Pitcher Abuse Points: Revisited

A few days ago, I was wasting time while at work reading the excellent Rany on the Royals blog, written by Baseball Prospectus correspondent Rany Jazayerli, and Rany linked to an article he wrote from BPro entitled “Pitcher Abuse Points.” The article was published to the site on June 19th, 1998, and offered up a system that ‘awarded’ points to pitchers as their pitch count went up. There’s a lot of fascinating stuff in the article, but what I really like about it is how long ago it was published. These days, we understand that, hey, Dusty Baker, it might not be a great idea to have Mark Prior throw 330 innings before he turns 23, but, as it will turn out, that was the norm not so long ago.

At the beginning of the article, Rany explains why one can’t just use innings pitched as a measurement of how taxed a young pitcher’s arm is, and this is obvious. David Cone and Greg Maddux both threw a ton of innings as young pitchers, but only one of them retired early with arm problems. As Rany puts it, “it’s the pitches, stupid.”

After that bit of explanation, Rany introduces what he calls “Pitcher Abuse Points.” The scale went like this: pitches 1 through 100 received zero points, each pitch between 101 and 110 received one point, each pitch between 111 and 120 received two points, each pitch between 121 and 130 received three points, and so on. Intuitively, this makes sense: as the pitch count gets higher, each pitch is more tiring on the arm. Now, as we just said, this system isn’t going to work for everybody but it does tell us something.

Let’s start with the list of most abused arms in 1998. As Rany computes it, Randy Johnson and Roger Clemens were the two most abused arms of the first half of 1998, with PAP per start scores of 38.2 and 36.2, respectively. There’s not a lot of surprise there, as they were their clubs ace, the stopper, the bullpen saver, the [insert workhorse cliché here]. The third name gives us something to work with: Bartolo Colon. He measures a 34.0 PAP per start score in 1998 at the age of 23.

Colon’s an interesting case. From 1998 to 2005, he pitched over 1,700 innings without major shoulder or elbow injury. It wasn’t until then that he started experiencing arm problems, as many 33-year-olds with almost 1,800 career IP do. In the 2005 playoffs, he suffered a torn rotator cuff that caused him to miss most of the 2006 season, and he’s been plagued with shoulder and elbow injuries since. However, the fact remains that he pitched effectively for eight seasons before experiencing arm problems, posting an ERA+ of 110 or higher each of those seasons except 2004. He even won a Cy Young in 2005.*

*It should be noted that that Cy Young Award was a complete sham, and perhaps the dying breath of the power of the win. Colon had a 3.48 ERA to go along with his 21 wins, which led the league. That was good for a 122 ERA+ - certainly excellent, but barely Cy Young-worthy. The award that year almost certainly should have gone to Johan Santana, who posted a 155 ERA+ in 231 innings, but only recorded 16 wins with a punchless Twins lineup supporting him.

Continuing our look at young pitchers, numbers 5 and 6 on Rany’s list don’t really fit the prediction either. They would be Livan Hernandez and Pedro Martinez. Pedro, of course, would go on to be perhaps the greatest pitcher there ever was from 1999 to 2001*, so we don’t need to discuss that any further.** Hernandez was before, and has been, a just-below-average pitcher. He posted a 95 ERA+ from ’96-’98, and a 97 ERA+ since then. It should be noted that he’s pitched over 2500 innings from 1999 to the present, and has never suffered a major arm injury.

*Martinez would post a 2.01 ERA in those 3 years, with 760 K’s in 547 innings against only 94 BB’s, and astounding 8.09 K/BB ratio. That all works out to a 246 ERA+, which, for perspective, has only been achieved by 3 other pitchers in one SEASON since integration. (Those three pitchers? That’s our AFLAC trivia question.)

**Though it is worth mentioning that in 2001, Pedro only made 18 starts due to a rotator cuff injury.

The next young pitcher on the list is more interesting. Jesus Sanchez scored a 21.9 on the PAP index, the year he threw 171 innings as a rookie. He was below league average that year, and would be his entire career. He would only one other season throw for more than 171 innings, in 2000 he would throw 182. But one wonders what might have been. Rany says, “Sanchez…is having his right arm throw to the wolves.”

The next name on the list is another interesting one, and one of my sneaky-favorite players on my youth: Brad Radke. I’ve always felt Radke was one of the more underrated players from my 9-15 years, posting a 116 ERA+ despite a unseemly 4.35 ERA. Indeed, after his 1998 season (his third with 200+ IP), he posted 200+ IP’s 6 seasons over the next 7, though he did miss about 12 starts in 2002.

