We've all heard the talk about watching him as the season goes on. It's especially interesting since he's having a Cy Young caliber start. RPB seems to know baseball and I remember him saying a big jump in innings pitched these days usually has a better chance to be detrimental to him long term. Is all this talk just fodder for sports radio or should they start slowing him down when he gets to the 150 IP range or whatever it is?

Looking forward to JORR explaining a half-dozen different ways to look at this and not use one stat.

2011 71.0 IP
2012 74.2 IP as of June 10th

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

If pitchers want to be strong, then they need to throw. They need to play long toss, throw batting practice to strengthen their arms. If you want to be effective at something, you need to do it.
I posted this before, but it bears repeating, if it was all about innings and total pitches, then relievers would never get injured as they throw fewer pitches and fewer innings. THat isn;t the case, however.

It's all about arm strength. I know it sounds trite, but the only way to strengthen your arm is to throw the ball.

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We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.- Eric Hoffer

Well, not all innings pitched are equal. And if you want to talk about pitch counts, what about all the warm-up pitches and side sessions guys throw? Or is our "scientific" analysis to simply assume that every pitcher throws the same amount?

A good pitcher doesn't get hurt and if he gets hurt he isn't a good pitcher. Can you imagine if it comes to late August and the Sox are two or three games in front and they shut Sale down upon reaching an arbitrary number of innings? In a town where two teams combine to win a single World Series in 100 years? You have to get what you can from him. This may be the year you can win it. You can't make plans for something else to happen down the road.

In a similar way that's why I disagree with the "rebuilding" concept the Cubs are selling. They've got an $88 million payroll. If they had signed a couple guys and pushed it to $120 million, that's still about $50 million less than what it should be. Maybe that extra money wins them 80 games. Cubs fans have been hornswoggled into thinking they don't want that (except apparently jimmpasta). But if you can win 80, maybe a few things fall your way. Another team has a couple guys go down. You have a big series with the Cardinals and catch the back of their rotation and now you're at 85 or 86 wins. Does that get you into the playoffs? Probably. And then we all know it's a "crapshoot". That's been repeated ad nauseum by statisticians. So this may have actually been the year the Cubs were going to win the World Series but they threw that chance away. On purpose. Fuck next year. I want Sale to throw as much as they need him to throw.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I think that makes sense but in this case he's just starting his career as a starter and developing those habits. Does Coop coach them like that? Even if you subscribe to a regimen like you describe I'd still worry about this being his first year starting and him still learning to get comfortable trying to start 33-35 games for a season.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I can completely understand Sale and his agent and his parents wanting to protect his million dollar arm. But I think purely from the White Sox perspective you've got to get what you can out of him while you can. His extra thirty innings this season may mean more than pitching another 2000 innings in the future.

It reminds me of a horse my partners and I raced back in 2001-02. Her name was Roaring Good Time and she made over $500,000 for us as a two-year old. She would have won the Breeder's Crown going for $800,000 if she had gotten loose a little sooner. She ended up finishing second which was still a good payday. Anyway, the next week there was a race called the Three Diamonds going for about $350,000. We would have had to race her in an elimination and then the final. And there was a horse named Worldly Beauty in there we knew we probably couldn't beat. Still, second money would have been about $65,000 for us. But she already had made 13 starts which was a heavy campaign for a two-year old filly. So we decided to shut her down and figured she would come back fresh for the next year and make us another million dollars. She never came back the same and she made about forty grand total as a three-year-old before we retired her.

My point is, there's nothing that guarantees Sale will ever be this good again or even that he'll ever play for a Sox team that has as good a chance of winning the AL as this one.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

No two pitches are the same. The twentieth pitch in the second inning with 2 out and no one on is not the same as the 110th pitch in the 8th inning with two out and men on second and third.

However, IMO, longterm, it's all about arm strength and luck. Some guys are just destined to get injured and some are not. I don't think it's any more complicated than that.

In any endeavor, the outcomes will be varied when it involves humans. Sale may have the most cringing delivery and be fine for years, while Prior's seems effortless and he battles injury for his whole career. People are different. Some can take things and some can't.

