Do Pitch Counts/Innings Limits Help?, No conclusions, but some interesting data Options

[TheGoose]

After some recent unnecessarily heated arguments here regarding the "new approach" (not sure what new means in this case..maybe the last decade or so) to limiting SPs Innings and pitches per appearance, I decided to do some digging in the archives to see some overall trends on Innings Per Start and Career Longevity.

I took data using all pitchers wince 1900 who have had more than 15 career starts, and broke the league average Innings Per Start down by decade.

I also used the same criteria to break down by decade the average Career Length in years.

Here's the results:




Clearly, Innings Per Start continues on it's downward trend, with the largest drop coming in the 80's. This was probably due to the league noticing what the killer 1-2 punch of Ron Davis and Rich Gossage were doing to the league in the 7th, 8th, and 9th innings, but I could be wrong. I always looked at those two as the beginning of the setup guy/closer era.

In any case, with less innings being pitched per start than at any other time in history, and with all of the new-fangled limits on innings and the overuse of pitch counts, AND with all the millions on the table, you would think that SP careers would be significantly higher.

But, not so fast. The results were surprising:



So, even with all of the coddling, and arm management overkill, why aren't starting pitchers having longer careers, or at least having careers of the same length?

Discuss please.

P.S. Numbers for the 90's and the 2000 decade are incomplete, as there are some pitchers who started in those decades that are obviously still active. Those pitchers from the 90's obviously would bring UP the average for that decade, but far more so for 2000-2009. The 90's decade should not significantly change as there is already a very large sampling. Even guys like Smoltz, Glavine, Maddux, etc won't bring that number up

This post has been edited by TheGoose: May 10 2008, 03:50 PM

[thrower25usr]

Importation of Latin American and Japanese pitchers increased the talent pool so declining guys can be replaced much easier today than in the 60s and 70s.

Also I'd bet that a lot of that is front end. Players spend more time in the minors today. If a pitcher is a big leaguer for 7 years and started at 24 he retires and 31. If a pitcher in the olden days starts his career younger at 18 or whatever he retires at 28 after 10 years. Come to think of it. The minors and college baseball probably have had a bigger impact than the increase in foreign pitchers.

[TheGoose]

Importation of Latin American and Japanese pitchers increased the talent pool so declining guys can be replaced much easier today than in the 60s and 70s.

Also I'd bet that a lot of that is front end. Players spend more time in the minors today. If a pitcher is a big leaguer for 7 years and started at 24 he retires and 31. If a pitcher in the olden days starts his career younger at 18 or whatever he retires at 28 after 10 years. Come to think of it. The minors and college baseball probably have had a bigger impact than the increase in foreign pitchers.

Your point about the imports is excellent.

So we have the following reasons FAVORING a pitchers longevity:

1. Pitch Counts
2. Inning Limits
3. Far better Medical Treatment
4. TJ Surgery
5. Massive Import of players from Latin America, Japan, Korea, even Taiwan
6. Juicing
7. much higher finacial incentives to play longer

Factors Working Against Pitchers:

1. Lower Mound
2. DH
3. Bigger, stronger batters
4. Need to throw harder to get out bigger stronger batters
5. expansion
6. fewer black ballplayers in the talent pool - used to be about 30% now about 10-11%, but this should be countered by the influx of Latin and Asian ballplayers
7. Juiced batters (although this could fall under bigger stronger)
8. Smaller ballparks???? Not sure if this is true, but it seems like a trend
9. Artificial turf?

This post has been edited by TheGoose: May 11 2008, 07:21 AM

[loosemoose35]

Your point about the imports is excellent.

So we have the following reasons FAVORING a pitchers longevity:

1. Pitch Counts
2. Inning Limits
3. Far better Medical Treatment
4. TJ Surgery
5. Massive Import of players from Latin America, Japan, Korea, even Taiwan
6. Juicing
7. much higher finacial incentives to play longer

Factors Working Against Pitchers:

1. Lower Mound
2. DH
3. Bigger, stronger batters
4. Need to throw harder to get out bigger stronger batters
5. expansion
   
6. fewer black ballplayers in the talent pool - used to be about 30% now about 10-11%, but this should be countered by the influx of Latin and Asian ballplayers
7. Juiced batters (although this could fall under bigger stronger)
8. Smaller ballparks???? Not sure if this is true, but it seems like a trend
9. Artificial turf?

Just out of curiosity... what does that one have to do with anything? The rest all make sense to me, but you lost me on that one.