One of the glaring weaknesses in the injury analysis game is the lack of data. As the injury database is built and populated, we are left with spotty research and anecdotal knowledge, especially when it comes to the crossroads of sports medicine and pitcher workloads. Adding to the problem is the lack of data for both minor league and college pitching. Since pitching is pitching, opponents of workload limitations often bring this up.
In one of the first systematic studies of early pitching workload, Lee Sinins, creator of the Sabermetric Baseball Encyclopedia, studied 135 pitchers who threw 175 innings or more before the age of 22.
John Patterson reclaims his spot in the Snakes’ rotation, Ricky Ledee gets a golden opportunity, the Pirates continue to bury Craig Wilson for no rational reason, and Chris Kahrl details the saga of the Indonesian Navy jacket.
In last week’s 6-4-3, Gary Huckabay wrote about the fact that our perceptions are more often colored by the way information is presented than by the substance of the information itself. There are plenty of examples of this, drawn both from the ballpark and the world at large. Get your hands on most any media guide, and you’re sure to see the familiar rotisserie categories–batting average, home runs, RBI–presented prominently in bold face. Now, a typical media guide runs about 400 pages, and there’s plenty of information to go around, ranging from the trivial (Mike Lincoln’s career ERA at Busch Stadium is 14.29) to the frivolous (Joe Borowski’s wife is named Tatum). Thus, should it really be that much of a surprise to find out that in the thick of that pulp forest, the people who rely on media guides to grab information on the fly–like beat writers pushing on a deadline and radio announcers trying to keep a cadence–gravitate toward those bits of knowledge that are literally staring them boldly in the face?