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We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.- Eric Hoffer

I disagree and agree with you here. First off, I don't think your first statement is true in the least. Plenty of examples of good pitchers that get hurt, and plenty of examples of non-MLB level pitchers that don't. That is a pretty silly statement to make, so I am assuming you are making it for your persona image, not that you really believe it. I do agree with the latter part of this statement, and I do have concerns with it. If the division is on the line, especially this year with the dual wild cards, do you really rest a guy who you know will limit the other team to 3 runs or less in 8 innings when you have a shot at winning it all? And agreed, what happens in 3 years when Paulie and Dunn are out of here and say some guys don't pan out and you end up with Tyler Flowers hitting .230 and 12 HR a year, and Jordan Danks hits .250 with 17 HRs?

Well a chicken may have been a goose except for his mother. I do not want to fuck next year. I want to keep that in my arsenal. Yes, when we get to the postseason, things change... I'll grant you that. I would be more willing to pitch him then than I would during the regular season. I don't see how you can say that you'd be willing to waste a player's next 10 years for the want of this year getting 1 win per playoff tier.

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"All crowds boycotting football games shouldn't care who sings or takes a knee because they aren't watching." - Nas

I don't think Sale should have an innings limit but the Sox should manage his innings. I really like the idea of giving him a long rest over the all-star break and they should give him an extra day between starts whenever possible.

The comparisons I keep hearing to Strasburg are just dumb. Strasburg is coming off major elbow surgery and an innings limit is part of a successful recovery plan. Sale has never been cut and he recently had an MRI done that came back so clean it convinced Kenny to put him back in the rotation.

The Sox should continue to find creative ways to give him a little extra rest but they should not put an innings or starts limit on Sale. Put me in the camp that a pitcher gets stronger by pitching.

Its not too often that a first year starter will get to start the All Star game and game 1 of the World Series

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I'm a firm believer in letting pitchers throw. I think the babying does them a disservice. They need to throw in order to be able to pitch. A runner runs, a golfer golfs, a hitter hits and a pitcher throws. Your arm does not get stronger by taking days off. You need to throw all the time. Throwing batting practice is not like pitching when the game is on the line, but it's all part of building arm strength. That is what is missing in today's game, arm strength.

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We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.- Eric Hoffer

Mr Reason is making sense.

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What I mean is that injuries are part of who a guy is. They can't be separated from the player. That's why I call him "Mark Prior Whenhealthy". I've almost never heard his name without the last part. But when is he ever healthy?

A horse trainer I know named John Butenschoen worked for a legend in harness racing named Delvin Miller when he was a young kid. After the yearling sales one year Delvin had John load a six figure yearling on a trailer. They drove the horse out to an abandoned racetrack and turned him out in a herd of semi-feral horses. John was taken aback. He said to Delvin, "What happens if he gets hurt?" and Delvin replied, "If he gets hurt, he wasn't a good horse." That's kind of what I meant about the pitchers.



My point is that you can't really plan ahead too far. The kind of thinking like, "we're set at short for the next fifteen years" is obsolete in today's game. Chances are six of those next ten years might well be in Yankee pinstripes anyway. You've got to get it while you can, if you can.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

except they are the ones who are pushing while the Sox were attempting to rail him in

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Im just going off what I read from experts and throwing a little common sense in. I dont think you should ever more than double your innings from the previous year.

But that doesnt mean Sale or Strasburg or whoever cant be the rubber armed guy who can throw 220 innings every year and be fine.

Its precautionary. Usually teams with these kind of pitchers are rebuilding and the decision is easy because there is no pennant race to worry about.

It seems simple but its not. Its complex.

Nolan Ryan's system seems to be working in the short term. That will be very intersting in the next 5-10 years as his pitchers get older.


Also, throw this in. What's more important: Winning the 2012 World Series or having Sale for years to come?

I can tell u as a Cub fan if the Cubs had won it all in 2003, I would be a lot more forgiving of Dusty Baker's insane handling of Prior and Wood.


If it were my decision, I would try to limit Sale's innings wherever I could, without comprimising any wins.

He should have an extra day of rest every time there's an off day. Maybe give him the week before the all star break where some teams rearrange their rotations.

The White Sox have been very good at keeping pitchers healthy, as well.

I don't even think that's a question. You trade Sale for a 2012 title 10 times out of 10.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Only season ticket guy and JimmyPasta think this way.

Im sorry to the season ticket holders. They can enjoy the fuckin playoff games when they come around. Rebuilding teams are the price you pay sometimes.

A few things here, Bryan. First, the concept that "you can't rebuild and contend at the same time" has somehow become gospel even though there is no evidence nor any statistic to support such a claim. In fact, teams rebuild on the fly all the time and some of them very successfully.

