Unit: Pitch limit hiding potential
NEWLY INDUCTED Hall-of-Famer Randy Johnson isn’t buying the strategy used in baseball today that limits prized starting pitchers.
His message: it leaves today’s young studs with lessons to be learned.
Johnson, who won five Cy Young Awards in his 22-year career in the majors, including four straight with the Arizona Diamondbacks from 1999-2002, spoke on a conference call on Thursday. He will be inducted into the Hall of Fame on July 26 as a member of the Diamondbacks.
The closest example of what the “Big Unit” was describing are the Mets, who flaunt a highly touted, power arm at least three of every five days.
This season, the team has been extremely careful with its young starters, four of which have had Tommy John surgery — Steven Matz, Jacob de Grom, Matt Harvey and Zack Wheeler, who is sitting out the season after having the procedure in March.
GM Sandy Alderson said recently that the Mets have gone to a six-man rotation this season not because of their amazing depth of talent, but to help limit the innings and pitch counts to keep them fresh for a potential October push.
“I think that the workload that you have, your body will get used to it,” said Johnson, who tossed 100 career complete games.
Johnson, who pitched until he was 45 and recorded 14 seasons of 30 or more starts while leading the league in strikeouts nine times and twice in innings pitched, said that today’s power arms will never realize their full potential because they are kept on such a short leash.
“I think pitchers, not because they want to but because the organization puts limitations on them, they won’t know what they can do,” said Johnson. “Organizations don’t let them go out and pitch themselves through trouble or go deep into games. (In my time), you went out there and pitched as long and as hard as you could.”
Though Johnson never had any major elbow troubles like some of the young Mets have had, he wasn’t immune to injury. He said he had three back and four knee surgeries in his career and also pitched his last season with a torn rotator cuff.
Johnson will be joined by his fellow inductees John Smoltz, Pedro Martinez and Craig Biggio at Hall of Fame weekend in Cooperstown from July 24-27. The three will be officially enshrined that Sunday.