Are We Watching Pitchers Hurt Themselves in the Playoffs?
The postseason game is changing around us. Starting pitchers are being asked to go harder for shorter periods of time, allowing teams to begin playing matchups with the bullpen as early as the third inning. And while strategically sound in most cases, this trend has emerged without a major change in how we think about rest and schedules in the postseason. As much as we might love the high-intensity matchups that “bullpenning” provides, is it possible that pitchers are having to endure greater stress than in the past?
Postseason appearances ask more of a pitcher than their regular-season equivalents. When John Smoltz appeared on our podcast last year, he hypothesized that playoff innings were possibly the biggest factor (among others) in his own personal injury history. And it had to do with his bulldog mentality.
“I put this emphasis on postseason innings: every inning I pitched was three innings of stress for a regular-season game because that’s the way I approached the game. You weren’t guaranteed another,” Smoltz said. “In a regular-season start, there has never been a game where I even came close to a postseason game. I had a third and fourth gear in the regular season, but it was fifth and sixth gear in the postseason, constantly.”
To his point, consider: since 2007, starting pitchers have averaged as much as 2 mph closer to their max fastball velocity in the postseason than in the regular season.
Everyone has an extra gear for the playoffs, even if they aren’t all as Smoltzian as Justin Verlander. The Astro starter had a nearly 5 mph range between his average and max velocities during the regular season. That figure has dropped to 1.8 mph in the postseason.
Kyle Hendricks was asked before Game 3 if this has changed recently as starters are asked to go fewer innings.
“That is how the game’s going. It’s going bullpenning now, as they’re calling it,” said Hendricks. “But from a starter’s point of view, you still hope you can get into the eighth, ninth inning. If you’re throwing well enough, the manager will let you go that deep into the game.”
The gap between Hendricks’ average and max velocities has decreased fourth-most in the playoffs this year, from 3.5 mph in the regular season to 1.1 in the postseason. To some extent, he’s leaving it all out on the table no matter how many innings he gets to throw.
There’s a clear trend in baseball towards faster fastballs in general. How are pitchers doing it? It’s simple, for many: they’re living closer to their personal max velocity. Take a look at the range between average and max velocity within each pitcher, averaged across the league, over time.
There’s some evidence that higher velocities create more torque on the elbow, but the news is worse for our favorite hurlers, especially during this time of the year. More stressful, even, than how hard a pitchers throws in general is how hard he throws compared to his personal maximum specifically.
At this year’s SaberSeminar in Boston, Glenn Fleisig previewed a paper called The Relationship between Fastball Velocity and Elbow Varus Torque in Professional Baseball: Does Greater Velocity Suggest Higher Stress on the Ulnar Collateral Ligament? Along with co-authors Jonathan S. Slowik, Kyle T. Aune, Alek Z. Diffendaffer, E. Lyle Cain, and Jeffrey R. Dugas at the American Sports Medicine Institute, Fleisig looked into just this issue.
At ASMI, they took 64 healthy professional pitchers and tested them with radar gun (for velocity) and motion analysis (for the torque on the elbow) in a laboratory setting. The pitchers were told to throw 10 fastballs at full-effort max velocity. Those 64, even though they were instructed to throw max effort, produced at least a 5 mph range from their fastest fastball to their slowest.
“The data showed that there is a strong correlation within a person, that the faster you throw, the more torque you produce on your elbow,” Fleisig said as a way to sum up the to-be-published findings. “But there is not a strong association between the two among people, meaning that there are other factors that the radar gun doesn’t show — what their mechanics are and how big and strong you are. Looking at one person, the faster you throw, the more torque you put arm.”
That’s just depressing. As awesome as it is to see Verlander pumping 96s on the gun in his postseason starts, we also have this knowledge that he’s putting more stress on his arm in the process. Do you just shrug and say, “At some point you have to use the bullets you’ve got?”
If there’s any hope, it may come here. Take a look at the difference between postseason and regular-season velocity ranges. Maybe it’s stabilizing.
| Season | Average Playoff Range | Average Reg Season Range | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | 2.55 | 4.42 | 1.874 |
| 2008 | 2.34 | 4.23 | 1.891 |
| 2009 | 2.57 | 4.11 | 1.542 |
| 2010 | 2.32 | 4.25 | 1.931 |
| 2011 | 2.32 | 3.86 | 1.541 |
| 2012 | 2.24 | 3.63 | 1.394 |
| 2013 | 2.34 | 3.70 | 1.363 |
| 2014 | 2.37 | 3.73 | 1.364 |
| 2015 | 1.97 | 3.36 | 1.390 |
| 2016 | 1.92 | 3.29 | 1.369 |
| 2017 | 1.90 | 3.49 | 1.590 |
What that yellow number shows us is that, in at least one way, pitchers aren’t maxing out quite as much compared to their regular-season effort — not relative to how much they’ve been maxing out in the last few postseasons, at least.
