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Dr's R/X
Every pitcher is a health risk. Some of them look golden ... Felix Hernandez, maybe Yu Darvish, there are guys who feel like they're safe going forward.
Tanaka-san looks like an "average" health risk to me, going forward. I'd feel about as comfortable going with him, as I would going with Max Scherzer. About the same as I would with David Price... well, Price is a little bit better bet.
How much does that matter, what Tanaka's prospectus FEELS like? There was a great Hey Bill last week...
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In the "Hot Hand" article there was spirited discussion about the impact of changes in skill versus randomness in streaks. Some of us argued that, randomness aside, one can clearly see when certain players are locked in or in a slump -- not based on the outcome of their at bats, but by observing solid contact, swing and miss, etc. Drew and Ortiz, in the post-season and particularly the world series, seem to be poster-children for this position. Papi's eye seems sharper than ever, with fewer swings and misses than normal and a higher percentage of balls driven hard. Drew, usually a disciplined hitter, seems to be swinging at bad pitches more often and swinging and missing more frequently. Do you still feel that the skill level (not outcomes) of Papi and Drew are basically the same as they were in, say, August? Doesn't your eye tell you that, for the time being, they are very different hitters than they were?
Asked by: greggborgeson
Answered: 10/30/2013
Your eye tells you that the world is flat. Intellectual self-discipline is the ability to understand that what you can see is not always an accurate image of the world.
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That'll do for us too. If there's one thing Dr. D has learned, it's that you are not going to be able to eyeball a pitcher's health going forward.
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IceX, and others, point out that Tanaka is not long-and-lanky like Yu Darvish is. Does this mean he's headed down the "tired shoulder" path that DiceK suffered?
Welllllll ... this gets into the whole topic of a classic pitcher's body. You climb over this mountain, gentlemen, you're going to find baseball scouts who have been sitting there since the days of Shoeless Joe Jackson. And those same scouts, some of them, are the ones who told you that the Japanese can't play here, period...
Other things being equal, I'd like a pitcher to be tall. I'd also like him to be lefty. I'd like him to throw pitches that spin vertically ...
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Checklist
When Tim Lincecum came out of college, scouts fretted about his 140-, 150-pitch starts. They also fretted about his height and short arms. They fretted about his bodyweight (this is a huge factor for Lou Piniella).
If you were to put together a cornball list of factors for pitcher durability, your checklist would include things like
- Is he tall
- Is he lefty
- Does he have good mechanics (especially decel and inverted W)
- Does the throw 95 MPH (Nolan Ryan and Randy Johnson lasted awhile)
- Does he fan 8+ men per game (Bill James ABSOLUTE factor)
- Does he have an excellent K/BB ratio (Beane Count)
- What is his track record
- What was the mileage on him before age 25
- Does he avoid sideways-tilted pitches (elbow ligament)
- Is he Japanese (this is a separator)
- How does he feel after a heavy outing (Dr. D's biggest factor, and the Lincecum key)
You can list a dozen things, but I believe that all of these things circle around the main issue. Are you "throwing" the dumbbell up with body english at the end of the workout. That is the issue! THAT, gentlemen, is when you hurt yourself.
I don't care that you did 9,232 preacher curls last year. So what? I care whether you did ONE, with too heavy of a weight, when you were too tired, and yanked it, and tore something.
Randy Johnson never "yanked a dumbbell" in his life. Neither did Greg Maddux. And for different reasons.
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Go through the checklist and you'll find that Tanaka is a Billy Beane pitcher ... great mechanics, great command, excellent K/BB ... and ridden very hard when he was young. Beane uses his Zitos and Mulders and Harens and then kicks them to the curb. When Barry Zito lost his command and zip, he lost it real quick. There was nothing subtle about it.
In Japan the attitude is a little different: they believe that they are protecting their pitchers when they work them the way they do. They set out to prove that their way is the right way.
I would ask IceX. Does Tanaka show, over the course of a season, that he's laboring more, and making more mistakes?
Is the difference subtle? If so, that's probably normal career evolution, mileage on the arm that isn't a huge problem (Felix doesn't throw 96 MPH any more). Is the difference obvious? If so, I'd be concerned.
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So there you go. What do YOU think of the durability of Japanese pitchers, compared to that of American pitchers? Here's a table.
Enjoy,
Dr D