Pitches Per Start

Dusty's Trail a Ticket to Operating Table?
GOODYEAR, Ariz. -- Aroldis Chapman hadn't even pulled on a Reds cap for the first time and the the critics were yet howling.
They weren't so much surprising almost the Reds giving $30 million to a 21-year-old pitcher. They were wondering about the Reds giving that pitcher, that investment, to Dusty Baker.
Baker, a three-time Manager of the Year, is generally adored throughout the game for his work in the dugout, but over the past several years he's also become known for somebody who takes prime-rib pitchers and turns them into hamburger patties.
Baker's reputation has been so ingrained into the baseball community that even the satirical Web site, The Onion, elected up on it with a recent headline: "Dusty Baker Destroys Aroldis Chapman's Arm Within Minutes of Arrival."
As Baker sat in his office at the Reds' spring exercising intricate on Monday, he simply shook his brain meantime protecting himself.
"They are forever seeing fjust aboutmething that you didn't do," Baker told FanHouse. "It doesn't perturb me, because I don't live in the past. I've taken care of my guys, from [Bill] Swift and [John] Burkett always the way via. I care for my players. I believe in conquering, yet far from costs. I never have and I never will."
The crux of the criticism of Baker is that he lets his starting pitchers, particularly young ones, throw too numerous pitches. This was never more manifest than 2003, in Chicago, when Baker put a heavy workload on Mark Prior and Kerry Wood.
Prior and Wood, of way, became the posterboys for broken-down starting pitchers.
And Baker became a villain.
"It's potent funny that I never listened any of that before I got to Chicago," Baker said. "You take a poll of actors that played for me and inquire them, did I catch on them?"
Wood, who is in camp with the Indians, just a few hundred yards up the road from the Reds' facility, said he did no prop Baker responsible for his injuries.
"I don't think he handled us the erroneous way," said Wood, who added that he has always had a nice relationship with Baker and still keeps in touch with him. "There were times where I asked to go back out and he let me,bose earphones, and there were times that I asked to go back out and he didn't let me. It's the same with any staff, every pitching coach and every manager."
Russ Ortiz, who was one of Baker's young workhorses with the Giants, had his career derailed by injuries years behind he left San Francisco. Ortiz, immediately in camp with the Dodgers, also said that Baker namely unfairly criticized.
"I would say that's untrue," Ortiz said of the demands opposition Baker. "You fair can't mistake a manager. He's always going to be the guy, because he's assumed to be in charge,asics shoes online, but in the meantime, periodically things occur that are out of your control and make not sense."
There is no way to certify conclusively why any pitcher gets injured, so the claims of pitcher damage by Baker will always be just theories. It is indisputable,Timberland 6 inch, whereas, that Baker has had his starting pitchers consistently throw more pitches than the regulation.
Pitchers on Baker's teams have thrown more pitches per start than the National League average for pitchers on other teams in 14 of his 16 seasons. The feud is hardly ever five pitches per game over his career, but he has had two years in which his pitchers threw at least 10 more pitches, on average, than the rest of the league. One of those was 2003.
Dusty Baker, Pitcher Abuser? Pitches Per Start PAP Per Team* Year Baker League Baker League 1993 86.7 89.3 273.2 2,947.8 1994 91 88.8 337 2,122.7 1995 89.6 85.8 1,532.3 1,851.8 1996 97.7 83.1 1,690.4 1,674.3 1997 94.9 88.4 2,692.9 1,802.2 1998 93.9 91.6 1,361 2,456.9 1999 103.8 95.8 5,172 2,208.4 2000 102.5 97.2 4,064 2,297.3 2001 99.7 93.8 2,075.6 1,262.6 2002 100.9 93 3,288.8 1,145.2 2003 103.5 93.5 3,970.6 1,113.2 2004 99 93.8 1,928.2 1,089.8 2005 97.7 95.4 1,904.5 989.6 2006 91.9 94.5 995.5 838.9 2008 97.9 93.9 1,028 622.9 2009 98.7 94.4 968.8 631.3 * PAP stands for Pitcher Abuse Points and is enumerated by Baseball Prospectus. Read more about the metric here. Baker administered for the Giants from 1993-2002, the Cubs from 2003-06 and the Reds from 2008-present. Analysts at Baseball Prospectus have been studying likely overuse of pitchers since at least 1998, when they amplified a metric known as Pitcher Abuse Points. PAP essentially counts pitches thrown over 100, addition heaviness to the more pitches the higher the aggregate goes.
