Hunting For A 200 Inning Pitcher

Seems like Santana is most likely to do it, but he was good last year so if the every other year thing holds up...

I would predict Gibson second most likely.

I would not want Duffey, Berrios or May to surpass 180-185. No need to injure the future of the franchise.

I would be shocked if Hughes was a starter for an extended period in 2017

I had no complaints in 2015 except for not being on the field the first half.    His last 7 starts were in the middle of a pennant chase and they were all quality and not just quality minimum.   7 innings and 2 runs was his worst.   Very ace like.    

If Gibson surpasses 200 innings that means he figured out how to stop big innings and giving up base runners in bunches. That would suggest a big bounce back season for him and be a much-needed boost for the team. I really don't expect it though, unless he has some upcoming change to his repertoire or approach that he hasn't talked about. He just doesn't get strike outs or induce playable ground balls reliably enough. Maybe with a stud defense to back him up, but...

Santana is the most likely to throw 200. Gibson has a chance if the nagging injuries have healed. Santiago has reached 180 each of the last two years (is that a good thing?).

I'm more concerned with quality starts. The Twins had 59 in 2016 while league average was 76. To get to league average, the young pitchers are going to have to step up and Gibson has to return to form. May is going to be skipped sometimes and Hughes may not get many starts.

I know there are a lot of people down on him due to two simple facts:

1] Health didn't turn out to be the future top of the rotation starter we hoped he'd be when "stolen" with a mid 1st round pick.

2] Because he had an injury plagued and poor season for a 100+ loss team.

I'm not saying for a minute he will suddenly develop in to a stud pitcher in 2017. But if I could pick one guy to surprise in the 2017 rotation it would be Gibson.

Listen, coming off major surgery, he was the "Berrios" back in 2013. "Why isn't he up?" Well, he did come up, probably with a still healing and possibly tired arm. And he didn't exactly set the world on fire. But he gained experience and had a very solid "rookie" campaign in 2014. Forgetting wins and losses as a measurement, all his other numbers improved in 2015. But he has a poor 2016 along with the rest of the team in the worst season in modern franchise history and suddenly he is a bump.

I am not saying he will suddenly become a stud in 2017, but, were there one guy on the team for 2017 that I could say health and a fresh new season could rise up, it would be Gibson.

Plus a catcher that could you know, not cost him strikes behind the plate. 

Santana is the only one who has a shot this year and I wouldn't bet on that.  I'd never bet on Gibson.

It is all about approach to pitching.  We used to expect 200 innings, it was not an elusive goal, but we began a dramatic shift and what confuses my old mine is that we seem to have more arm injuries in the five man rotation, less inning years than I remember from the 4 man, complete game period.  Here are the yearly total innings pitched leaders - note Mr. Blyleven with 271 in 1986 after 293 innings in 1985, and Jack Morris with 293 in 1983.  And from 1980 to the beginning of baseball the leaders were routinely getting 300+ of close to it. http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/IP_leagues.shtml

 

This Grantland article asks what is happening and starts with: Tommy John surgeries are ripping through baseball at a faster pace than ever before. Twenty-five percent of active MLB pitchers have had the procedure, which reconstructs a pitcher’s torn ulnar collateral ligament, as have 15 percent of current minor league pitchers. Last season was particularly distressing: More pitchers had the surgery in 2014 than in the entirety of the 1990s. http://grantland.com/the-triangle/tommy-john-epidemic-elbow-surgery-glenn-fleisig-yu-darvish/

 

I must emphasize that this is Tommy John related and now we are seeing a new series of injuries which have not had an operation developed to get them back on the mound. 

 

Jeff Passan wrote the book ARM and was on NPR in an interview that I found interesting: http://www.npr.org/2016/03/31/472541597/injuries-increase-as-pitchers-throw-harder-faster-and-younger but none of these answer the question - why didn't we have this many injuries prior to 1980 when pitchers threw more?  Of course there were some, but it does not register for me that the numbers match what we have today.  I tried to find stats, but could not.  Anyway, I find this whole discussion to be interesting and puzzling.

In the 80's the average fastball was in the 88-89 mph range  now it is around 92. More torque, no evolution to compensate, not intelligently designed enough to handle the stress over time.

Hopefully Gibson betters himself than being a five inning pitcher. Doubt Berrios, May or Duffy will break the mark. Ervin needs to build a workhorse reputation. He's playing for one more BIG contract, multi-year, down-the-line. But, yet...the day of seeing such a feat by multiple Twins pitchers in uniform may be fleeting forever.

I feel like the 200 inning standard is a relic of another time.  Today's hitters go deeper into counts - driving up pitch counts.  While we hear the stories of old timers pitching 150 pitches a game, there were also plenty of games with players pitching no more than 100 pitches over 9 innings because hitters were less likely to go deep into counts.

If durability is the measure we are looking at - shouldn't we also consider some kind of efficiency measure?  Wouldn't a combination of number of starts, innings per start and average pitches per inning be a more nuanced measure of pitcher durability and effectiveness?

A simple measure on number of innings pitched makes little sense.

I feel like the 200 inning standard is a relic of another time.  Today's hitters go deeper into counts - driving up pitch counts.  While we hear the stories of old timers pitching 150 pitches a game, there were also plenty of games with players pitching no more than 100 pitches over 9 innings because hitters were less likely to go deep into counts.

 

If durability is the measure we are looking at - shouldn't we also consider some kind of efficiency measure?  Wouldn't a combination of number of starts, innings per start and average pitches per inning be a more nuanced measure of pitcher durability and effectiveness?

 

A simple measure on number of innings pitched makes little sense.

Why not just simply track number of pitches? That with K vs B rate, and Balls in Play give a much better picture of a pitcher than innings. I have wondered why pitchers were measured by innings instead of pitches for many years going back to the 80s and 90s. It's like tracking Wins which is punishing good pitchers on bad teams. When the guy throws a 25 pitch inning because of 2 errors behind him, its Not his fault he didn't get into the 8th inning...