Bullpens

Oh how I pine for the glory days of baseball.  I'm sick and tired of this age of specialized bullpens that are put together to supposedly ease the workloads of the starters, lest they get arm injuries and become ineffective.  I think pitch counts and bullpens and all that is nonsense and really doesn't improve the team in the long run.  Let's run an example here: let's say that Stephen Strasburg wasn't put on an innings limit and his pitch counts weren't monitored.  Would he have gotten injured?  Maybe.  There's no way to know, just as there's no way to prove that his decreased throwing regimen contributed to his health.  Some players, pitchers especially, are going to get injured no matter the situation.  Others respond better to higher pitch counts and more innings and less rest between starts.  Every pitcher is not exactly the same, and yet the "best" baseball minds in the game seem to be treating them as such.  A few examples: last summer, Johan Santana threw his first no-hitter ever and needed 140 pitches or something to do it.  The rest of the year his stuff wasn't as good, with many pundits pointing to his "abuse" during his no-hitter as his undoing.  Never mind the fact that he was susceptible to injury and had taken the entire previous year off; it must have been the high pitch count.  Then we have Edwin Jackson, who threw 150 pitches and walked 8 in his no-hitter for the Diamondbacks.  He lost his previous effectiveness, with the pitch count again taking the brunt of the blame - but remember that he walked 8!  He had control issues that were certainly going to bring his stats back toward the mean.  There are so many other mitigating factors to blame here - the leagues figuring out the pitchers, home/away games, etc. - that using pitch counts as a frame of reference is a fool's errand.  Further, when Justin Verlander is able to throw 130 pitches in successive starts with success, he is not lauded.  The point I'm trying to make here, though, is that some are built for it and some are not.

There are many pitchers in the minor leagues that will never sniff the Big Show.  There is no shortage of very good talent.  But why are we spending so much time preventing potential injuries when there is a backlog of talent?  If one cannot take the rigors of pitching, there will be another one to take over who could be just as effective, or even more so.  It's not like there're a finite number of ballplayers; the players will always be there.

But instead of riding out the best pitcher (starters are typically the best on a team), managers will defer to the lesser arms in the bullpen that either couldn't cut it as a starter, have a limited arsenal, or just don't have the mindset to be a starting pitcher.  This is ridiculous.  Today the Tigers' pitcher walked 3 men in a row.  Really?  In a major league game?  This should never happen.  But it does, far too often.  Managers remove the starter after 100 or so pitches to "protect the arm" and put the ball into the hands of worse pitchers with control issues.  Why is this a good idea?  Why has this become acceptable?  I'm of the mind that the starter will give you the best chance to win most of the time.  That's why they're expected to pitch at least 200 innings a year (though I wish it were more).  These relievers come in based on matchups (with tiny sample sizes) and yet are expected to get outs that they may not even be qualified to get.  It's such a bizarre concept.  Teams end up losing games they shouldn't have, and winning games they had no business winning.  I say put the ball in the hands of the men that are most capable.  Win or lose with your best options.