He rather memorably carried the Twins to a postseason berth in the 2006 season (at the expense of his right shoulder), especially replacing Francisco Liriano (more on him later) after he went down with elbow soreness. Of course, he suffered from a torn labrum since the beginning of the season, and had pitched through it the entire season. He also suffered a stress fracture in his right shoulder in late August, but only missed one start. The extent of his injuries forced him to retire after that season, at the age of 33.

A quick rundown of the other young pitchers on Rany’s list: Jaret Wright was 22 when he scored a 15.1 PAP, and he missed most of three seasons with a chronic shoulder injury, starting in 1999. Shawn Estes pitched regularly until 2004, and then suffered several shoulder problems, including undergoing Tommy John surgery that caused him to miss the entire 2006 and 2007 seasons. Jason Schmidt pitched effectively for several years, including a great 2003 season when he posted a 2.34 ERA and struck out a batter an innings. He signed with the Dodgers in 2007, but was shut down after 25 innings due to shoulder soreness.

Ah, but of course I forgot to mention perhaps the most interesting name on Rany’s list: Kerry Wood. Wood was one of the most impressive rookie pitchers of all time, going 13-6 with a 3.40 ERA and a 12.6 K/9 ratio in his rookie season in 1998. He famously pitched a one-hit, zero-walk, twenty strikeout game, good for a 105 Game Score, the highest since 1974 and 18th best since 1952, when Baseball-Reference begins tracking Game Scores. He pitched 166 innings that rookie season, and scored a 14.2 PAP. Here’s what Rany has to say about Wood:

“And, of course, I can't write this article without mentioning Kerry Wood. At 21, he's the youngest name on this list, and he's in the middle of the pack as far as abuse goes. He hasn't thrown more than 128 pitches in a game this year, but he has a number of outings in the 120+ range. I don't think he's in grave danger of injury - he's a big guy with good mechanics, relies on his fastball, and doesn't throw a splitter. But I do think that Jim Riggleman should take a little more care of the most prized arm of the decade.”

We all know what happened. Wood would miss the entire 1999 season after tearing his ulnar collateral ligament, and underwent Tommy John surgery. He’s struggled with arm problems ever since. I sure hope Riggleman doesn’t find himself managing “the most prized arm of the decade” again; I would hate to see what might happen to that poor young man.

Pining for Fred Lewis

Welcome to my silly summer project, the Designated for Assignment blog. As some of you know, I’ve long held a small interest in writing and I figured, while I work three days a week over the summer, I might as well indulge my interest and work on my writing skills at the same time.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably a friend or family member whom I have pointed in this direction, or perhaps a follower on Twitter, all 4 of you. I’m still trying to figure out this whole Twitter thing.

What will I be writing about, you ask? Well, I don’t really have a clue, but as you all surely know, I am borderline obsessed with baseball, so inevitably the majority of the posts will be about that. I’ll try to mix in some team analysis, mostly Giants, with some broader-picture posts and some fun research projects. I’ll also be throwing in some random posts about nothing in particular; we’ll just kind of see how this goes.

You may note that the picture to the right is of former Giants and current Blue Jays left fielder Fred Lewis, who the Giants essentially gave away on April 15th after spending four years as an effective fourth outfielder. Lewis was drafted in the second round of the 2002 amateur draft, and when he made a six game cameo appearance at Triple-A Fresno in 2004, he appeared on Baseball America’s Top 100 Prospects list at #78. After 11 PA’s with the big boys in 2006, Fred posted a .292/.366/.550 slash line in 192 PA’s at Fresno in 2007 before coming up for good.

It was his year and a half at Fresno when I first became a fan of Fred’s. He was, to me, the kind of ballplayer I wanted to be: lithe, effortless, fast but with a touch of power, a good outfielder who played with a certain grace. I became convinced that Lewis was the Giants’ left fielder of the future.

Ah, but to be a Giants fan is to know disappointment. The Giants, instead of starting an exciting young outfield including the 26-year-old Lewis and the 24-year-old Nate Schierholtz (who had slugged .560 and played an astonishingly good right field in Fresno the year before), decided to resign a 33-year-old Randy Winn and to give Phillies reject Aaron Rowand a five year, $60 million contract. Rowand was 30 years old and, although he was coming off an excellent year in 2007, he had been below average in ’06 and ’05, and he promptly put up an OPS+ of 94 in 2008, 90 in ’09, and an abysmal 68 so far this season.

