35.24. Ah, Crap, I'm Abusing My Pitchers

[agrudez]

So... confession time. I have my pitchers on '0' pitch limits. It's something I do quite often, actually - usually only restricting the poor stamina (ie. <=5) guys to strict pitch counts (to avoid getting blasted in later innings before getting yanked) and injury prone guys (to limit injuries... duh). And although it's a fairly common practice for me, I don't recall ever seeing it manifest in a distinct problem before (like pitcher abuse). Maybe my team sliders for pulling pitchers have protected them in the past (I pretty much never set my SP to a slow pull on the player strategy page - leaving my best guys neutral and my worse guys heavily favoring getting pulled) and for some reason it isn't now. Maybe having coaches in this league (something I've never played with anywhere else) is throwing a wrench in the works. Maybe the switch from the last OOTP I played (v17) to v19 is a starker contrast in this variable. Whatever the cause, Peithner's 63.6% CG% is sitting there... staring at me... taunting me... ringing the 'shame' bell at me. I can't avoid it. I suck. Sorry, 'Cajun' - good luck with your ligaments.

And the worst part? It's not just him. Tong doesn't have the insane CG% that Peithner has (because he keeps getting yanked after 8.1 or 8.2 IP... so heartless), but his IP/start isn't too far behind Peithner's - 7.45 v. 7.78. Let's walk through the last 5 games for each in terms of pitch counts...

Peithner: 124, 131, 116, 109, 118
Tong: 118, 114, 95, 97, 127

In terms of PAP that is...

Peithner: 42, 64, 22, 9, 26 -> an average of 33/game
Tong: 26, 18, 0, 0, 51 -> an average of 19/game

That's... a lot. They're both in the hunt for a Cy Young (2.73, 2.74 ERAs, 3.46, 3.49 FIPs and 2.2, 2 WARs) and their elbows are hanging on by a thread. It's not even just them, either. Nicto has a 107, 118 and 106 pitch count on his resume this year and Charles has a 114 and 121. Clearly not the atrocity that their betters are experiencing, but unhealthy all the same.

So, what does this mean? Well, clearly we need to reverse this trend ASAP and hope it isn't already too late for our starter's long-term (and short-term) health. For a 2035 view, we aren't particularly deep in the rotation and would prefer to not have Sandoval, Baghina and Quintana leading us into September while we fight for a playoff berth. Long term, you're talking about two top tier young pitchers (Peithner is 24 and Tong is 22) that we would like to pencil into our plans for a long, long time - without worrying about consistent nagging injuries and/or early ratings decline from overuse. Of course, this will entail a sacrifice - namely, letting our bullpen (13th in the JL in ERA at 4.62) pitch more... *shudder*.

[usnspecialist]

if it makes you feel any better, on games thru the 18th (as far as the old HTML went and I haven't inputted the new data yet), you were "only" 7th in team PAP (to go along with 6th in AVG pitches and 3rd in AVG IP).

[RonCo]

Yes, we've been having a very interesting conversation about pitcher usage over the past few seasons--and how PAP is coded in the game. HAV/SFB has been openly taunting the game with 6-man rotations and a ton of 120+ pitch outings for its young pitchers. The Media Guide the past two seasons has been featuring Randy's data collection, and we had a pair of podcasts early last season covering it.