Re: Starters evaluation

On Feb 7, 3:05 pm, mrycl...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

For Buchholz (and for the Yankees, Hughes and Chamberlain), it's
different - you are asking to restrict the innings of pitchers who are
healthy (hopefully) and talented (and hopefully will live up to
expectations).    Can you reasonably expect diehard fans in Boston and
New York to be OK with pulling one of these guys after four or five
innings of a 1-0 game?   That's a tough sell; people who follow
workloads will understand it, but for most of the fanbase, it will not
be an easy sell.

In Pawtucket, the fanbase is just happy they got to see a potential
star perform, no matter how many innings it is.

That's all true, but why would these pitchers have to be pulled out of
a 1-0 game in the 5th or 6th inning anyway? (Unless it's Lester,
who'd probably be at 106 pitches with 12 runners stranded :-) Chances
are their pitch counts would be pretty low in that case. And even if
this alleged 180 IP limit* is in effect, all it takes are a few bad
starts (pulled after 3-4 IP) to balance out the handful of 7 IP
ones.

Honestly, while I love seeing future stars play in the minors, I'd be
upset if I saw Clay pitch for Pawtucket, even if he got pulled after 4
innings, knowing that Tavarez or Lohse has a 5.50 ERA in Boston's
rotation. But I certainly concede that you're right about the
relative expectations of each fanbase.

* I find it kind of funny that this 180 IP limit is taken as Gospel.
For one thing, I've never seen or heard anyone from the team actually
say that this is the limit for Clay. Also, just because it seems to
be the magic number produced by some statheads, why does everyone
assume that it's "correct?" Is Buchholz "safer" by pitching 178
innings than he is at 182--or 190--or 200? And I hate to rehash this
evergreen debate, but I see scores of pitchers who *are* given limits
get hurt anyway. I'm not advocating that they throw caution to the
wind, and I do feel that there's merit to some form of limits on young
pitchers. I just don't know that I buy into the idea that any team or
analyst has this boiled down to such a precise science. If I did,
then I'd run on the field myself to prevent pitch #111 or inning #181.

One other thing. I did say that I think the most talented players
should take precedence over the more fungible ones on rosters/
lineups. I should amend that. I'm darned near certain that Jed
Lowrie is a better player than Alex Cora, but I would prefer that
Lowrie play every day in the minors, rather than be a backup for
Boston. In a case like that, the more talented player should be held
back. I just think that Buchholz and Ellsbury are good enough right
now that it's pointless for them to spend more time in the minors, and
that they could play regularly in the majors ASAP.

-Bismo.
.

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