Reds (Abbott) vs Cubs (Horton): 8/6/25, 1:20pm

[BKHoo]

10 hours ago, Pinerider said:

Are we not going to have Horton for the playoffs? Is he going to get shut down?

I don’t see how he could NOT be shut down unless you create some weird plan and it would have to involve very limited inning starts or bullpen work. 

[mul21]

1 minute ago, BKHoo said:

I don’t see how he could NOT be shut down unless you create some weird plan and it would have to involve very limited inning starts or bullpen work. 

I said this in the minor league forum, but I wonder if they start using him as an opener to keep him on the every 5 days routine and let him go 2-3 innings, then have Assad come in for the bulk of the innings after that.  Keeps him fresh, minimizes his innings and would likely prevent an issue with overusing the pen.

[Derwood]

Is there any long-term data showing that innings management actually prevents injury? Feels like teams are overly cautious about workload, but guys still get hurt at a pretty regular rate

[Andy]

Just now, Derwood said:

Is there any long-term data showing that innings management actually prevents injury? Feels like teams are overly cautious about workload, but guys still get hurt at a pretty regular rate

Someone must, but everyone teams try to do this with (Stephen Strasburg) still ends up getting hurt anyway.

[Derwood]

Just now, Andy said:

Someone must, but everyone teams try to do this with (Stephen Strasburg) still ends up getting hurt anyway.

Feels like shutting down highly effective starters for some nebulous possibility of arm injuries (which will happen regardless) is shooting yourself in the foot

 

[Rcal10]

6 minutes ago, Derwood said:

Is there any long-term data showing that innings management actually prevents injury? Feels like teams are overly cautious about workload, but guys still get hurt at a pretty regular rate

I do not believe there is any such data to prove limiting workload prevents injuries. 

[Derwood]

Just now, Rcal10 said:

I do not believe there is any such data to prove limiting workload prevents injuries. 

Yet everyone does it (and this board is obsessed with it)

[mul21]

9 minutes ago, Derwood said:

Yet everyone does it (and this board is obsessed with it)

There's a ton of data in other sports (distance running for example) that shows quick increases in workload cause injuries.  So if you're going to train for a marathon, going from zero miles a week to 40 miles a week in 18 weeks is likely to cause an injury because your muscles, tendons, ligaments and joints aren't accustomed to the load being put on them.  Some of that can be minimized by running slower paces, but it doesn't eliminate the risk.  I think you get into a more nebulous place when you're talking about pitchers because these aren't guys off the street who've never done this before, but in a case like this, you're asking someone to go run a marathon at their 10K pace (in terms of velocity thrown and spin put on the ball) so it stands to reason that backing off that breakneck pace like the White Sox did with Crochette last year makes a ton of sense.  

[Derwood]

6 minutes ago, mul21 said:

There's a ton of data in other sports (distance running for example) that shows quick increases in workload cause injuries.  So if you're going to train for a marathon, going from zero miles a week to 40 miles a week in 18 weeks is likely to cause an injury because your muscles, tendons, ligaments and joints aren't accustomed to the load being put on them.  Some of that can be minimized by running slower paces, but it doesn't eliminate the risk.  I think you get into a more nebulous place when you're talking about pitchers because these aren't guys off the street who've never done this before, but in a case like this, you're asking someone to go run a marathon at their 10K pace (in terms of velocity thrown and spin put on the ball) so it stands to reason that backing off that breakneck pace like the White Sox did with Crochette last year makes a ton of sense.  

I get that, but a) pitchers get 4 days of rest between physical exertions, so there is a built in recovery period that most other sports do not have and b) this board acts like a pitcher who has never pitched more than 100 innings will have his arm explode when he goes out for inning 101.

I'm all for preserving Horton over the long term, but a team that only has 3 good pitchers is going to torpedo their playoff hopes if they shut down one (or two, if you include Boyd) because of the "innings pitched bogeyman"

[Rcal10]

12 minutes ago, Derwood said:

I get that, but a) pitchers get 4 days of rest between physical exertions, so there is a built in recovery period that most other sports do not have and b) this board acts like a pitcher who has never pitched more than 100 innings will have his arm explode when he goes out for inning 101.

I'm all for preserving Horton over the long term, but a team that only has 3 good pitchers is going to torpedo their playoff hopes if they shut down one (or two, if you include Boyd) because of the "innings pitched bogeyman"

I think if the Cubs are securely in a wild card spot but maybe 3 games behind the Brewers in mid September you might see Horton and Boyd pitch less. I think it is more important to have those guys be able to pitch in the playoffs then to use up all their innings to try to catch the Brewers. I get there is no set innings and no hard proof in a large jump in innings from one year to the next hurting long term. But I still think the Cubs will be cautious. And especially so with Horton. Hopefully he has a long career ahead of him. 

Edited August 7, 2025 by Rcal10

[mul21]

20 minutes ago, Derwood said:

I get that, but a) pitchers get 4 days of rest between physical exertions, so there is a built in recovery period that most other sports do not have and b) this board acts like a pitcher who has never pitched more than 100 innings will have his arm explode when he goes out for inning 101.

I'm all for preserving Horton over the long term, but a team that only has 3 good pitchers is going to torpedo their playoff hopes if they shut down one (or two, if you include Boyd) because of the "innings pitched bogeyman"

There's a built in recovery period in running too.  Most of the people starting out are only running 4 days a week and only one of them is a longer run.  These guys are throwing on the side as well, so it's a pretty analogous comparison.

[Tryptamine]

The Brewers really do have a horseshoe up their ass this year.