But you could look at it another way: now, more than ever, pitchers are throwing closer to their max — all season long.
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
“But you could look at it another way: now, more than ever, pitchers are throwing closer to their max — all season long.”
This. In today’s game with max velocities (and avg fastball velocities) higher than they have ever been, we are seeing pitchers push their bodies to the limit of what they are capable of which is why there are so many more breaking down.
…and part of why we’re getting shorter outings from starters generally. Some guys run out of gas earlier. Other guys start the game in 4th gear, have nothing left to bump the third time through the order, and can’t get the hitters out. Either way, when more starters are going max effort all the time that leads to shorter outings and more relievers.
Maybe more like “longer” relievers than “more” relievers.
wait… are “so many more breaking down”? This article doesn’t seem to be making that claim.
I wonder if this is even effective. I would think a greater range of velocity, even among your fastballs, is better for keeping hitters off balance. If they can key in on a narrow range, it’s easier to have good timing.
“At some point you gotta use the bullets you got.” You answered yourself with that one.
I read something, it might have even been on here, that by mid-season *every* pitcher is technically injured. It’s what happens when you throw a 5.25 oz. rock thousands of times over the course of a few months (in an unnatural motion, no less).
For what it’s worth these guys get paid millions and are financially secured for life to take a risk that they might need elbow or shoulder surgery a few times in their lives. I don’t think that’s such a bad trade off. I’d certainly take it. You get to keep all of your mental faculties, and those doctors are getting pretty damn skilled at putting them back together anyway.
It’s more about the player’s ability to keep playing, and the team’s ability to compete year after year, than it is about the possibility of a debilitating life long injury. This isn’t football.
Right… well seeing as the title is “Are we watching pitchers hurt themselves in the playoffs?” And the answer is a resounding yes… because every time you see a pitcher throw a pitch you’re watching them hurt them self.
In fact, as far as “higher velocity, more torque” goes, I think what we really need to examine how much more stress is added if a pitcher stays closer to their max velocity for the entire game. I mean, if a guys throwing 93 or he’s throwing 96, there’s still a massive degree of stress being put on the arm. If the difference in torque is only like 1% of the total stress on the arm then I’m not sure that it would matter in the long run.
But if you want to get technical, every time someone lifts a weight, or does strenuous exercise, he is hurting himself.
The difference is that when you’re working out, you give time to rest the muscle. Plus when you workout generally you aren’t making motions that aren’t natural for the muscle. Both of those things are not true with pitchers.
Well, only SOME may be financially secure for life. Whereas 4th and 5th starters are paid quite well compared to the rest of the population, I don’t think you can say they are set for life, particularly if their career turns out to be short. And what about all of those pitchers in the minors who are also creating this stress on their arms, with the possibility of NEVER getting the payback?
If you play a single inning in MLB you’re on the pension plan so, yeah, financial security.
For the minor leaguers, presumably they still have their mental faculties so they would be able to find work somewhere else.
If you have a single day of service time, you get the healthcare benefits for life. However, getting the pension requires 43 days of service time, and the pension doesn’t start getting paid until retirement and starts off at something like $34K a year. Just qualifying for a pension is hardly “financial security”.
This may be anecdotal, but did anyone notice fewer pitchers requiring TJ surgery this year?
Not sure if that’s even true, but no conclusions can be made for the small sample size of one season even if that were the case.
Even if the starter doesn’t have to also throw a bullpen inning or two, he almost certainly knows he’s on a short leash because the Manager has no room for error. In the regular season, he’s not pulling a starter in the 4th with 2 runs in and runners on 1st and 2nd. In the playoffs, he’s on the mound with his hand out. That must creep into their minds when pitching, maybe put just a little extra on each pitch, as opposed to pacing themselves to go seven or more.
This is interesting. I had never read about or considered the concept of “fastball range.” I would like to have seen the averages in these charts. When the range is tighter is average up a lot as well? It could go both ways, right? A pitcher can tighten his range by reducing his max velocity OR by increasing his min. I assume it’s almost completely the former.
If ranges are smaller then, the average velocity should be much higher in the post-season. Is it? What is the average delta (difference) between regular season and post-season average velocity?
