KingKongvs.Godzilla

I hate how certain people have actually made a big deal out of this absolute nothing of an issue and won't admit it's based on nothing but the most basic thinking on pitch count analysis (which is just looking at the number and throwing up arms). I know you really want to cling to your logic as foolproof and flawless, but it's based on basic thought and built alot like swiss cheese.

From the rewatch: DJ LeMahieu can play. He's no Castro talent wise obviously, but I think the Cubs (or other teams with young vets who want to trade) won't mind seeing what this guy can do next year. I still hold out hope that 1. the bat translates like I think/hope it can and 2. they let him play 2B. To borrow the old scouting adage (aka BS) that will disappear in due time, he carries himself like he belongs out there. There's no hesitation defensively, which is a very good quality for a callup/rookie to have and it's something I've definitely noticed about him from college to the MLB.

Double.

It really is, yet here we are. If you'd just spend less time trying to call everything stupid and actually make a point... Already replied to it. You didn't even make this point to me. Even further, this point is based solely on a perception that today's 123 pitch complete game W from Garza is the perfect example and perpetuation of this vaguely described (I assume everyone knows perfectly well what that means, of course) assumed philosophy. Like the rest of this, it's a little asinine with even less evidence than your first point. You mean like this game of how many times it's OK? Or the complete turn this "debate" has taken since you entered? Example of a strawman argument: How many times is OK huh? 20? 40? 68? 72? Herp? PEOPLE LIKE YOU just don't care until something happens!! Everything else you've said.

The [expletive]? The [expletive] what?

Wow. Well spun indeed. What exactly are you people declaring then? Or is this just whining to whine and I'm getting in the way? I fail to see how you've offered nothing but strawmen, if your..."arguments" are even worthy of that lofty title. How many times did you tell me I would be OK with this again?

He wasn't even close to laboring. I recorded the game and am watching it right now. Guy was crisp the whole time. His changeup was on, the fastball was moving and hitting 95 consistently and easily...His stuff has improved all around this year. So now it's organizational philosophy...the Cubs have what...4 120+ pitch starts all year? All in September, all from two proven veterans who are also their best pitchers. Get over Prior/Wood dude, because I have 0 doubts that's where most of this stuff is coming from. I miss that kind of talent too. Life moves on, and far more than overuse played into what happened there.

I can tell you with full confidence that the number is not 2. Maybe if you saw diminished mechanics or stuff...but we didn't and won't. You know why we won't? Because he has 5 months to recover from these potential career destroyers. Nobody here is saying that two is the breaking point, so quit being so pathetically obtuse and melodramatic. The complaint is that it's indicative of a larger problematic philosophies that have plagued this organization for too long now. If two is fine with them when it doesn't matter, hey, why not three? Why not five? Why not eight? How many times do I have to repeat this? Then why in the [expletive] are we having this discussion? Obtuse and melodramatic are two perfect words to describe the basis of your argument. I'll throw them in with limp. Repeat what you want all day...It's not going to change the actual number from 2 to whatever it is you want to believe I'm fine with. Notice how none of your counterarguments revolve around on anything but calling what I'm saying dumb. Yet, I'm the one being obtuse and melodramatic....Gold indeed.

That's more words than I said. They could kick a wall or something. I'm not even slightly worried about either of their arms right now. I don't think saying that is any more stupid than watching a pitcher dominate only to bitch about him throwing slightly more than 120 pitches.

And guess what...There is literally no significance to that that you have showed me. None of you have. I garaun-[expletive]-tee that those two will take the mound just fine next season. Hell, Dempster probably has another start this year, maybe. If he does, I predict that he'll not only make it but his arm will survive too. Couple other things: The younger Felix Hernandez has done this 5-6 times this year, as I pointed out. He still lives. There were alot more than 8 120+ pitch starts this season. Just wanted to point that out again.

I can tell you with full confidence that the number is not 2. Maybe if you saw diminished mechanics or stuff...but we didn't and won't. You know why we won't? Because he has 5 months to recover from these potential career destroyers.

You're not. WeGotWood98. How am I not grasping the point? Who's the one bitching and throwing the fit about a perfectly healthy 27 year old veteran pitcher throwing 123 pitches twice here? This can't be serious....but it is. The problem with your point is that the best way to describe it is limp. Garza will pitch again, despite the enormous odds. He'll most likely do it very, very well like he did this year and the years before that (where he also had individual starts that topped 120 pitches).

I did. Now can we admit that no one will answer any one of the questions I asked? At least can you admit that YOU have no clue what the breaking point is with any pitcher?

1. We've also yet to hear any truly logical reason why these 120+ pitches will hurt him or even affect him at all. I'm talking Garza the individual, not Mark Prior, not Kerry Wood, not the countless pitchers that aren't Matt Garza who I assume were devastated by a couple of 120+ pitch starts (by + I mean less than 125 both times). 2. I know no one is watching the games so maybe this was missed, but Garza threw/pitched really, really well in those two career killing starts. He pitched even better today than he did the last time out, despite the great scare his last start caused. He was still hitting 95 in the 9th, and ended the game on a nasty high 70's curveball. His arm remained attached. And again, you call these games meaningless. They are meaningless to you and I. To Matt Garza and the Cubs this is not meaningless, this is their job/career. I know that like any pitcher he's a delicate flower with the strength and durability of a 12 year old girl, but I insist that Matt Garza will survive and continue to thrive with the Cubs.

