I think Kruk's right. We should eliminate pitch counts. It builds character. Just look what it's done for Dusty!
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If you want to know why the older pitchers have been dominating lately, you aren't going to find the answers by breaking down mechanics and style.
It goes all the way back to Little League and all through college and the minors. Bottom line -- today's young pitchers have been babied since they first threw a ball.
These kids are taught that pitch count and innings are everything. They throw numbers at them on how someone can break down if they pitch too much too soon. You know what? You put that into anyone's head and I guarantee you they will break down. And how are you supposed to know what a pitcher has if you don't push them? These are kids. Did you ever get tired playing ball when you were a kid?
When a pitcher finally gets to the major leagues, he goes out and gives the team six innings and he's happy with that? You go ask Terry Mulholland or Curt Schilling if they're ever happy with that. They know their job is to pitch nine innings, but like every other starting pitcher they get pulled because of pitch counts.
There's only one thing that determines whether or not a pitcher should gets pulled -- the batters.
I asked Mitch Williams why he decided to retire. He told me he didn't decide -- the batters did. They told him it was time to go. And that's what should determine when a pitcher comes out of a game. Not some statistic about what might happen.
And forget about this "quality start" stat. What the hell is that? Six innings with three runs or less is a quality start? What happened to the other three innings? I'll tell you, your bullpen is going to get awfully tired if your rotation only gives "quality starts."
If you don't believe me, like I've said before, look at the numbers. They don't lie.
You think Curt Schilling is a happy with a quality start? No -- he wants to go 9.
The Phillies had a pitcher in the '50s named Robin Roberts. He had six seasons in a row of over 300 innings. If he played today they would shut him down at 200.
Take an Red Sox-Angels game from 1974. Nolan Ryan vs. Luis Tiant. Ryan goes for 13 innings while Tiant goes 14.1. The Angels won 4-3. You think they were counting pitches then?
And that was 19 years before Ryan ended his Hall of Fame career. So I don't think all those innings affected him too much. Now if you started telling Ryan when he was 9 years old that a game like that might end his career -- who knows?
The other day everyone was talking about Mike Stanton pitching in his 900th game -- same as Cy Young. One small difference: Mike has about 800 innings under his belt while Cy had 7,500.
What? Were people made differently back then? No way.
Now I'm not saying you have to pitch nine innings. It still all comes down to winning. So when guys like Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine tell their manager they have nothing left, you have to respect that. But you can't respect a manager for taking out a guy just because some computer printout says after a certain pitch count he's a sitting duck.