I'm not the baseball fan I once was, but is there actual data to support the restrictions that are being placed on pitchers? It appears pitchers' arms are falling off more than ever. Some players' arms have fallen off multiple times. The pitchers aren't stronger at the end of the season and their careers aren't being extended. It appears that we're just regurgitating unproven talking points.

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The gurus at 670 just spent the better part of three years telling me that stats don’t matter in the evaluation of the quarterback, he’s good in an undefinable way. I’m assuming the same is true for these pitching stats.

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It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

Spin rate is top of the list. Pitchers didn't use to squeeze the sawdust out of the ball. Didn't have to because the seams were higher. I mean, we all know the story of the baseball. There's unintended consequences for inventing the HR ball.

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I think it has more to do with arms NEVER getting any extended rest. The disappearance of the three sport athlete. Today's pitchers pitch year round. Warren Spahn put down his baseball glove in September and then played football and basketball until the following April. His arm was fully recovered and ready to throw as many pitches as needed the next season.

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This paired with max effort pitching from everyone, starters and relievers. The idea used to be you want to get through seven innings as a SP. Nobody except Nolan Ryan could do that throwing as hard as you could or spinning it as fast as you could on every pitch. You had a better pitch mix, more command of your pitches, pitched to contact, etc. Now most SPs are two pitch pitchers, go max effort two times through the lineup and then turn it over to 3-5 bullpen arms that are throwing max effort.

Tommy John said that his namesake surgery should be a volume injury. Something that happens to guys in their 30s. Now pitchers are having 2x Tommy John surgeries prior to turning 25.

I think one of the hidden changes to the game is stadium configuration. Essentially through the late 1980s you had a lot of multi purpose parks that now only had deep OF fences, and lightning fast playing surfaces (read: turf), but you also had enormous amounts of foul territory. (For example, the 1975 version of Dodger Stadium had 27,000 sq/ft of foul territory, the current version of the same park has 19,000.) There was less incentive to hit a HR because it was harder do based on the in play dimensions, there was more incentive to put the ball in play because turf aided a lot of hits, and there was a bigger risk of a foul ball turning into an out.

Now every stadium is a bandbox for the most part (Wrigley used to be for the most part a hitter's park, now it's neutral), and there isn't any foul territory so you can have a 12 pitch AB where you foul off 8 pitches.

No it's the pitch clock, just ask those whiny soft dopes and they'll blame it.

The fascination with the walk on the batter's side and the strikeout on the pitcher's side has radically altered the way the game is played and frankly, made for a very boring game that now requires all manner of rule changes to "fix."

Once Voros McCracken discovered that batting average on balls in play normalized around .300, it wasn't a great leap to declare that pitchers only "control" walks and strikeouts, and to a somewhat lesser degree, homeruns. While I don't think that's quite true- as illustrated by the success of guys like Buehrle and Moyer, for example- it obviously put a premium on pitchers who had high strikeout rates.

This lead to the now common belief that a "pitcher's job is to prevent baserunners." That's something with which I vehemently disagree, especially as it concerns starting pitchers.

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That's something that was forgotten during the homerun boom which was attributed strictly to PEDs.

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So there's no data to support the lower pitch count talking points?

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I believe it was Spiegal I heard reference a report from a research doctor who concluded that throwing anything over 88 is unsustainable for arm ligaments. So, if the injury is inevitable, you spread out the risk over a larger time period.

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High schools now carry players as pitchers only, which would have been ridiculous 30 years ago.

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I think they have no choice but to move the mound back. Human evolution has allowed guys to throw 100 MPH with regularity, but has human eyesight evolved enough to pick up these pitches with regularity? I would say no.

I would love to see the report. The cautious approach hasn't exactly prolonged careers.

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There's definitely data supporting the removal of the starter before he faces the lineup a third time, i.e. a significantly higher BAA. However, that's for ALL pitchers. I'd look at it as, "Do I have a guy in the bullpen that's going to be better than this starter who is dominating right now?"

Removing the starter by rote prior to the third time around is the kind of push button managing "by the book" that is less likely to get a guy fired if and when things go bad.

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I'm fine with putting that at the top of the list, but there IS a list. The max effort is also on it, which is the leading consequence of the adopted pitching sabremetrics format.

The pitching labs are a factory. They keep churning out units. So now there is a consequence for putting your mitt down for 6 months. Therefore, I don't think the statistical branch of MLB really cares. Their entire existence is about saving runs and producing runs. It's not their job to save baseball from dying.

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Wattabout Kodak Black?

Obviously not. It's just next man who can throw 100 mph for three innings up. It's up to the pitchers and their parents in the developmental years to change how this is done. These guys are disposable as far as MLB teams are concerned. Probably even as most high school or travel coaches are concerned.

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Velocity is the answer. This many guys throwing this hard is just making them more inclined to injuries

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Bob Feller threw 99-100 way back the in the day. He just didn't do so on every pitch and, as JOrr said, he didn't pitch from mid October until Spring Training.

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Now, 8 out of 10 guys are throwing that hard.

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Yep. For the most part, a starter getting a quick hook is more about run prevention than saving arms. However, guys will get shut down in the name of saving arms, which I expect will happen to Crochet in late August or early September.

8 out of 10 guys should back off on most pitches then. See Justin Verlander who purposely throws with less velo, especially early in games, them ramps it up when he needs a couple extra MPH.

Also I have read that the speed readings are now being taken directly out of the pitcher's hand which can add a couple MPH. It used to be done with the old radar gun as the pitch crossed the plate and had slowed a touch.

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While there are certainly more guys throwing very hard these days, I have my doubts that any of them is throwing harder than Walter Johnson, Bob Feller, or Nolan Ryan regardless of what a modern radar gun might suggest or what they may put up on a stadium scoreboard to pump up the crowd.

105!!!!!!!!!!!!

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The worst example of that was shutting down Strasburg with a better than good chance to win a World Series as if he had ten more championships in his future.

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Even the best pitchers have a third time through the order penalty. The problem is that nobody discusses magnitude. If Corbin Burnes gives up an OPS+ of 92 his third time through the order and you bring in an reliever who might lower that to 86+, what have you really gained? Probably nothing over the course of Burns 33 starts. We might be talking 2-5 runs at most over those 33 starts, and it wouldn't likely result in fewer wins, maybe one if we are being generous.

Sure there is a third time through the order penalty, but nobody discusses magnitude.

I read The Old Ballgame by Frank DeFord, which covered Christy Mathewson's and John McGraw's time with the Giants. In the book, DeFord tells a story where McGraw moved around Mathewson's outfielders while Mathewson was pitching, Mathewson got pissed that McGraw interfered, and proceeded to throw faster and strike out the side to "get back at" McGraw.

I think the bold has a lot to do with the park factors mentioned before. HRs are obviously the best outcome for an at bat. We have designed more and more parks to be more generous with allowing HRs. No traditional turf fields paired with more aggressive and precise defensive shifts have made balls in play less likely to result in hits versus 30 years ago. Also the lack of foul territory allows a hitter to foul off pitches in perpetuity with very little risk of a foul becoming an out.

It's geared the offensive game towards BBs and HRs. Also fewer balls in play means you can put more Schwarbers in the OF because how many plays does he see a game? 2? 3?

Right. It's not whether Zack Wheeler is better the third time through the order than he was the first time. He almost certainly won't be. The question is, is he better than whatever middle reliever you're bringing in.

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You don't think the Physiology of players has changed significantly in the last 20-30 years.