Second, I don't see how spending an extra $40 million of Rickett's money to put a team on the field that is at least watchable- if not competitive- inhibits rebuilding in any way. The Cubs and their fans love the idea that they're one of the elite franchises, a heritage franchise, so big and popular, yet they're acting like they're the Twins or the Expos without many complaints.

Finally, the idea that someone else should buy the tickets until they're good enough so that you're interested in buying them isn't a very sound business philosophy. What if every Cub fan decides to adopt the cpguy methodology? There won't be money to pay Anthony Rizzo. I'm not sure I understand that viewpoint anyway. You're a fan of baseball when the Cubs are good and you're a fan of drafts when the Cubs are bad?

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Agreed. I dont think there is ONE way to do it.

I have to point out though, there's some hypocrisy in saying "no stat supports it" and then supporting the other side by saying "some" do it "all the time"



Or the Phillies. Some teams use a budget and save money in a plan to splurge later. Now you can think its a bad plan, or that Ricketts will just pocket the money, but it is a viable way to rebuild and its proven successful recently by the Big Market Phillies

You present it as Cub fans have been swindled. I highly doubt any Philly fan regrets 2004 and 2005.



I expressed no such idea.

What Im saying is, I dont feel bad for the season ticket guy who has to sit thru a couple lean years because when playoffs come, he'll be rewarded.



Anthony Rizzo might be good. You exaggerating Cub fans expectations of them is getting old [I dont care if a handful of posters here took your bait and said he might be better than some all stars. You're acting like Cub fans are waiting on this kid like Andrew Luck or LeBron].

Im a fan of baseball always. I pay attention to the draft and minor leagues always.

Certain fans probably pay more attention to the draft and FA when their team is bad....which would be totally understandable. Just like the Super Bowl winning teams fan is not going to be as concerned with the draft as the team with the #1 pick.

Sale is on pace to pitch 230 innings after pitching just 71 last season. The most he's ever pitched in a season (College, Minors and MLB combined) is 138 innings-his rookie year. It's a huge leap to go to over 200 innings this season. That said, if the team is in contention, sitting Sale would be like throwing in the towel on 2012. Sale and Peavy are 14-3 combined and despite their outstanding performances to date in 2012, they are barely keeping the team atop the division. Take Sale away and the team would fade. But its the smart and responsible thing to do, to ensure Sale's career is not cut short by injuries. But I don't expect any Sox fans to agree with the idea, since it would hurt their chances so much this season to do it.

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Go Cubs!!!!

How did you come up with that 230 innings number?

Simple mathematics. You take the total innings pitched to date, divide that total by the starts made, then take the average innings pitched per start and multiply it by the starts he should have remaining in the season.

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Go Cubs!!!!

Which you excel at, as we all know.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Another simple task that is too difficult for Steve. Sale has pitched 73 2/3 innings in 11 starts, and one inning in one relief appearance. He is averaging 6.7 IP per start. With 102 games remaining, and Sale not scheduled to pitch until Friday, that means he "should have" 20 starts remaining. If you multiply 20 by 6.7, the result is 134.

134 + 74.67 = 208.67, not 230

Steve, you can't even get the numbers correct by taking them directly from a newspaper or website. Figure in the lying about bowling, and I have come to the conclusion that numbers confuse Steve.

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Good people drink good beer - Hunter S. Thompson

<º)))><

Waiting for the time when I can finally say
That this has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way

Mercy. He also thinks Dunn is on pace to hit 92 homers this season.


Chus its probably even less than that for Sale's IP. They are looking to give him a long layoff over the All Star break, and I think if weather causes a game of his to be rained out they might skip his turn in the rotation. Hell, even Verlander has had seasons of less than 230 innings

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Chus strikes again!

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It would be more accurate to divide his innngs pitched by the number of games played then multiply by 162. Using that calculation Sale is on pace to pitch 201.58 innings during the regular season. I was wondering if you were including a World Series appearance in your projection which it looks like you were.

I agree, but I was just going along with the terms that Steve-O used.

_________________
Good people drink good beer - Hunter S. Thompson

<º)))><

Waiting for the time when I can finally say
That this has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way

To be fair to Steve, Sale has had 11 starts. Id guess he ends up with 33. Using that math he's around 222

I will lay off Steve as soon as he apologizes for calling me ignorant when I called him out on his bowling claims. I have the proof that he was lying.

_________________
Good people drink good beer - Hunter S. Thompson

<º)))><

Waiting for the time when I can finally say
That this has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way