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Apr 25, 2012 -- 6:43PM, qwik3457bb wrote:

Apr 25, 2012 -- 6:16PM, TheIronHorse wrote:

Apr 25, 2012 -- 5:36PM, yikes wrote:

pineda is hurt no one could have predicted that.....however i give you vasquez....he stinks

Yes, they could have. Anyone who knows about the Verducci affect had to know it could happen. You may not believe in it, but you have atleast heard of it.

He was over-wroked last season. What no one knew is he would come into camp this season out of shape. He was already an injury risk going into the season. Then, he over-compensated for his lack of velocity because he was over-worked the previous season and *boom*  the likelihood of an injury became a reality.

 

The Mariners shut him down last year to limit his innings. He was 32 innings above 2010's innings total.

The evidence for the Verducci Effect is mixed. 

Now, the 2nd part of this...

He came into camp out of shape.

The Yanks told him he didn't have a rotation spot nailed down to kick him in the rear.

Then the media and management and fans fretted over his reduced velocity, not allowing him to pitch himself back into shape.

Plus there were reports of a mechanical flaw, making his FB cut and reducing the velocity.

And then, responding the pressure, a young pitcher tries to hard to impress everyone and win a rotation slot that should've been him for the asking, and boom. 

Whaddya know; major arm injury.

LOL You might have a point there. Seriously, I could careless about velocity in spring training.

Apr 25, 2012 -- 6:42PM, yikes wrote:

Apr 25, 2012 -- 6:39PM, TheIronHorse wrote:

Apr 25, 2012 -- 6:30PM, yikes wrote:

Apr 25, 2012 -- 6:16PM, TheIronHorse wrote:

Apr 25, 2012 -- 5:36PM, yikes wrote:

pineda is hurt no one could have predicted that.....however i give you vasquez....he stinks

Yes, they could have. Anyone who knows about the Verducci affect had to know it could happen. You may not believe in it, but you have atleast heard of it.

He was over-wroked last season. What no one knew is he would come into camp this season out of shape. He was already an injury risk going into the season. Then, he over-compensated for his lack of velocity because he was over-worked the previous season and *boom*  the likelihood of an injury became a reality.

 

cant say ive ever heard of the verducci affect and i have an MD degree.  this is just ones baseball writers speculations.....yes its possible but its still his speculations

I'll hunt for the article if you want it. The Verducci affect was a study that Tom Verducci of SI did a few yars ago, where he studied sharp innings increases on young pitchers and how that led to an increase in the likelihood of an injury. He usually talks about pitchers at risk of injury for an upcoming season. I did see Pineda's name on that list.

The Yankees definitely know about it, since we all lived through the Joba rules.

thank you..would like to read it

however i still think there is no scientific basis in his study...

I will try to find the original article written a few years ago. This was his prediction piece for this season.

sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/writers/t...

Innings limits on young pitchers have become standard operating procedure with most organizations. The young pitchers who were shut down last year as a precautionary measure included Danny Duffy of Kansas City, Michael Pineda of Seattle and Jordan Zimmerman of Washington, a club that already has a governor on the 2012 workload of Stephen Strasburg.

But what happens to the best intentions when a young pitcher is in a pennant race? In virtually every case a team will keep sending the young pitcher to the mound while suddenly finding faith in "good mechanics" and "hard work." The Rangers (Derek Holland and Matt Harrison), Cardinals (Jaime Garcia), Brewers (Yovani Gallardo), Diamondbacks (Daniel Hudson) and Rays (Jeremy Hellickson) all pushed young pitchers aggressively last year for a shot at the World Series.

The extra work comes with a price. And the toll usually shows up the following season.

For more than a decade I've been tracking this price, which I call the Year After Effect, and which some places, including internal metrics used by at least one organization, referred to as the Verducci Effect. I began tracking it because Rick Peterson, when entrusted as the Oakland pitching coach with the golden arms of Barry Zito, Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder, believed in managing the innings for a pitcher from one year to the next. Too big a jump for too young a pitcher would put a pitcher at risk the next season for injury or regression.

From his philosophy I used a rule of thumb to track pitchers at risk: Any 25-and-under pitcher who increased his innings by 30 or more I considered to be at risk. (In some cases, to account for those coming off injuries or a change in roles, I used the previous innings high regardless of when it occurred.) I also considered only those pitchers who reached the major leagues. Mariners GM Jack Zduriencik, for instance, agrees that major league innings create more stress than minor league innings, so the effect is more profound.

The Effect has become easy to see over the years. In just the past six years, for instance, I flagged 55 pitchers at risk for an injury or regression based on their workload in the previous season. Forty-six of them, or 84 percent, did get hurt or post a worse ERA in the Year After.

