Boyd's World-> Breadcrumbs Back to Omaha-> High-Stress Pitcher Followups About the author, Boyd Nation

High-Stress Pitcher Followups

Publication Date: July 15, 2003

Two Years Out

Before we dive into this year's pitch count carnage report (sorry, didn't mean to give away the surprise ending) next week, I want to take a look at how a few of the high-workload cases from the last couple of years are doing. Let me remind you once again that this is not a complete study yet, and that there is no proof yet that high workloads cause increased injury rates at the college level, although the proof is fairly clear at the professional level. What I'm presenting here are a series of anecdotes for thought while we wait for sufficient data to be gathered to do a scientific proof, which will require things like a non-overloaded control group for comparison.

First of all, let's look at the six guys that I documented in 2001 as racking up more than 100,000 PAP that season. You can start by checking on where they were this time last year; this will bring you up to date on where they are now.

One Year Out

Now, the same sort of summary for the ten guys who I found with the worst workloads last year. I'm doing this particular set not because they represent a specific set for proof purposes, but because they don't. One of the factors that I'll have to deal with in designing the long-term study is that not all pitchers are created equal. There's not enough data available on minor league injuries to make it possible to study injury rates directly; we'll have to look at a combination of longevity and effectiveness. Over the course of five years, though, the expectations for these things are vastly different. In this group of ten, for example, there are a couple of actual or expected high-round draft choices, a few guys who will get a shot in the minors but might or might not be expected to do anything if healthy, and at least a couple of guys who are expected to be five years older in five years. Learning to group them appropriately for comparison is going to be one of the challenges.

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Boyd's World-> Breadcrumbs Back to Omaha-> High-Stress Pitcher Followups About the author, Boyd Nation