowing of his past shoulder problems (look how the Rangers are treating Scheppers now) instead of increasing his innings by 475% (!) between 2006 and 2007.

Finally, saying that a 50% success rate between Augusta and SJ of those 4 pitchers that I listed is to be expected, because 50% is what all the pitchers that went between Augusta and SJ experienced, is not a good comparison. The 4 pitchers that I listed were the elite of the elite. One would expect their success rate to be much higher than the overall rate of all pitchers that pitched 40 or more innings in Augusta. For example, of the 4 elite pitchers on the 2008 Augusta team (none of whom were overtaxed in IPs) – MadBum, Maday, Odle, and Clark – only Odle can be said to have been a failure at SJ the next year.