Pitcher question

This has a little to do with the 300 wins, but not entirely. I remember watching a report or reading a story somewhere that due to the 5-man rotation a pitcher's arm doesn't build up the strength it once did whixh is resulting in more injuries an helps lends to reason why complete games are so rare now (coupled of course with the specialization of pitching), thus making it more difficult to hit the magical 300 wins level because the arm will be burnt out before they get anywhere near the level.
What is the general concensus on this theory? or am I imagining things again, did I fabricate this in a dream?

 

This was addressed in Verducci's preseason piece on Dice-K where he talked about the differing pitching philosophies in Japan and the U.S. It's a good read if you can find it.

 

Thanks cosmo, I will do a search.

 

Cosmo, what's with the use of like 15 different fonts today?

 

bored.

 

A study of pitch counts kept by the Dodgers in the '50s shows that batters put the ball into play much earlier in the count back then. Strikeouts were a quick way to get released or sent down, so batters were much more aggressive. Pitchers who threw complete games back then actually threw fewer pitches on average than a six-inning starter might throw today. (SABR released this data about six or seven years ago.)

Also, it was more common for a guy's career to end when he got a shoulder or elbow injury. Now guys can get surgery, pitch for a while and then get hurt again only to repeat the process again and again. So that makes it seem like pitchers are less durable than they were then.

 

A lot of times, managers will take a starter out, so they can get a lefty in to face a lefty late in the game.

And once a manager sees that magic 100 pitch count, he starts calling the bullpen. Even in the mid-80s, there were a lot managers willing to let pitchers hit 115-120 pitches. Now, it's 100 pitches and see ya.

 

I'll never forget the howling that went on one time when Bob Brenly left Randy Johnson in for 137 pitches in a Sunday start against the Phillies. Johnson said he felt fine. Brenly didn't want to pull him. Johnson was indeed fine. But people freaked out nonetheless.

 

Baseball prospectus has done some research into this and if I recall correctly, there was a negligible difference between 4 and 5 men rotations, but that a 5 man rotation could hurt the team because fifth starters are becoming so terrible. However they did find that consistently leaving pitchers in for over 100 pitches significantly diminishes their effectiveness each time out.

 

Baseball Prospectus is hands-down the most amazing tool in all of professional or college sports. Too bad you need a degree in stats-tology to decipher some of these new formulas.

 

Ask Mike Marshall, the former Dodgers pitcher, what he thinks.

 

Yeah my eyes kind of glaze over at all the numbers until they put it into something resembling English for my math impaired mind in their conclusions.