The who began a what analysis?

Here is one unscientific, thumbnail look at how clubs have abbreviated minor league apprenticeships for pitchers. Below are the 10 winningest active pitchers in baseball and their minor league totals for innings and complete games:....

The older generation of pitchers logged an average of 496 minor league innings and threw an average of 11 complete games in the minors. The newer generation control group logged about half as much prep work in the minors (259) and threw about one complete game there.

That is a pretty unscientific look. I could be wrong, but isn't this the argument presented by Buzz Bissinger, and wasn't he proven to be wrong which caused him to throw a hissy fit?

That is a pretty unscientific look. I could be wrong, but isn't this the argument presented by Buzz Bissinger, and wasn't he proven to be wrong which caused him to throw a hissy fit?

Yeah, this is a pretty classic selective sampling bias issue. The "older generation" includes, for example, Randy Johnson who pitched in 3 major-league games before age 25, and Kenny Rogers, who didn't become a major-league starter until he was 28.

His "newer generation", on the other hand, only includes guys who are in the majors by the time they were 24 (and a good bit younger than that in most cases). Moreover, his "control group", as best I can tell, was hand-picked, rather than being the top 10 something-or-other (he includes Joba, who's had, what, one major-league start now, so it can't be based on anything to do with games started/won/IP).

Heck, if you come back to this list of 10 pitchers five years from now, I'd bet that the average number of minor-league innings thrown by these guys will be higher, as some of these guys will probably log a few more minor-league innings from here on out. Going back to the "older generation" list, Jaime Moyer started 8 games in AAA when he was 30. Schilling's started 20 games and thrown 111 innings in the minors since 1994 (age 27 season) according to BB-Ref.

If you wanted to be able to draw any conclusions, even with something as "unscientific" as this, you'd need to use the same criterion for picking both groups. So, for example, you could look at the top 10 winning pitchers through age 25 of today vs. the top 10 winning pitchers through age 25 as of 10 years ago, or something like that, and then compare minor-league games prior to their major-league debut.

I started writing a post, but Kiko made the same points much more succinctly. Nice work.

well, another problem is that he gives only IP in the minors, not seasons spent in the minors

OF COURSE, today's pitchers will have far fewer IP--that's true at all levels and reflects the fundamental sea-change in pitcher usage which has occurred in the last 20 years

And more pitchers are going to college, correct? Which I don't know if they controlled for.

If you wanted to be able to draw any conclusions, even with something as "unscientific" as this, you'd need to use the same criterion for picking both groups. So, for example, you could look at the top 10 winning pitchers through age 25 of today vs. the top 10 winning pitchers through age 25 as of 10 years ago, or something like that, and then compare minor-league games prior to their major-league debut.

I decided to do a pseudoscientific study rather than an unscientific study:

I looked at all ML pitchers in the last 4 years (2004-2007) who were:

1. 25 or younger
2. pitched >200 innings in any of those seasons

the I picked a similar set from 1980-1983 (aka The Good Old Days)

and compared: number of seasons spent in the minor leagues, minor league IP, and IP per minor league season

as you might expect, I found exactly the opposite of what Verducci claims, but I found that my statement in #5 was also incorrect

there were 27 pitchers in the "new" group and 25 in the "old"

2004-2007 group:

minor league seasons: average = 3.84 (median = 4)

minor league IP: average = 420 (median = 432)

minor league IP/season: average = 110 (median = 113)


1980-1983 group:

minor league seasons: average = 3.34 (median = 3)

minor league IP: average = 381 (median = 424)

minor league IP/season: average = 111 (median = 111)


so, young major league starters of today spend about the same number of seasons in the minors with about the same number of IP/season


BUT--what I noticed was that there was considerably more "scatter" in the IP/season data for the older group; there were a BUNCH of pitchers who only averaged 60-80 IP/season but a bunch that had minor league seasons of >200 IP

(there were no >200 IP seasons in the more recent group)

BUT--what I noticed was that there was considerably more "scatter" in the IP/season data for the older group; there were a BUNCH of pitchers who only averaged 60-80 IP/season but a bunch that had minor league seasons of >200 IP

(there were no >200 IP seasons in the more recent group)

Just out of curiosity, who were the guys who logged 200+ ip season in the minors?

