High Pitch Counts - Not Only in Japan
First of all Michael-san, this is an excellent
article. Nice job!
But you may have your answer from an article in
the L.A. Times talking about the MLB draft that
they had a couple of days ago. In it, they were
discussing this year's top pitching prospect,
Mark Prior, who is now taking part in the College
World Series for the University of Southern California. Prior is apparently so far along in
his development that there is talk about the Cubs
bringing him in to pitch at Wrigley Field as soon
as the series is over. But there is a problem with
that, one that has to do with what you have brought up.
You see, it is now well known that if a ballclub throws a youngster over 200 innings at
too young an age then he is likely to blow his arm out. Prior has already thrown over 150 from what I
understand and is likely to throw 10-20 more in
the CWS. So now the Cubs are wondering if they
should shut Prior down until next spring although
they want him in the rotation so bad they can taste it.
Now what examples have caused this fear of rushing even a youngster with sound mechanics? I submit for your approval three names: Frank Tanana, Don Gullett and Wayne Simpson.
Simpson just suddenly seemed to blow in in 1970
for Cincinnati (along with other youngsters such as Ken Griffey and Dave Concepcion. You may have heard of them) and was throwing so well (especially against my Dodgers) that he was 14-3 with 10 complete games, two of them shutouts, with an ERA of 3.02 in his first 26 starts. Now this was during the days of four man pitching rotations, so this was only about 60% into the season, 176 innings in all by the 21 year old righthander. What happened? His arm blew out (I can't remember what the specific injury was, but it finished his season) and he basically never recovered. He ended up pitching with three other ballclubs after failing during two more seasons
with the Reds (back then ERAs over 4.00 were
enough to have you pumping gas the following year
somewhere instead of wearing a major league uniform and Simpson's were 4.76 and 4.14 respectively).
Don Gullett, who is now a pitching coach for
one MLB team (I can't remember which, but I believe it's the Reds) came in as a 19 year old with Tom Seaver like stuff. After pitching mostly in relief in 1970, the Reds moved him into the rotation and Gullett produced bigtime, going 16-6 with a 2.65 ERA in 217 innings. Then he started having injury problems the following year, throwing only 134 innings, then in 1973 228 and then 243 after that. But he was still having problems with the injury bug and by 1978, when he was with the Yankees, he was all but done three years before even reaching 30.
Frank Tanana had Hall of Fame stuff. A blazing
fastball in the high 90's, one of the best curve
balls in baseball and an exquisite changeup, he
was the complete package, part of the "Tanana and
Ryan and two days of cryin'" Angels of the early 70's. He came up to stay with the Angels at age
20 in 1973, winning 82 games in a five year span
for an offensively challenged team with an ERA that only once exceeded 3.00. But during that
time he threw no less than 239 innings a season and by 1979 he wrecked his arm so badly that when he came back his stuff was almost entirely gone. Tanana managed to hang on with various ballclubs (Boston, Texas, the Mets and the Yankees) for 15 more seasons, but now Rembrandt had become a common housepainter, a bit like turning Bob Feller into Stu Miller.
This is why when you start having a youngster
throwing excessively, like the managers did in
the article you linked to and similar to how Higashio is handling the 20 year old Daisuke Matsuzaka, then all kinds of alarm bells should start going off. Matsuzaka needs to have a long heart to heart with Higashio about this or ask for
either a trade (very unlikely) or to be posted
(quite doable, especially in light of owner Tsutsumi's remarks about that issue) in order to
save his career. And what makes this even more
vital is that both Kazuhiro Sasaki and Kazuhisa
Ishii has been complaining about arm and sholder pains respectively but their teams (the Yokohama
Bay Stars and Yakult Swallows respectively) wouldn't allow them to be examined. Eventually, both had surgery and are better for it (though Ishii's stuff lately has not been up to his usual
standard) but that may have been one issue that
lead to Kazuhiro Sasaki to make the jump to the
majors, where pitchers are coddled these days. And
Daisuke-kun's arm can use some coddling.
And it looks like trouble may be starting for the kid-wonder. He's been knocked out of at least two games in a row before the 5th inning (maybe four?). I haven't read that he's complaining about pain in his arm (as he did shortly before the Olympics last year), but there may be something going on that Seibu isn't letting out. I can't say for sure.
