Y'know, with Junior and Sweeney back - Moyer returning in Philly - and the general trend of people explaining why this player or that player can remain immune from aging - I got to thinking about baseball compared to other sport.

Baseball is the one sport where you play EVERY day (practically).  You get an average of 1 day off per week (roughly 6 games a week for 27 weeks).  Every other sport - the NORM is that you get multiple days off between contests - and back-to-back games are rare.  Of course, baseball is largely non-contact, so the thinking is that the game isn't hard on the body, (like football, basketball or hockey). 

Well, I'm not a doctor, but I have read enough to understand that the way to build muscle is to work-out, REST, and repeat.  The "resting" part is needed because the process of building muscle is that strenuous exercise creates micro-tears in muscle tissue - and the body repairs them.  The repairs increase muscle mass - and over time, the body will accellerate this process -- and as the muscle mass gets stronger, the same amount of effort results in less damage.  Steroids don't grow muscles - they accellerate this healing process -- so injuries heal faster -- and if you're bulking up -- it doesn't take as long for the body to provide the extra musculature.

Here's the thing.  The "baseline" time I've found for muscle repair from strenuous activity is 48 hours, (which varies from person to person - and gets faster the more you work out, so long as you aren't doing too much damage).  And, one of the basic realities of aging is this healing process starts slowing down.  But - in general terms, you start damaging muscles, (these micro-tears) either by long repetitive exercise OR short explosive (max-effort) bursts.

Here's the thing.  Hitting wouldn't seem to be overly taxing on muscles -- you have to be really quick -- but unless you're Adam Dunn, you typically aren't swinging AS HARD as you possibly can.  Hitting is very controlled athletics - but "near" max effort for accellerating the bat head.  Fielding varies depending on position.  OFs have to sprint at max capacity regularly -- but such sprints only occur once or twice a game, (the full effort ones). 

Pitchers, however, are forced to really exert themselves to produce 94 mph FBs.  Pitchers also seem to be highly more susceptible to long-term damage.  And, I'm wondering if the key here is the rest-repair phase.  STARTERS get multiple rest days between starts - and the in-between sessions aren't at full bore.  But, the guys that throw on consecutive days, (closers), are another beast.

I'm wondering if there is an inherent error in shoving the mega-FB guys into closing.  The oldest closer today is Hoffman, who throws about as hard as my niece.  Of course, there ARE exceptions - Mariano continues to hit 94 on the gun -- though he's using the cutter more and more - and getting hitters to fish more often.

I'm wondering if there is a reason that a lot of high-heat closers come up - put together a couple of good seasons, then everything starts falling apart.  (Putz?).  Is it a case that in their 20s, the body CAN repair the damage, so a kid can take the daily grind - but after a couple of years what happens is that those micro-tears don't always fully heal between appearances -- and then they turn from microtears into major problems?

As a rule, managers are reluctant to use a closer 3 days running.  Is this because managers have caught on to the reality - without understand the underlying mechanism?  And, more importantly ... what ramifications might this have on decisions on SP/RP assignments?  Is the Twin method (Santana / Liriano) really brilliant science -- letting young guys do a little work on a regular basis - to hone their consistency skills -- but moving them into the rotation before they pile up too much back-to-back appearance wear-and-tear?

And here's the REAL intersting concept -- what if you could extend a Superstar career by years, if you simply never played them on consecutive days.  Take the "no day game after a night game" rule and expand it to "no game after a game day."?

Given the variance in DNA - (many of the superstars seem to have superhuman healing capacities from the get-go) - I don't know a good way to research it.  It's not really the MPH that matters - so much as the percentage of maximum effort being exerted - so a guy who CAN hit 96, who just throws 93 might be doing less damage than a guy who tops out at 92, who is constantly throwing 91.  Interesting food for thought.