Two out of the nine pitchers I red flagged last year actually stayed healthy or improved: Gio Gonzalez of Oakland (since traded to Washington) and Ivan Nova of the Yankees. More typical, though, were the regressions last year by David Price, Phil Hughes, Mat Latos and Brett Cecil, all of whom I red-flagged -- and all lost life on their fastball and saw their ERA jump by more than half a run. (The troubles for Hughes and Cecil were especially alarming and showed immediately in spring training.) Similar scenarios occurred with pitchers I red-flagged in the past, including Cole Hamels, Chad Billingsley, Rick Porcello, Mike Pelfrey, Josh Johnson, Joba Chamberlain and Scott Kazmir.

Despite industry awareness of workloads for young pitchers, the 2012 Red Flag List is one of the longest since I began tracking the Year After Effect. I found 14 pitchers at risk because of how they were pushed last season.

Why so many? Six of them were pushed because their teams were contending; the chance to win the World Series trumps development.

However, that still leaves eight pitchers who wound up in the at-risk category for piling up extra innings with teams out of contention. In some cases it was because pitchers with low ceilings are more apt to be pushed than are pitchers with high ceilings. (For instance, in 2010 the Blue Jays shut down Brandon Morrow but continued to give the ball to Cecil, who wound up with an innings increase of 41 1/3 and paid for it.)

Bear in mind this is not a highly scientific study. It is a rule of thumb used to gauge what by now has become a kind of industry standard of trying to keep young arms healthy. And keep this qualifier in mind: In general, the level of risk seems to be inversely proportional to age and size.

This year I have divided the Red Flag List into two categories: the six pitchers put at risk while pitching for contenders into the postseason, and the eight pitchers who busted through the threshold while pitching for teams out of contention. (Their listed age is their age at the halfway mark of last season.)

Pitchers on Contenders
1. Derek Holland, 24, Rangers (+71 1/3). He threw 222 innings, a huge jump from his previous high (150 2/3 in 2008) and even more from what he threw in 2010 (134 1/3). He pitched six times in the postseason, including two relief appearances and 25-out scoreless gem of a start in World Series Game 4. He maintained his stuff well through his seventh month of last year, but the real test of his grind will be how he bounces back this year.

2. Jaime Garcia, 24, Cardinals (+57). His workload, like that of Hamels of the 2008 world champion Phillies, is part of the price of winning a world title. The Cardinals shut down Garcia late in 2010 because of his increase in innings. But such thinking did not apply last year while St. Louis chased down Atlanta for the NL wild card and then made a postseason run to the world championship. Garcia threw 25 2/3 postseason innings.

3. Yovani Gallardo, 25, Brewers (+41 1/3). He pitched five times in 12 days in the postseason, accounting for 26 innings that put him into the danger zone. This is Gallardo's second time on the list. He took a 33-inning jump in 2007, the year of his big league debut, and then threw just 24 innings the next season because of knee injuries.

4. Daniel Hudson, 24, Diamondbacks (+38 2/3). Diamondbacks manager Kirk Gibson brings an old-school competitiveness to the dugout. Arizona's starters threw more innings than any rotation except Philadelphia's. Hudson pitched well down the stretch and Arizona was trying to win a World Series, so Gibson had no need to curtail Hudson's work.

5. Jeremy Hellickson, 24, Rays (+37 1/3). The Rays have their own rule of thumb. They generally prefer to bump their pitchers' workload by no more than 20 percent annually. (Price took a playoff-influenced 36 percent jump in 2010 and saw his ERA swell by 0.77 last year.) For Hellickson, the 20 percent rule would have meant an increase of 31 innings, so he was not far off their target, even with a pennant race and the postseason (one start lasting four innings) influencing his work. The Rays also did a good job finding him extra rest in between starts. Beginning in late May, Hellickson pitched on the fifth day only six times in his final 21 starts.

6. Matt Harrison, 25, Rangers (+36 1/3). He spent most of 2010 in the bullpen, so Harrison took what looks like an alarming leap of 115 1/3 innings. But Harrison was developed as a starter and threw as many as 167 2/3 innings in 2008, which is used as the baseline here. He did turn 26 in September and is listed at 6-foot-4, 240 pounds, so Harrison does have age and size on his side.

Pitchers on Non-Contenders
1. Dylan Axelrod, 25, White Sox (+60). The White Sox were 9 ½ games out with 18 games to play and let Axelrod and Zach Stewart start seven of those meaningless games to exceed the threshold. Pitching coach Don Cooper is as good as anybody in the business at getting his pitchers to the mound consistently, so it's hard to quibble with his track record. Besides, Axelrod does have age on his side (he actually turned 26 in late July) and he is a control pitcher and former 30th-round pick who was released as a reliever from the San Diego system in 2009, signed out of independent ball and had never before pitched in the big leagues. Would you want to be the one to tell him that he could not make his big league debut because of an innings limit?

