Not Max Velo, But "Analytics" Busy-Bodying

Two prominent pitchers, Shane Bieber and Spencer Strider, got hurt today, Bieber out for the year with a torn UCL, and Strider to get an MRI for elbow soreness. I avoided most hard-throwing young pitchers this year like Tarik Skubal and Grayson Rodriguez this year mostly due to what I perceived was an increased injury risk. (I was in on Strider because he had had Tommy John surgery in 2019, and it usually buys you at least five years before the second one, but luckily was never in position to take him. I do have a share of Bieber on my most important team.)

I’m seeing a lot of takes on Twitter about how the “max velocity” is the problem and lamenting how pitchers are pushed to throw harder at all costs. That’s true in a narrow sense, but it’s a subset of a larger problem which is overly narrow optimization thanks to the “analytics” revolution in the game.

Before the nerds descended on baseball to make it better, pitchers and managers had to manage workloads for themselves, based on natural incentives like staying healthy and pitching well over the long haul. Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, Nolan Ryan (who threw 100 mph), Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson et. al. racked up pitch counts and inning totals, undreamed of after the nerds held sway. It’s amazing to contemplate, but maybe this entire time players and managers were perfectly capable of looking after their own interests without help from this new enlightened consultant class!

Besides worrying about workloads, the new management also determined what correlated with more success and to what extent. Spin rate and velocity were two big positives, so organizations optimized for more spin and more velo. But when you’re pushing for max spin and max velo, it turns out you can’t pitch complete games anymore, you can’t rack up 130 pitches in a game or 250 IP on the year. And even with the innings and pitch count restrictions, pitchers are still getting hurt, having shorter careers and requiring more surgeries. Unsurprisingly, when you optimize for short-term performance, you can’t optimize for durability. And that’s the case even when you busybody about pitch counts and innings.

Okay, so maybe the nerds will learn their lesson, stop pushing narrow velo optimization, and maybe pitchers, in defiance of workload-management busybodying, will throw complete games again. Maybe some will log 250 IP in a year. Maybe a few more will stay healthy for the better part of two decades. And then pitching will be more like it was 30 years ago before anyone endeavored to make it better.