Staring down a problem
The art and beauty of pitching was lost when it became a science and an investment
Theend came in the form of a writtenstatement that drewlittle more than a collectiveshrug, and that was fromthe relative few who noticedat all.
StephenStrasburg retired from baseball.He hadn’t pitched in nearlytwo years. Harumph.
Thebeginning was very different,as I recall, coming on a magical springevening in June, when he firsttook a major league mound for theWashington Nationals against thePittsburgh Pirates.
Onthat night not quite 14 years ago,Strasburg had the most-anticipatedpitching debut in almost four decades.His merch was in Washingtonbefore he was. He had singularskills and he showed them instantly,striking out everyone in the Pirates lineup, 14 in all before he left after the seventh.
Partof what I wrote from D.C. thatnight was this: “He struck ’em outhard and soft, up and down, in andout. On top of all that, he struck‘‘emout with a delivery so fluid and calculating that it wouldn’thave been thought possiblefor someone a month short of his 22ndbirthday.”
Ofcourse, strikeouts take their toll,and even though Strasburg wouldhelp pitch the Nationals to a WorldSeries title nine summers later,his career was muted by seriousinjuries almost from that night forward.I thought hard about Strasburgas it became obvious within theembryonic season at hand that baseballhas, gradually over the preceding decades, lost its foundational know-howto develop pitchers and keeptheir arms safe.
ByThursday, or after just two fullweeks of play, there were 152 pitcherson the injured lists of the 30 big-leagueteams, 26 of whom won’t pitchagain this season. Many are conspicuousstuds representing massiveinvestments in both salary andhope: Shane Bieber of the Guardians,who’ll have Tommy Johnsurgery; Eury Perez of the Marlins,also headed for TJS; SpencerStrider of the Braves, elbow surgeryon Frday; Jacob deGrom of the Rangers,on the 60-day IL after his secondTJS; Gerrit Cole of the Yankees,who has elbow inflammation thatcommonly leads to TJS; ClaytonKershaw of the Dodgers, who hadshoulder surgery in October; MaxScherzer of the Rangers, not yetfully recovered from back surgery;Justin Verlander of the Astros,down with shoulder soreness... and yeah, I could go on, obviously.
The reasons are numerous and some have become endemic to the modern game and even intractable, but the one that seems to surface first when you talk to people near the top of the profession who’ve been watching the game for a very long time made me think of a famous baseball quote that’s been around maybe 100 years old.
“People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball,” Hall of Famer Rogers Hornsby said. “I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.” Well,not anymore. “Peopleover-train so much in the offseason,especially the younger guys,”one former manager told me thisweek. “Everybody wants to go places to learn to increase their velocityand increase their spin rate becausebig-league teams want you throwingas hard as you can on everypitch, with maximum spin rate onevery pitch.
“Butwhen you’re throwing eight ornine pitches in a row 98, 100 miles anhour, something’s gotta give. The arm’snot really built to throw a baseball in the first place, let alone 100miles an hour time after time.”
ClintHurdle, another former managerI talked with who still does evaluationsfor the Rockies and has dabbledin youth sports in recent years,has seen what’s at work in themoment with even the youngest players.
“It’salmost like people are picking theparents up and shaking money outof their pockets,” Hurdle said. “Thekids don’t play multiple sports. Theypitch all year long. We’re trying toget velocity from 12-year-olds. Kids areinvestments now and parents havebeen convinced that the more moneythey pour into them, the morethey can get them exposed, the morethey can increase strength and velocity,the more likely they can go pro,and there’s a pot of gold at the endof the rainbow.
“We’rechasing a lot of the wrong things.”
Thebig-league result is that we’ve losta generation of arms that might haveadvanced pitching as the art formit’s supposed to be, the ability to navigatea lineup time after time withor without your best stuff. The industryhas replaced that with throwerswho are essentially fighter pilots.Any mission could be their last.They’ll throw 98, 99, 101, then spina Cheesecake Factory menu of breakingstuff into the dirt.
“Howcan you tell somebody to not dothat when they’re capable of throwing100?” Verlander told reportersafter a minor league rehab startthis past week. “This young guy comesup and throws a pitch 95 and givesup a big homer and everybody’slike, ‘What the hell, man?’
“Somethingneeds to change. ... Maybethere’s some way to incentivizestarting pitchers going deeper ingames. I talked with Scherzer at lengthabout this last year with the Mets.Maybe have the starter be tied tothe DH. You have to achieve certainmilestones before the pitcher comesout and if you don’t, you lose yourDH, so at least the team is incentivizedto have their pitcher go throughthe lineup three times.
“Asit is, the third time through, they’relooking for an excuse to take you out because, analytically, it saysbatters have more success the thirdtime through. Once you incentivizenavigating the lineup again, thatwill trickle down.”
Baseballshould look at Verlander’sDH idea. It might also try limitingthe number of pitchers on big-league rosters to 10. See if that leadsback toward sanity.
Asit is, the Giants’ Blake Snell wontwo Cy Young Awards with the Padreswithout ever throwing a completegame. It’s nuts.
Butas a start, a lot of people have todo a lot more staring out the window.