What is the relationship between length of start and average (and/or range) velocity. Again, is this decreased range merely a function of knowing you are likely to pitch fewer innings?
We’ve seen average FB speed increasing almost every year in the pitch f/x era. How much of that is new pitchers who throw harder and how much of that is existing pitchers throwing harder (with tighter ranges I assume)? I haven’t seen evidence that pitchers themselves are throwing harder from one year to the next. In fact, on the average pitchers lose like .1 mph per year (from normal aging).
I would also like to see the chart of range versus time for relievers and starters separately. Is this downward trend only for starters? Again, is it because starters are throwing fewer innings (are they?) or just a general trend (not sure why that would be).
We also really have to make sure that any of these range trends are not due to biases in the classification methods. Max is max no matter how you classify pitches. But the range is very sensitive to what you classify as a FB.
So lots of good stuff but I think we’re only scratching the surface.
Data: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qWvuGg8b7iEecMTBZSUnMGTktauxnwwair5wR0mNse8/edit?usp=sharing
Tried to keep it to just four-seamers from PitchInfo, which cleans their classifications by hand on top of the auto classification they do.
This is starters only, we could totally look into pitchers.
I have looked into this to see if pitchers’ fastball spread was related to any outcomes and didn’t find anything. Can’t find the piece. Do think there’s more there, but also do think that pitchers are mostly just throwing closer to their max to get more velo. “Throwing with intent” they call it.
I would like to see the comparison between starts and relievers in this regard. On the one hand, relievers are likely to throw harder, on average, but on the other hand, they throw less pitches, so does that even out, or do the number of pitches in a short time period without rest cause an increased risk (it seems to be that it would, but that’s just a guess on my part).
So, if it is shown that throwing maybe 50-60 pitches in an outing max, followed by 2 days of rest before the next outing, is better for the arm than throwing 110 pitches in an outing followed by 4 days of rest, won’t this eventually lead to “bullpenning’ or “tandem starting” in the regular season as a general rule? My gut says that’s where we’re headed.
Isn’t there a problem here with measurement changes in recent years? IIRC, when they moved from radar guns to pitchFX then started measuring closer to the release point, and when they moved from pitchFX to Statcast, they moved even closer. Since a pitch decelerates rapidly, moving the measurement point 20 ft. is going to add several MPH to a fastball.
So, 96 MPH today isn’t the same as 96 MPH in 1985.
PitchInfo (Brooks) always classified pitches at 50 feet, and so were ready for the change. There might be a small effect, but not one that should really affect the range within a pitcher, either.
A further set of questions is raised by a study reported by 5/38 claiming evidence for the “hot hand”:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/baseballs-hot-hand-is-real/
The authors claim that when throwing FB (which was the focus of this study) pitchers vacillate between two speeds, a maximum or hot speed and a minimum or cold speed. They aren’t referring to a pitcher intentionally varying speed, but throwing his fastest pitch, and the claim is that it’s a binary system. This vacillation between the maximum and minimum speeds they claim occurs over a natural cycle of 24 pitches, and they argue that it can be used to predict when a pitcher will perform relatively better (the hot or maximum speed prevails) and when relatively worse (the cold or minimum speed prevails). They also claim that a trend emphasizing the minimum speed may be predictive of an injury, before the pitcher is actually aware of it, before it reaches the point where he may not be able to pitch effectively at all.
But another interesting thing about their data is that some pitchers showed a skew, i.e., their average FB velocity was not close to the mean of the hot and cold speeds; sometimes the hot speed was only slightly greater than the average speed. If the pitcher really throws FB at only two speeds, this logically has to mean that he threw more hot pitches than cold ones. The pitcher they studied who showed the greatest skew in this regard was Taijuan Walker. His slow speed was about 5 mph below his average speed, while his fast speed was only about 1 mph higher than the average.
So these authors would argue that the way tightening or narrowing between maximum and average speed occurs is not by changing either the maximum or minimum velocity, but by throwing fewer pitches at the latter speed. The natural cycle, it seems, is modified or disrupted.
Thanks, this is really interesting data to look at. Opens up a lot of further questions! I wonder if aging pitchers narrow their range to survive on what they’ve got, or widen their range to survive on craftiness…
“As much as we might love the high-intensity matchups that ‘bullpenning’ provides.”
Some of us definitely do not love this — and instead prefer:
– Seeing the beauty and intrigue of a starter trying to push himself as far as he can
– Seeing whether a starter can get himself out of an early jam and turn things around
– Games that aren’t interminable due to mound visits every time two hitters reach base
– Having playoff games look and feel fundamentally like regular season games