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That HQ study seems to suggest that the opposite is true. Throwing less innings in a prior season benefits in the current season.
State of the D-Bate: Pitchers' Year-After Effect (2)
BaseballHQ's latest "study" is the most convincing (in either direction) that we have seen. It uses the superior indicator of xERA, and it uses the superior dataset of 20+ years' worth of pitchers.
Dr. D endorses this study wholeheartedly.
Bear in mind that scientists don't use "studies" to resolve and close issues in one attempt. Sometimes good studies conflict. The idea isn't to end the conversation. Just so you know.
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Pitchers get hurt. When they do, we want to blame somebody. The little girl's picture was on the milk carton. The jury's not going home without someone getting sentenced...
If the pitcher who just got hurt did have an IP increase, or high pitch counts, we notice that. If the pitcher going to the DL -- such as Erik Bedard -- did NOT have a tough workload, we simply do not notice the workload factor.
We notice what we're looking for. Ever since PAP, we're looking for idiot managers.
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=== Just the Fa'ax, Ma'am ===
HQ looked at all 163 pitchers from 1988-2008 to see if they could detect a Burnout Effect. The study was well-designed and captured a nice, yes, sample of pitchers whose IP had gone up a lot in one year, this sample being that subset of young pitchers who:
- Were in the majors for 2 straight years at some time in 1988-2008
- Threw a decent number of innings (100+ in Y2, to be exact) - no RP's and no fringe AAA/ML guys
- Were age 25 or younger, Y2
- Threw 1 inning or more in Y3
For each individual pitcher who met the Burnout Filter, the HQ guys then pair-matched him with the most-comparable pitcher who did not meet the filter. This was, of course, the "control group," the guys who had been handled "sensibly".
The results are in:
- Burnout Pitchers
- Y1 - 4.31 xERA in 97 innings
- Y2 - 4.06 xERA in 193 innings
- Y3 - 4.19 xERA in 162 innings
- --------------
- Non-Burnout Pitchers
- Y1 - 4.09 xERA in 170 innings
- Y2 - 4.06 xERA in 193 innings
- Y3 - 4.25 xERA in 162 innings
If doubling your innings in Y2 is a bad thing, it certainly leaves no elephant tracks in the Y3 snow. There aren't even any chipmunk tracks.
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=== For Good Measure, Dept. ===
HQ ran a second investigation, this one based not on IP increase, but on ---- > pitch count increases.
.... Pitch counts themselves, increases by multiples of 100 pitches, and other things.
They allowed the filters to remain steady, or to vary as pitchers got older. They tweaked many different things...
And never found any "burnout effect" that was induced by increasing a pitcher's workload from Y1 to Y2. At least, none that ever would do a Roto owner any good in Y3.
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You can argue that you might find chipmunk tracks in Y4, or Y5, or some blamed place. But the fact is that we looked out the window and saw nothing but new-blown snow in Y3.
If there wasn't a single chipmunk mark anywhere in December, what do you expect in January? You might see a few little scratches, maybe. But if you're expecting absolutely zero in December, and then a Great Chipmunk Horde in January ...
Maybe there is zero pitcher burnout effect in Y3, and a little bit in Y4. But the zero in Y3 tells us, don't spend a whole lot on your chipmunk rifle.
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The time comes to just Bill Gates it, to tell a guy that --- > his guess was random. And move on.
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next
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Comments
2
There are just X,000 number of bullets in the arm, pure and simple...
3
Portland with regards to the Blazer's star Brandon Roy. He has been out for most of the year and the prognosis is, "Well he may play again, but he will never be the same".
The injury? ... ... ... None.
His knees are just done! There is no ligament issue, or bone issue, his meniscuses (menisci?) are just gone. He was born with knees that just arn't durable. Here is 26 year old kid, with the world as his oyster, and all of a sudden his knees turn out to be 45 years old, and he way have to retire. Again THERE WAS NO INJURY. Basketball players talk about only having X number of jumps in their bodies, here is an (unfortunate for us Blazer fans) extreme example. I am afraid that Erik Bedard is like this, blessed with an awesome arm, that unfortunately only had a few hundred miles left on the timing belt.
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Ya, these syndromes show up OBF... personally I have a chronic "overuse injury" in my right foot... the doctor didn't even bother to MRI it; he just sez "it would show a lot of wear and tear in there" and left it at that...
A LHP I was enthused about was Butch Henry ... terrific offspeed game but as he kept getting injured he simply remarked, "some people are born with great muscles and terrible connective tissue"... remember thinking it odd that Henry would use the phrase "connective tissue"...
Bedard's wide assortment of injuries certainly puts him at risk for the Henry syndrome...
I hope not, but if it does, let's see the Kerry Wood solution applied.