But that is the $64,000 question: Do you want a short, outstanding career or a lengthy, less spectacular one? Would you have rather seen Dwight Gooden win 15 games per year for 20 years—or were his two dominant seasons enough?

Ed: For Generation K it simply could have been that they weren’t that good to begin with, even though Paul Wilson was the #1 pick. I think in their case, they were just rushed into the limelight too quickly and it hurt them. With Gooden I still believe it was the drugs that did him in.

oh wait, they have him as being really really really good.

oh, and he has a really good OBP against righties, or in general.

yea, stat people would hate him.

why doesn’t everyone just ask me what their opinion should be and I’ll tell them, because leaving it up to your own devices just isn’t working.

And while it’s damn-near impossible to find definitive attribution for the arm problems suffered by Mulder and Hudson, it’s worth noting that both have been away from Peterson for—what?—four or five years. I don’t know how you could blame the Jacket for that, especially when they were healthy during his tenure with them.

As for usage patterns and injuries to young arms, I seem to remember the data suggesting that it was pitch counts—and not innings pitched—that was the tell-tale indicator. Specifically, once you get over 100-110 pitches, those subsequent pitches tend to do more damage than the ones preceding them.

Look at Gooden, and Generation K for example. They threw a lot of innings early on, and flamed out. There are other examples for other teams as well (Wood, Liriano).

Pelfrey is an interesting case since he does not throw a lot of breaking balls, so, as others noted, there is less torque on his arm. So the innings could in theory go a little higher. However, his pitch count is now close to what he threw last year.

As for Schneider, he would hate Sabermetrics, since they show how awful he is. Both at the plate and behind it. For a guy who is supposed to be a defensive specialist, he is poor at blocking pitches in the dirt, and has dropped several throws from the outfield this year.

I worry that puching Pelfrey too far will have bad implications for the future. A ring would not make the pain of a shortened career go away.

JD: I’d have to look for it online somewhere, but someone on ESPN or maybe CNNSI did a study which showed that there was no correlation between extra innings pitched from one year to another. I’ll try to find it and give you the link.

DURRRR STATS ARE THE DEVIL AHHHHHHHHHHHH

stats are just liessssss ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

go with your gut!!!!!! unless your gut is hungry. then you gotta eat a big ass hoagie!! mmmmmm hoagies.

ignorance, now there’s the ticket!

Tiff, I’m no BB pitching mechanics guru but it would seem to me that by stepping back OP actually gets more of his whole body into the picth b/c his body comes more fw as he release the ball and reduces the strain on his arm and shoulder. Secondly, by OP starting from the center of the rubber now (as opposed to the first base side under Peterson), I think he also reduces how much he comes across his body. This would also limit OPs strain on his shoulder. Also, OP has stated that he was thinking all the time about mechanics under Peterson. Perhaps that put strain on him too.

The fact that OP has refound his velocity would indicate that he indeed is getting more of his bigger muscles (legs, back) into the pitches.

Lastly, SNY showed the Mets starters were 6th in the NL in inn/start before the AS break (5.8 I believe). Since the AS break (w/Warthen), they are 3rd at 6.2/game. Not a huge increase.

If Warthen was really pushing them, I’d think that # would be dramatically higher. I did not chk pitches/game, but I’d think it was not that much higher either.

And that’s something that’s being lost in the current Warthenmania: The young arms weren’t being blown out on Peterson’s watch. So, perhaps there was a method to his madness when he didn’t want Perez stepping backwards before delivering a pitch. Maybe Warthen will get short-term results at the expense of long-term health.

He doesn’t throw a lot of high torque pitches, that is one thing Mr. James doesn’t put in his precious little formula, so I say let the man pitch.

As they say, if you have a shot to win it you go for it. You never know if you will ever get back to the dance.