2. Liam Hendriks, 22, Twins (+54). At 22, the Perth, Austrialia, native was permitted to make his major league debut and three more starts in a meaningless September for Minnesota.

3. Eric Surkamp, 23, Giants (+44). The lefty from North Carolina State has a swing-and-miss curveball that recalls the Zito of his prime. Surkamp began the year in high-A ball and finished it with six games in the big leagues, proving once again that San Francisco may be the most aggressive team in baseball when it comes to letting young pitchers throw.

4. Chris Schwinden, 24, Mets (+43). He became the Mets' version of Axelrod -- or their next version of Dillon Gee, whom I red flagged last year before he hit a second-half wall (5.25 ERA). The Mets were supposed to give one courtesy September appearance to Schwinden, a guy with an underwhelming fastball who has become an overachiever, but because of injuries on the staff he made four of them to go well beyond his previous high, from 2009.

5. Nathan Eovaldi, 21, Dodgers (+39 1/3). The youngest pitcher on the list, Eovaldi made six starts for the Dodgers after his August promotion from Double-A before they put him in the bullpen for most of September due to innings restrictions. Eovaldi had Tommy John surgery as a high school junior and never before had topped 100 innings in a season.

6. Mike Leake, 23, Reds (+36 2/3). Reds GM Walt Jocketty targeted an increase of between 20 and 30 innings for Leake in 2010, but allowed him to slightly surpass that goal. Leake also made his minor-league debut this year, getting two tuneup games in Triple-A. Leake bears watching because he is not a prototypical workhorse. In two major league seasons, the 185-pound Leake is 14-5 in the first half and 6-8 in the second.

7. Michael Pineda, 22, Mariners (+31 2/3). Pineda showed signs of wear last season. He was 2-6 with a 5.38 ERA in his final 13 starts. The Mariners were concerned about his innings, so they dialed back his work in September, giving him just three starts in the month and doing so with six, six and 10 days of rest. That last start - he threw 81 pitches in four innings, then was shut down for the season -- put him over the threshold. Now, after having been traded last week, he will battle the Year-After Effect in a Yankees uniform.

8. Zach Stewart, 24, White Sox (+31 2/3). Stewart logged 168 innings over a season in which he was traded from the Blue Jays to the White Sox. Chicago started him eight times after the trade, all with an extra day of rest, including once when he flirted with a perfect game.

The Red Flag List
Pitcher, Team 2011 Age IP Increase

Derek Holland, Tex 24 222 +71 1/3*
Dylan Axelrod, CWS 25 169 1/3 +60
Jaime Garcia, St.L 24 220 1/3 +57
Liam Hendriks, Minn. 22 162 2/3 +54
Eric Surkamp, SF 23 175 +44*
Chris Schwinden, NYM 24 169 2/3 +43*
Yovani Gallardo, Mil. 25 226.1 +41 1/3*
Nathan Eovaldi, LAD 21 137 2/3 +39 1/3
Daniel Hudson, Ariz. 24 227 1/3 +38 2/3
Jeremy Hellickson, TB 24 193 +37 1/3
Mike Leake, Cin. 23 175 +36 2/3
Matt Harrison, Tex 25 204 +36 1/3*
Michael Pineda, Sea 22 171 +31 2/3
Zach Stewart, CWS 24 168 +31 2/3
 
* Previous high occurred prior to 2010

Read more: sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/writers/t...

Apr 25, 2012 -- 6:54PM, TheIronHorse wrote:

Apr 25, 2012 -- 6:30PM, yikes wrote:

 

cant say ive ever heard of the verducci affect and i have an MD degree.  this is just ones baseball writers speculations.....yes its possible but its still his speculations

Here is the original article:

sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/t...

Follies of youth
Year-After Effect could strike many young arms in '07
Posted: Tuesday November 28, 2006 11:55AM; Updated: Tuesday November 28, 2006 11:03PM
   

 
Jered Weaver went 11-2 with a 2.56 ERA last season, but 200 total innings on his arm could catch up with him in 2007. 

 
The 2006 season might be remembered as the coming of a new age of young pitchers. Nine pitchers received rookie of the year votes, including AL winner Justin Verlander, the first rookie starting pitcher to win the award in that league in a quarter of a century. Anibal Sanchez of Florida threw the first no-hitter in the majors in more than two years. Jered Weaver joined Whitey Ford as the only pitchers to begin their careers 9-0.