Just out of curiosity, who were the guys who logged 200+ ip season in the minors?

Craig McMurtry had 2 such seasons; Mario Soto, Ed Whitson, and Brad Havens each had one

Storm Davis had a 190 IP season

there were also several that had IPs in the 170-180 range

there were very few of these in the newer group

Cool, thanks for doing that jmac66. When I suggested it back in #3, I thought about doing it but decided I was feeling too lazy this morning.

I'm actually surprised that your point in #5 didn't turn out to be true on average. I'm also surprised that the number of pitchers in the two groups ended up so close in size. I'd have guessed that there were a lot fewer pitchers - and young pitchers especially - throwing 200+ IP in a season today. Although, I guess expansion would counteract that somewhat.

Anyway, very interesting results, and much more informative than Verducci's "study".

The Dodgers, for instance, have just begun a statistical analysis of how hitters age through their mid- and late-30s—

Ned Colitis is cutting edge, baby!

International League IP leaders, according to BB-Ref:

1998
190 Shannon Withem
178 Calvin Maduro
177 Rod Bolton
172 Dave Eiland

1999
176 Jeff Juden
174 Mike Romano
172 Denny Harringer
169 Calvin Maduro

2000
185 Brandon Knight
171 Evan Thomas
167 Gary Glover
161 Mike Oquist

2001
196 Jared Fernandez
172 Tim Harikkala
168 Pete Walker
167 Carlos Chantres

2002
181 Tim Drew
181 Eric Junge
174 Doug Linton
173 Jason Standridge
172 Trey Hodges

2003
174 Brian Cooper
168 Jorge De Paula
166 Josh Hancock
159 John Stephens

2004
179 Pat Ahearne
174 Dave Gassner
168 Frank Castillo
166 Robert Ellis

2005
182.2 Dave Borkowski
167.1 Jason Grilli
167.0 Jason Scobie
166.1 Tony Fiore

2006
188 Tim Redding
185 Chad Durbin
171 Josh Banks
170 Charlie Haeger

2007
173.2 Heath Phillips
169 Josh Banks
161 Mitch Talbot
155 Virgil Vazquez

I don't know who Josh Banks is, but the Blue Jays are certainly letting him pitch as much as possible.

Conclusion: (also drawn from looking at AA leaders)The young pitchers who throw the most minor-league innings are not the top prospects. Okay, so we knew that already and I should have done something else with my time.

It appears that the last time a pitcher threw 200 innings in the minors was Tim Kalita of the 2001 Erie Seawolves. Of course!

Christian Parker threw 204 innings for the 2000 Norwich Navigators.
Donnie Bridges threw 201 innings in 2000, split between the Jupiter and Harrisburg Expo affiliates.

In 1998 the feat was achieved by Brandon Duckworth, Scott Randall, and the legendary Eric Ireland of the Quad City River Bandits. There are a few more instances of between 200 and 210 innings.

But wow! Check out Carlos Castillo! Only once since 1992 has a pitcher thrown more than 210 innings in the minors...and Castillo threw 243, for four different teams in two organizations, that year!

[upon further reference...that looks impossible. It looks like he made 52 relief appearances and had 14 saves in the Angels system, and made 25 starts and pitched 9 complete games in the White Sox system. There must have been two Carlos Castillos that year.]

[EDIT: both of these comments were edited repeatedly -- sorry]

Also, Kyle Farnsworth in 1998 may have been the last pitcher ever to start 31 games in the minor leagues.

I would check Sally League IP leaders from, say, 1980 to 2005, if you really want to see the pitch count revolution in effect. The problem is that you'll have the best players called up mid-season, but this affects all levels of the minors.

BBref only goes back to 1992, but I bet that's enough.

1992: 188, 188, 177, 174 mean 182
1996: 185, 182, 178, 174 mean 179
2000: 178, 175, 173, 172 mean 175
2004: 181, 165, 159, 157 mean 166
2007: 175, 169, 167, 164 mean 169

Also, Kyle Farnsworth in 1998 may have been the last pitcher ever to start 31 games in the minor leagues

So THAT's who the Yankees should convert to being a starter!

I don't know who Josh Banks is, but the Blue Jays are certainly letting him pitch as much as possible

He tossed a complete game in his last outing, for the padres.