Organization changes course with young arms

by JD Arney on Mar 12, 2006 2:51 PM EST in News

I think we knew as much, but it's nice to see an article about the pitching changes in the lower levels of the minor leagues:

Pitchers Ty Howington and Chris Gruler were once what Homer Bailey is. They were No. 1 draft picks with potential to be No. 1 starters.
But Howington (No. 1 in '99) and Gruler (No. 1 in '02) have spent more time in injury rehab than on the mound.
The Reds have scrapped the 75-pitch limit for pitchers at Single-A and below - instituted by former general manager Dan O'Brien to help prevent injuries.
"We're going to formulate individual plans for every player," said Johnny Almaraz, the director of player development/international operations. "We'll pull back when a player's fatigued."
Some injuries can't be prevented. But the Reds made mistakes in the cases of Howington and Gruler.
Howington threw 1412/3 innings in 2000 at 18 years old. Gruler was hurt when he was drafted.
Almaraz said the club will use inning limits, depending on age - 100 innings for an 18-year-old, 110 for a 19-year-old, and so on.
"We'll add and subtract, depending on the individual," Almaraz said.

O'Brien really wasn't terribly far off the mark here, but he really just seemed to go about protecting young arms in a really lazy way. It's tough to make a plan on an individual basis, but it's easy to just issue a 75 pitch count edict for all pitchers under the AA level.

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drastic measures

I think that in running the minor leagues, O'Brien did exactly what this organization needed, in retrospect. He issued blanket proclamations that made people sit up and pay attention. The Reds' farm system had two glaring player development weaknesses - health and plate discipline - which had been gone unexamined for a long time. Sure, individual plans work better than inflexible general rules, but Rome wasn't built in a day. And for all the complaints made by prospects and managers under O'Brien's system, it certainly seemed to accomplish its aim. The Reds made a good first step under O'Brien, and now they move on to making the right second step under Krivsky. Hopefully they'll be walking again by the end of the decade.

I will also say that I'm not encouraged by the noises being made about inning limits as opposed to pitch limits. Innings don't tire pitchers if they're regularly spaced - look at Leo Mazzone's "throw often" philosophy, even working pitchers hard between starts. Throwing lots of pitches in a single outing is what can cause fatigue -> mechanics deterioration -> undue stress -> injuries.

If the individual plans use pitchcounts, then nevermind. But this organization hasn't yet shown that they can properly identify fatigue on an individual level as they are talking about. Are all the minor-league managers fully briefed on this stuff? All the pitching coaches on the same page? Coordinators & scouts? It all comes down to having an organizational blueprint, and Krivsky being capable of fully instituting it.

by DevilsAdvocate on Mar 12, 2006 9:43 PM EST reply actions