Get ready for the down side to all that young pitching success. It's called the 2007 season. More specifically, it's the Year-After Effect, the price teams almost always pay for pushing their young pitchers too far. And we could be due for a huge crash next season.

I've been tracking the YAE for about a decade now. It's based on a general rule of thumb among executives and pitching coaches: young pitchers should not have their innings workload increased by more than 25 or 30 innings per year. It's the same principle as training for a marathon; you get to 26.1 miles incrementally, not by jumping directly from a 10K. The body cannot easily withstand being pushed so far behind its previous capacity for work, at least not without consequences. Typically, those consequences occur the next season, not the year in which the body is pushed.

When I've looked at major league pitchers 25-and-younger who were pushed 30 or more innings beyond their previous season (or, in cases such as injury-shortened years, their previous pro high), I've been amazed how often those pitchers broke down with a serious injury the next season or took a major step backward in their development. (The season total includes all innings in the minors, majors and postseason. )

For example, let's look at the YAE for the Class of 2005, the young pitchers who were pushed beyond the 30-inning threshold that season: Matt Cain (+33.1 innings at age 20), Francisco Liriano (+34.2 at 21), Gustavo Chacin (+35.2 at 24), Zach Duke (+44.1 at 22), Scott Kazmir (+51.2 at 21) and Paul Maholm (+98.1 at 23). Liriano (elbow), Chacin (elbow) and Kazmir (shoulder) all suffered significant injuries. Cain (+1.82), Duke (+2.66) and Maholm (+2.58) all saw dramatic rises in their ERAs.

The bottom line: a dramatic increase in innings on a young pitcher elevates the risk of injury or a setback to their development. This has been true for years. The Kansas City Royals were negligent with young pitchers for years, pushing young arms such as Chad Durbin (+49 in 2001), Runelvys Hernandez (+92 in 2002) and Zack Greinke (+33.2 in 2004). Even breakout young stars took a step back because of the YAE, such as Kevin Millwood (+78.1 in 1999), Dontrelle Willis (+52 in 2003), Horatio Ramirez (+34 in 2003) and Mark Prior (+67 in 2003).

Like any rule of thumb, there are exceptions, especially for big-bodied pitchers. C.C. Sabathia (+40 in 2001) and Carlos Zambrano (+72.1 in 2003) proved the YAE is not one-size-fits-all.

Now the bad news for the Class of 2006. I can't remember more young pitchers getting pushed this hard in all the years I've been tracking the YAE. I found 11 pitchers 25-and-under who went more than 30 innings beyond their 2005 log, or (where marked with an asterisk) their previous professional high. Here are the pitchers at high risk for a breakdown or regression in 2007:

Year-After Effect Candidates 
Player Team                     Age                                  IP                   Increase
Cole Hamels Phillies         23                                 181.1                   +80.1*
Justin Verlander Tigers     23                                  207.2                 +70.2
Anibal Sanchez Marlins     22                                  200                     +64
Jered Weaver Angels       24                                  200                      +56
Sean Marshall Cubs          24                                 147.1                   +53.1
Scott Olsen Marlins           22                                 187                      +50.2*
Jeremy Bonderman Tigers 24                                234.1                    +45.1
Adam Loewen Orioles       22                                 183.1                    +41.1
Anthony Reyes Cardinals  25                                  187                       +39.1
Scott Mathieson                22                                  164.1                      +33*
Boof Bonser Twins            25                                   192.2                     +31.1*
 
*-players exceeding their previous professional high
 

In addition, I believe two others, who are just outside the age range, may be at risk, just as 27-year-old Brandon Backe (+43.2 in 2005, elbow breakdown in 2006) was this season.

 
Player Team                         Age      IP          Increase
Chien-Ming Wang Yankees 26      231.1         +80
Rich Hill Cubs                       26     199.1         +45
 

If teams know they are putting pitchers at risk, why are they pushing them? The competition. It's difficult to manage a pitcher's innings by moving him to the bench or the bullpen when a team is trying to win games and there are no outward signs of wear and tear. The Tigers, for instance, did give Verlander two nine-day breaks, but they rode their ace all the way to the World Series. What else could they have done?

Likewise, the Marlins pushed Olsen and Sanchez because they still had a shot at the wild card in mid-September, though you could quibble with Florida allowing Olsen to throw 101 pitches on the meaningless penultimate day of the season. Likewise, the non-competitive Cubs had little to gain by continuing to run Hill and Marshall out to the mound. Hill pitched well in September (1.93 ERA), though his pitch counts do seem unnecessarily high: 106, 111, 120, 118, 99 and 115. Marshall struggled in September (8.34 ERA).