Andrew Vaughn who got traded for mostly nothing goes from a 42 wRC+ to a 215 wRC+ the minute he changes uniforms

Quinn Priester gets added for mostly nothing coming off a 7.74 ERA in 2023, a 4.71 ERA in 2024 and now is suddenly posting a 3.15 ERA this year.

Isaac Collins a 28 year old non prospect is putting up a 138 wRC+ which is higher then he ever did at any point in the minors

 

So they've added for basically nothing, an MVP caliber bat, a good #3 pitcher and an all star level OFer. Totally and completely reasonable. 

I

 

[CubinNY]

15 hours ago, Tangled Up in Plaid said:

 Christ Almighty. 

Can hit the off-speed stuff. They should never throw him a fastball. 

[Bertz]

I think unfortunately with pitching there's just a really high degree of fragility as a baseline.  Like all of these machinations are to try and improve from say a 40% chance of a major injury in the next three years to like a 30% chance.

Because that baseline is so high and so much data is proprietary it's hard to do a study on what exactly works.

What we have seen is some pullback from the extreme babying that the league had moved toward late last decade.  It's been notable in the minor league threads how much deeper pitchers are working into games.  The current wisdom seems to be coalescing towards something closer to what Japan has, where you can ride guys a little harder on a game by game basis but the flipside is a push towards 5 or 6 days of rest as often as you can manage.  I wouldn't be surprised if next CBA drops down to 154 games and every team gets one off day every single week.

[squally1313]

I like to poke fun at the people referencing 2018, 2003, 1984, whatever…but we do have a couple (two) pretty obvious data points of overworking young arms and what that did to their careers. 

[Derwood]

2 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

I like to poke fun at the people referencing 2018, 2003, 1984, whatever…but we do have a couple (two) pretty obvious data points of overworking young arms and what that did to their careers. 

assuming one of those two is Kerry Wood, I would argue that while yes, he was probably overused as a rookie (which lead to his surgery), but then his next five seasons were:

137.0
174.1
213.2
211.0
140.1

What "innings pitched" doesn't account for, of course, is pitch count, and we know that Dusty Baker notoriously drove up pitch count with Wood and Prior

[CubinNY]

Do they still keep data on pitcher abuse points?

[Post Count Padder]

Just have him do some towel drills and he will be fine. 

[We Got The Whole 9]

21 hours ago, Tangled Up in Plaid said:

I'm positive Hendricks had games like that.

I thought you might be right but I figured someone would do the leg work for me, and they did.

 

 

There’s an eye opener within that sum – 56 of his pitches were strikes.

“That’s top-end stuff,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said in a postgame press conference. “It’s quality stuff. It’s a good formula for success.”

It also achieved something few have done. Horton’s 83.6 strike percentage was the highest for a Cubs starting pitcher since 2000 (when such data became available) with a minimum 65 pitches thrown, per SportRadar.

Edited August 7, 2025 by We Got The Whole 9

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

4 minutes ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

I thought you might be right but I figured someone would do the leg work for me, and they did.

 

 

There’s an eye opener within that sum – 56 of his pitches were strikes.

“That’s top-end stuff,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said in a postgame press conference. “It’s quality stuff. It’s a good formula for success.”

It also achieved something few have done. Horton’s 83.6 strike percentage was the highest for a Cubs starting pitcher since 2000 (when such data became available) with a minimum 65 pitches thrown, per SportRadar.

Wow. Who was the guy in 2000? Lieber?

[squally1313]

14 minutes ago, Tangled Up in Plaid said:

Wow. Who was the guy in 2000? Lieber?

Guessing they’re saying it’s the highest since they starting keeping data, not that someone in 2000 went higher 

[mul21]

15 minutes ago, Tangled Up in Plaid said:

Wow. Who was the guy in 2000? Lieber?

There wasn't a guy, it's saying he had the highest % since it's been recorded, which started in 2000.

[Backtobanks]

1 hour ago, Tryptamine said:

The Brewers really do have a horseshoe up their ass this year.

Andrew Vaughn who got traded for mostly nothing goes from a 42 wRC+ to a 215 wRC+ the minute he changes uniforms

Quinn Priester gets added for mostly nothing coming off a 7.74 ERA in 2023, a 4.71 ERA in 2024 and now is suddenly posting a 3.15 ERA this year.

Isaac Collins a 28 year old non prospect is putting up a 138 wRC+ which is higher then he ever did at any point in the minors

 

So they've added for basically nothing, an MVP caliber bat, a good #3 pitcher and an all star level OFer. Totally and completely reasonable. 

I

 

There are always surprise players that exceed expectations when a team is doing well.  On the Cubs you have players like Kelly, Pomeranz, Palencia, and Boyd.

[JunkyardWalrus]

1 hour ago, Derwood said:

assuming one of those two is Kerry Wood, I would argue that while yes, he was probably overused as a rookie (which lead to his surgery), but then his next five seasons were:

137.0
174.1
213.2
211.0
140.1

What "innings pitched" doesn't account for, of course, is pitch count, and we know that Dusty Baker notoriously drove up pitch count with Wood and Prior

'I hate Dusty Baker’ is a severe understatement. 

[JunkyardWalrus]

1 hour ago, CubinNY said:

Do they still keep data on pitcher abuse points?

Pitcher Abuse Points Situation PAP/Pitch Pitches 1-100 0 Pitches 101-110 1 Pitches 111-120 2 Pitches 121-130 3 Pitches 131-140 4 Pitches 141-150 5 Pitches 151+ 6