Baker's groups were underneath the ally mean in PAP in his premier three seasons, but since then they have been upon in 12 of the past 13 years. In 2002 with the Giants and 2003 with the Cubs, Baker's teams racked up more than three times the number of PAP of the average among the other teams in the alliance.
Will Carroll, a author at Baseball Prospectus who specializes in studying injuries, has no doubt that Baker is responsible for the dispose of his pitchers.
"When you just look at the results he's had, where guys over and over are obtaining impaired, if it's the pattern of pitches he's using alternatively the digit of pitches, it's readily obvious," Carroll said. "I was stunned how explicit it was that his pitchers are darting more pitches. Can I point directly to Dusty and say 'You have caused this'? No. But I don't think there's any way you can't say 'You are the most likely occasion.'"
Although Prior and Wood are the main names attached to Baker, he is also a guess in the injury-riddled careers of Jason Schmidt, Ortiz and Shawn Estes. (Schmidt was actually worked even harder by Baker's beneficiary,ugg australia, Felipe Alou.)
Aaron Harang has watched his career take a nosedive the past two years under Baker, and a connection is sometimes made to a May 25, 2008 game when Harang threw 63 pitches in relief in a 16-inning game, on two days of recess. When Edinson Volquez had to have Tommy John surgery final year, there were instantly rumblings that Baker had struck another, although some research by FanHouse's Pat Lackey showed that Baker actually hadn't had Volquez throw an inordinately tall number of pitches.
While Baker insists that he takes care of his pitchers,nike dunk sale, he also doesn't scamper from the idea that he believes pitchers can't be coddled.
"I've taken care of my guys, ... I believe in winning, but far from costs. I never have and I never will."
-- Dusty Baker "When are you being also detailed and when are you letting them pitch?" Baker said. "The merely way to get better is to pitch. ... Look at some of the Japanese and Latin pitchers that come over here and are used to throwing each daytime. They come over here and don't throw and get ache anyway. I don't think there is a real set formula."
Pitching, Baker said, is an unnatural film, so injuries are inevitable.
"There are definite asset that are karma, that are bound to happen," Baker said. "You are throwing a projectile at that speed, and someone is gonna happen to somebody. It's unnatural to throw it. I don't care what they say."
In Baker's ward, two of the pitchers he worked the hardest -- Livan Hernandez and Carlos Zambrano -- have not had arm problems at all. Hernandez was never hurt in the major leagues, and Zambrano didn't go on the disabled catalogue until two years after Baker was gone, and that was usual a hamstring injury. Zambrano has since missed time with dissimilar hamstring injury and a back problem.
Ortiz, who also didn't get hurt until years after he left Baker, said that his problem was really a rib injury. That caused him to change his mechanics, which resulted in an shoulder problem.
Ortiz threw 120 or more pitches 28 times with the Giants, all before he was 30 years age. He said that Baker often asked him how he felt, and he never moved him to pitch when he said he was weary.
"We're all adults up here," Ortiz said. "Everyone has to take responsibility for taking care of himself."
Wood, who had one injury history ahead Baker arrived in Chicago, said he felt namely Baker accustomed him appropriately during that fateful 2003 season, when he threw by fewest 120 pitches 13 periods in the regular season and once in the postseason. Only two pitchers -- Randy Johnson and Hernandez -- threw extra 120-pitch games in a season over the past decade.
"I felt favor when I began a game in '03, I was going to go at least 8 or nine innings," Wood said. "That was the intellect I had. I felt favor I ought have been in shape and lusty enough to go out and throw 120-125 pitches every fifth day, and I did it well. ...
"I don't know if there were any affects from that year at all. I can't really needlepoint one thing or one sequence of events that caused [the injuries]."
The commentary stings Baker, but not so much because of what it means to him. Baker said he feels empathy for the pitchers who have gotten hurt under his see.
"I'm a responsible human," he said. "If everything, I might be overly responsible for things that aren't in my liability realm. That's how my father was. That's how he taught me to be. ... I feel badly for whoever gets hurt in this game. Anyone who knows me knows I'm not that hard-hearted of a person. You put it past you and shake ahead. I haven't changed."

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