What has saved a large number of the over-worked kids from high school, though, has been a change in position. Many pros were drafted as pitchers, then converted to outfield and/or the left side of the infield with a great deal of success. All of the throwing that they did in high school built up great arms, the the lesser demands of a fielding position kept them from punking out. I'm not saying that it was OK for them to be over worked, but that many ball clubs realize that blowing out their investment (signing Koshien stars is pretty expensive compared to the Rookie League in the Majors) wouldn't be a wise business move, and do take prudent measures in many cases. (Matsuzaka's wasn't one of them.)
"Tanana and
Ryan and two days of cryin'"
That reminds me of former BayStar manager Gondoh's playing days with Chunichi. "Rain, rain, Gondoh, rain" was their starting rotation. With the over work he had as a player, he saw to it that his starters didn't get over worked his three years as Yokohama's manager. During that time, Yokohama had more relay shutouts than any other team. Having Sasaki close was a big help.
Speaking of which, Gondoh-kantoku didn't over work Sasaki as many other managers before him had. Sasaki only came in in the 8th a few times in those three years. There were other differences in opinion that the two had, but I don't think that over work was one of them.
This is a site about Pro Yakyu (Japanese Baseball), not about who the next player to go over to MLB is. It's a community of Pro Yakyu fans who have come together to share their knowledge and opinions with the world. It's a place to follow teams and individuals playing baseball in Japan (and Asia), and to learn about Japanese (and Asian) culture through baseball.
It is my sincere hope that once you learn a bit about what we're about here that you will join the community of contributors.
Michael Westbay
(aka westbaystars)
Founder
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Some rights reserved.
this story about a pair high school pitchers throwing upwords to about 190 pitches each in Colorado. What does this have to do with Japanese baseball? Well, other than Dodger pitching coach and former Asia scout Jim Colborn commenting that Asian high school pitchers throw 3-4 times more than their American counterparts, There's Matsuzaka.
As many of you who have been around Japanese baseball long know, there are two annual national high school tournaments held at Koshien (Hanshin Tigers' home ball park) every year. The spring tournament is an invitational, the summer one a final single elimination tournament starting from the district level. To go to Koshien, until recently, was a dream bigger than joining a Pro Yakyu team, or even going to to Majors. To parade on the grounds of Koshien is more prestegious than being invited to the White House for dinner.
Back in 1998, a phenominal pitcher blew all the competition away. Matsuzaka Daisuke. He let Yokohama High to 3 first place finishes from the summer of 1997 to the summer of 1998. But it was his performance in the quarter finals in his final high school summer that made "Matsuzaka" known throughout the land.
Against baseball powerhouse PL Gakuen, Matsuzaka pitched 17 innings, 250 pitches, for the victory. This outraged
many on the Pro Yakyu Mailing List. It also revived interest in high school baseball, which had been dwindling as more kids are being raised on video games than in parks. Buffoonery or inspiration, Matsuzaka turned the spotlight on to baseball.
Matsuzaka pitched an inning or so in relief the next day (semi-finals), getting the win after Yokohama came back from something like an 8-0 deficite. With that kid on the mound, the feeling was that Yokohama couldn't lose.
Matsuzaka then pitched the final, for the Japan High School Championship. After that 250 pitch show against PL Gakuen, nothing could compare.
The players were welcomed back to Yokohama like victorious heros from foreign lands. Every newspaper wanted to know, "Which team do you want to be drafted by?"
Come draft time, his answer was the Japan Champion Yokohama BayStars. But it wasn't to be. In a drawing of cards, Seibu's Higashio-kantoku won out, and to make a long story short, conviced Matsuzaka to sign with them.
Has his Pro Yakyu career been any less stressful on his arm? I don't think so. Even now, in his 3rd season, he routinly throws 140+ pitches in a game. Some claim that it's a conspiracy because Higashio is jelous. Others claim it's because the fans leave after Matsuzaka retires to the dugout. (See how the fans have stopped coming out to Orix games without Ichiro, it's the same effect - they want to see the super-stars.)
Back to the question of over pitching a kid. It was said that Matsuzaka worked out very hard in high school, frequenting a gym to build up the necessary muscle and stamina to pitch long outings. In that respect, he had the stamina to go 17 innings/250 pitches back in high school.
There have also been some more recent studies about the optimal number of days off. Just how much rest it too much or too little for a particular work load?
Matsuzaka generally gets 6 days off after throwing 140+ pitches. Is that optimal to see the kid phenom make it 5 years? 10 years? Only time will tell.