d.: Well, the Super Bowl, Pro Bowl, and NBA All-Star game have all come and gone. Now, the Major League Baseball teams are having their spring training, and the Astros are without one of their star players. Actually, scratch that. There are at least four more players I can name that aren’t going to be ready by the beginning of the season, and they’re all pitchers. This brings up a question.
Years ago, pitch counts didn’t exist, and Major League teams rode their starting pitcher until he either began to get shelled or was showing signs of severe fatigue. The lateMark “The Bird” Fidrych succumbed to this system of evaluating young pitchers. After an outstanding rookie year, in which he started the All Star game for the American League, The Bird had an above average second year in the league. However, injuries to his knees and arm problems ended this young pitchers career unnecessarily early. A pitch count may have given Fydrich a longer career, or would it?
Nolan Ryan, the standard by which all power pitchers are measured, once pitched a thirteen inning one hitter, and lost the game. It was estimated that Ryan threw around 230 pitches in that game. Most pitchers now don’t throw that many pitches in two consecutive starts, and still have arm problems.
Ryan’s work ethic was legendary. It has been said that some rookie pitchers wanted to emulate Ryan’s training routine when he played for the Astros, until they found out what it involved. Ryan, granted, was a freak of nature. No normal person could have done what he did and not have his arm fall off, but he also trained like a madman.
Nolan Ryan pitched until he was forty-five years old, and could still hit triple digits. Mark Fydrich was forced to retire before his thirtieth birthday. Fydrich was called “The Bird” because of his build that resembled Sesame Streets’ Big Bird. He was 6’3’ and weighed only 180 pounds. Ryan was around 6’1’ and weighed about 195. He was stockier and sturdier than The Bird, but there are numerous pitchers who are much larger than Nolan Ryan was who could never duplicate what he did.
The Astros have four young pitchers on the injured reserve who aren’t expected to be on the opening day roster, despite keeping careful pitch counts on the young hurlers. Christian Javier, one of the best young prospects that Astros have on their pitching staff, was removed in the sixth inning of a game in which he had no-hit the other team to that point. The Astros’ bullpen came through and preserved the no hitter, but Christian Javier is one of the pitchers on the I.R. to begin spring training, and maybe more than one-half of the season.
So, the question is, is it just nature, luck, hard work, or a combination of all that kept pitchers like Nolan Ryan, Roger Clemens, and now Justin Verlander pitching into their forties, or is it that teams are more cognizant of pitchers’ and other players’ ailments and are more willing to sit them down for the short term to preserve them for the long run?
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