Oy.

Trevor Bauer is available; although w/Kershaw having his annual back issues, maybe the Dodgers will keep Bauer.

Well, at least my dad can stop ######## about how the Dodgers didn't re-sign him.

Time for them to go for the next Oakland A in Montas?

TINSTAAP.

meanwhile the news on Odirizi seems better than expected: sprained/strained ligaments.

Sorry to get all "meta" off of this specific injury, but I've got to ask: At what point is there enough evidence to express a ton of skepticism about how much the cautiousness of handling pitchers in the modern era is paying off with improved performance, increased longevity, and/or decreased injury?

Is there any causal evidence that reducing the number of starts, the numbers of innings, and the number of pitches is improving pitchers' careers?

The only legit argument I can see is that pitchers generally throw a lot harder than they used to, and strike out a ton more batters than they used to (Nolan Ryan is the greatest unicorn in baseball since the early days of Babe Ruth.). If you want to argue that all of these efforts to protect pitchers and limit their pitches per game has led to more strikeouts, then there's that.

But in terms of prolonging careers and limiting injuries, I don't see it. Scherzer's injury sure strikes me as something that has little to do with how often you throw a pitch, and more to do with how you throw a pitch...namely, with maximum effort every pitch.

Steve, I think you answered your own question. Everyone's throwing max effort now, and it's working (from a runs prevented standpoint), so how could we even measure whether pitch counts, etc are (or aren't) effective? Is there any team that is bucking the trend?

But in terms of prolonging careers and limiting injuries, I don't see it. Scherzer's injury sure strikes me as something that has little to do with how often you throw a pitch, and more to do with how you throw a pitch...namely, with maximum effort every pitch.

Scherzer's already had a Hall of Fame career. He's already thrown more innings than Sandy Koufax and Lefty Gomez, plus non-Hall of Famers like Scott Sanderson and Bret Saberhagen and Ron Guidry. It's never been common for a 37-year-old pitcher with 2500 innings under his belt to just keep motoring along.

Scherzer isn't really a good example. I'm amazed he and verlander can still do what they are doing. Wainwright and greinke too.

If anything their longevity is likely the result of incredible fitness regimes and has nothing to do with limiting pitches etc. and of course Bartolo colon

It probably goes something like:

back when you could only throw underhand, they’d expect 600 IP a year and your arm would soon fall off

then you could throw overhand, they’d expect 500 IP and your arm would soon fall off

so they moved the pitching distance to 60’6” and expected 400 IP and your arm would soon fall off

so they expanded rotations and used relievers once in a while, and you’d throw 300 IP, but harder, and your arm would soon fall off

so they invented Tommy John surgery and other techniques to prolong the life of your arm, and everybody started throwing a lot harder, and they expect 200 IP and everybody’s arm soon falls off

… with individual exceptions for it falling off sooner or later, naturally.

Yes, it strikes me that there is no strategy that can be relied on to maximize the number of innings in an arm. There have been 13 men in the history of MLB who have thrown 5000 innings, and the approximate midpoint of their careers is:

1901
1886
1918
1976
1979
1973
1974
1957
1977
1921
1897
1887
1997

That weird blip in the 1970s appears to be the only time that a reasonable number of pitchers didn't have their arms fall off. I should add that there's no one active who is remotely close to joining this list; the only active pitchers who have thrown even 3000 innings are Greinke and Verlander.

Scherzer’s treatment plan is to scream at his oblique and stare at it with crazy eyes until it heals itself.

Not really an answerable question. As BDC implies, there's also a (theoretical?) tradeoff between innings pitched and seasons pitched. And especially with the post-Miller salary structure, what pitcher is going to agree to throw 300+ innings in his pre-FA period.

Anyway, the shift to 5-day/game rotations didn't seem to be achieving much ... then Maddux, Clemens, Glavine, Unit, Moyer all topped 4,000 innings and pitched well into their 40s. Now these days, it's hard to see how anybody is gonna get to those IP totals but we do have Scherzer and Verlander still dominating in their late 30s and Greinke trying to pull off the Maddux/Moyer/Glavine trick.

But who knows? Maybe Fergie (it's Fergie day) could still throw 300 effective innings these days. We don't even know how many pitches he threw much less whether he eased up on Dal Maxvill (career 217/293/259) and how much that helped preserve his arm.

At what point is there enough evidence to express a ton of skepticism about how much the cautiousness of handling pitchers in the modern era is paying off with improved performance, increased longevity, and/or decreased injury?

Pitching coaches, like everybody in every industry, follow the crowd: they all do what everybody else is doing. (That's especially true in pro sports, in which the difference between having a several-hundred-thousand-dollar-a-year job and being unemployed is often nothing but luck.)

7--Suppose it's the wrong question?

The way starters are handled in the modern era is part of a staff-level strategy to maximize pitching effectiveness.

Individual performance, longevity and health aren't irrelevant to that goal, but they aren't the same thing either.

Is there any causal evidence that reducing the number of starts, the numbers of innings, and the number of pitches is improving pitchers' careers?

The only legit argument I can see is that pitchers generally throw a lot harder than they used to, and strike out a ton more batters than they used to (Nolan Ryan is the greatest unicorn in baseball since the early days of Babe Ruth.). If you want to argue that all of these efforts to protect pitchers and limit their pitches per game has led to more strikeouts, then there's that.

It’s hard to evaluate evidence when you have multiple parameters changing at the same time.

If anything their longevity is likely the result of incredible fitness regimes and has nothing to do with limiting pitches etc.

This is just much speculation as anything else. It's not likely. It's possible. But so is limiting pitches. And so is pure genetics. Or randomness.

It’s hard to evaluate evidence when you have multiple parameters changing at the same time.

This still remains about the only thing we can say.