MAYBE I THINK HE SHOULD HAVE THROWN 120+ IN EVEWRY STARTZ?!!?!? Maybe you missed it but Garza's season is over (unless there's one more start left). Surprisingly enough, it's not due to a career ending injury after these overwhelming two starts.

We should probably throw in Castro and Brett Jackson to be safe. I'm pretty sure the Rays would be insulted by such a low offer. Anyway, I think BJ Upton is a very, very good idea here, particularly if they land one of the 1B. I'm indifferent on Shields as a trade guy. He's one of my favorite pitchers to watch and he, like seemingly all the Rays pitchers, has exceptional makeup and intelligent on the mound. That said, I never think it's a good idea to trade for someone coming off their best season unless scouts and/or the numbers say there's untapped potential there. I don't feel that way about Shields.

You mean that super serious elbow twinge that affected nothing after he came back? Yeah, why should I still be worrying about that? Did it suddenly rise to significance this September because of these two starts?

What, exactly, is the significance of this? Now the new logic isn't that he's suddenly likely to get injured, but that other teams aren't doing it so the Cubs should toe this arbitrary, invisible line instead? Anyway fact check time: Justin Verlander has done it 8 times this year alone. This is nothing new for Verlander, as he did it 9 times last year for a .500 Tigers team (including 6 of his last 7 starts). Felix Hernandez has done it 5 times this year. Gallardo has done it once in 2011. CC Sabathia has done it many times in his career and twice this year. He's been to the DL 0 times IIRC. I can probably keep going...but I think my point has been made. This is what good pitchers do, because they are good enough to do it. Garza will survive. Hell, more than likely he'll continue to thrive here as a pitcher. PROBABILITY WILLING he will find a way to move on from these career destroyers.

Yeah, I figured this is where the fear came from, hence why I don't buy that there's any significant logic behind the complaints. Now lets realize that Matt Garza isn't Mark Prior or Kerry Wood, both who failed for far more reasons than overuse. Wood never wanted to evolve as a SP, and faced the consequences of throwing all two of his pitches as hard as he could all the time. Prior, on top of being 5 years younger and only slightly above rookie status than Garza when he was worked like he was, also happened to collide with a player that year and then get hit with a line drive in the elbow the next year. It was a clusterf of bad things that shouldn't happen to pitchers. Believe it or not, there are pitchers out there who managed to survive two whole starts of 120+ pitches late in the season in their athletic primes. Oh and just to be a dick on Prior...there was always the s-word. His trainer/coach Tom House studied the stuff, and knew it as well as most in baseball probably.

And by your estimation Garza was pushed to his absolute limits in these two starts? Gimme a break...What's the finite number? When is it fine to throw 120 pitches then? How many bullets does Garza now have for the rest of his career after these two devastating starts? Is the 5 months he'll have in the winter too little time to recover from these starts? Is this just a matter of finding something to complain about because the team's bad and therefore even the good games have to have something to complain about? Have you factored in Garza's minimal at best injury history? Have you factored in that he's 27 with 4+ full major league seasons under his belt, and not some 22 year old rookie? Have you factored in that these are his ONLY TWO starts where his body was pushed to such insurmountable limits this year? Have you factored in that he'll be making 2 less starts than his past two years this year and that he won't even touch 200 IP? Or that the two starts came in September, when his arm is loose and limber, rather than April/May when he's just getting into the swing of things? Is this anything but a minor complaint based on the very vague idea that 120+ pitches = bad unless special, unnamed conditions are met? Why are they obligated to toe some invisible line over some vague fear when they have far more data on Garza's health and conditioning than all of us combined here?

You'd be making a far more logical point if you could prove that these two whole starts have actually increased his chance for injury in any significant way. Hell, at least prove it negatively affects him in the long run in some fashion. Last start didn't seem to bother him too much out there today. Number of deadly 120+ pitch starts for Garza in 2011: 2. *Takes off glasses dramatically* My god.

I bet his arm falls off this winter. Quade rode him like a horse this September. Somebody go to BCB and post Matt Garza's season line. Tell them SenorGato is only wrong sometimes, and he knows pitching. Garza is no Paul Wilson.

No one is making that case. I think the vice president for player personnel, his job title with the Marlins, might have had some say of who they went out and got. No, it doesn't make him a genius, but it does paint him as someone who has shown he's a competent FO man who can play a part in building a high end team. So what exactly are the parameters for success then? What title did he need or what did he have to do to get any kind of credit here? From what I'm reading you're saying "sure, he held high positions in organizations who had alot of success while he was there, but none of that can be directly attributed to him in a straight A-B line so he gets no credit at all."

The Marlins, though there's probably a reason that can be stripped down to nothing too. Keep in mind that everyone's success is often magnified by things they have nothing to do with...That's such an cheap and easy way to reduce someone's work to nothing. I highly doubt the guy walked around baseball for 30+ years as some blithering idiot who's whole career and philosophy can be reduced to one interview where he was one of two presenting one side of an argument amongst 4 interviewees.

Not to mention that when he did turn it on early in the year he got cooled down by getting hit in the head. Didn't he also have some kind of injury late in the year that slowed him down for a little? I started losing track in August so I might be wrong there...I do know that before the head beaning he was really on a tear for 3+ weeks or so.