Anyway, back to Lewis. He received only 180 PA’s in 2007 and hit .287/.374/.408, and in 2008 he delivered a .282/.351/.440 line in 521 PA’s, good for a 105 OPS+. For some reason, he only got 336 PA’s in 2009 as the Giants gave a combined 615 PA’s to Schierholtz and Eugenio Velez (more on him in a minute), who delivered with OPS+’s of 81 and 83, respectively. Lewis didn’t even make the big league club this spring, and, after putting up a ridiculous .409/.536/.773 line in 29 PA’s in Fresno, was sent to the Blue Jays for $75,000.

After being told by the team that drafted him that he was unwanted, and three seasons as an average-at-worst outfielder, and after being sent to a more difficult league in the most competitive division in the sport to boot, Lewis has put up a slash line of .280/.324/.460 in 217 PA’s for Toronto, good for a 112 OPS+. Meanwhile, the Giants have given Rowand, Schierholtz, Velez, Mark DeRosa, Andres Torres, and John Bowker a combined 794 PA’s in the outfield this season, and they have OPS+’s of 68, 93, 67, 42 (!!), 134, and 58 respectively, with Torres representing the only batter who measures above average.

For some of that massive heap of epic fail, explanations can be gleaned. DeRosa, who’s 42 OPS+ almost defies belief*, signed for 2 years and $12 million before this season, and seems to have some sort of wrist injury that he’s been dealing with. Rowand is costing the G-men $12 million this season, and, incredibly, for the next two seasons as well. If there’s one thing a general manager has trouble accepting, it’s realizing that your $60 million investment isn’t exactly performing the way you had hoped. Schierholtz is only 26 and is just waiting for his power to come around, but in all honesty is receiving the PA’s he should have gotten two years ago and probably isn’t any better than a fourth outfielder. Torres is raking, and Bowker is another young-un who has hit in the minors and just needs exposure to big league pitching.

*Since expansion in 1993, there have been 16 seasons with 300 PA’s and an OPS+ of 42 or lower. The lowest? Luis Sojo, who put up a sterling 32 OPS+ for the Mariners and Yankees in 1996, with a slash line of .220/.250/.272. DeRosa probably won’t get to 300 PA’s this season, but it’s worth mentioning.

But it’s the curious case of Eugenio Velez that’s got me so furious. About a year and a half younger than Fred, he broke in with the big league club in 2008, a year after Lewis’s arrival. In the three seasons and 666* PA’s since then, he’s got a career OPS+ of 80, and an OBP of just .303, right at the Mendoza line of that statistic. He played well-below-average defense at second base in 2008 and 2009 before management decided they’d rather he play well-below-average defense in the outfield. But Velez offered an eye-popping tool, his considerable speed, which entranced management into keeping him around to put up a .275 OBP in 54 PA’s this season, while Lewis gets sold for chump change and promptly on-bases 50 points higher and slugs 90 points higher than his de-facto replacement.

*666? Ominous.

I just don’t understand why Brian Sabean decided it was time for Lewis to go and Velez to stay. The numbers clearly show that Lewis is a valuable player, and significantly more so than Velez. At worst, Fred is a major-league average outfielder, and for $455,000 he deserved better than to be kicked to the curb. These are the kind of decisions that can add or subtract two or three wins a season, and in the NL West that could be the difference between making the playoffs and watching them from home. But the Giants management never really has paid much attention to numbers, not when there’s a 34-year-old, injury-prone outfielder with a career 96 OPS+ who’s been traded twice in the last 13 months on the market for $6 million a year. Gotta catch ‘em all!

You know, it was the triples that made me fall for Fred Lewis at first. He hit 47 of them in his 2500 or so PA’s in the minors, and he proved those numbers were no fluke by hitting 11 in 2008, 7 in triple-happy AT&T Park. The triple is, of course, the most exciting play in the game, all nine fielders struck into motion as the runner rounds second at full speed, flops face-first into third and wraps his arms around the bag. The whole play is poetry in motion; it’s often described as “the most exciting twelve seconds in sports.” It’s hard not to love a player who regularly finds himself standing on third after a shot in the gap.

So long, Fred. You deserved better.