The Tigers, Marlins and Phillies are particularly vulnerable next season because they each landed two pitchers on the at-risk list. The tendency is to believe that players develop in a linear manner, that a year of experience virtually guarantees improvement. The Angels, for instance, might be thinking, "Oh, great! We've got Jered Weaver for a whole season this year!" Well, the Pirates might have thought the same about Duke and Maholm.

Such thinking is particularly dangerous with pitchers because of the greater health risk when compared to position players. Young position players can play all they want, take as many swings as they want, and generally don't put themselves at a much greater risk of injury or setback the way pitchers do if they increase their workload.

The next great test of the YAE could be Yankees prospect Phillip Hughes, generally considered the top pitching prospect in the minors. The Yankees have been saying that Hughes will come to spring training to compete for the fifth spot in the rotation. Baloney. The guy is only 20 and threw only 146 innings last season, when New York kept him on strict pitch counts. Why would the Yankees break camp with him in the rotation when there's no way he should be throwing more than 175 innings next year (postseason included), not to mention starting his arbitration clock?

New York likely will treat Hughes the way Boston did Jon Lester at the start of last season: send him to the minors and keep a tight lid on his innings there, with an in-season callup in mind. Better to have a plan in place to manage innings than to turn a pitcher loose and worry about it later.

Consider the expert care Seattle has given Felix Hernandez. The Mariners increased his innings by 23 at age 19 in 2005 and by 18.2 in 2006. He should be in fine shape for a breakout year in 2007, with less concern about having to manage his innings. Of course, the Mariners' plan was easy to execute for one simple reason: they never were very close to the postseason in those years.

 

here is what i see.....his obsevations seems to be fairly spot on..however in medicine unless its proven...its not real..there is really no scientific fact behind his studies.....just his observations.....

Apr 25, 2012 -- 5:50PM, CaptainJeter wrote:

1- Montero had no place here

2-Every GM would have made this trade\

3-George was the one who traded Buhner  and Mike Lowell and Fred McGriff;Cashman was not even the

assistant GM at the time.

Not everyone makes that trade. Alot of GM's in Cash's position would have seen Montero being our only power prospect and only big league ready prospect, and thought twice about dealing him especially with the age which is already in this lineup. Personally, i didn't support the deal when i first found out about it- but i also can see why it was made. I don't blame Cashman for this, he wanted to bring in a number 2 pitcher he thought he'd done so...alot of people thought he should win an executive of the offseason award for this deal. Its funny how things turn out.

I think with Montero's bat you make a place for him, but i agree he isn't a catcher.

I'm not going to go down the fire Cashman route, i can see why he made the risky deal and probably lots in his position would as well- personally i wouldn't have just because Montero's bat is that good. But like all yankee fans everywhere we have to pray Pineda get fully healthy.

Apr 26, 2012 -- 8:15AM, qwik3457bb wrote:

Apr 25, 2012 -- 7:42PM, 61in61 wrote:

Apr 25, 2012 -- 6:46PM, qwik3457bb wrote:

Apr 25, 2012 -- 6:43PM, 61in61 wrote:

I have my doubts that Seattle didn't at least have some suspicions about Pineda. You don't trade a 22 year old all-star pitcher when you are trying to rebuild a team.

Yes, you might, if:

You have no more top hitting prospects, and you're getting one back in the deal, and 

you have 3 prospects just as good or better due to come up in the next year or two, and

you're buried in a division for the next year or two by teams much better than you.

You can't not make a trade because you think the team you're trading with has "suspicions".

Although I'm not sure what point you're trying to make there.

GM's are horse traders. I don't think for one minute that the idea of a "fair trade" ever enters their minds. If a GM is willing to trade his starting all star pitcher who is 22 you have to wonder what he "knows" and isn't telling. You can talk about how he has 3 other prospects but if Pineda is another King Felix in the making he's not trading him.

So does that mean that Cashman was trying to screw over Seattle by hiding stuff about Montero, too? Sometimes, both teams make a trade from a strength to address a weakness.

Re: another King Felix, well yeah, if his 2nd half last year had gone as well as the 1st half, the price of Pineda would've have been much higher than Montero and Nova. They probably would have had to throw in Betances or Banuelos as well, and not gotten back Campos in return.

Trying to screw over Seattle; probably not. Not volunteering more information than necessary, absolutely. Outside of the mandatory physicals, neither GM is going to reveal anything more than is absolutely necessary. Do you really think the Seattle GM would have told Cashman if Pineda had complained of tightness or soreness at some point in the season? Same goes for either side.