A Baseball Arms Race
Even today it is considered a badge of honor to pitch a complete nine inning major league baseball game. Yet this has been killing pitching careers left and right for as long as there have been pitchers – until better managed organizations began to understand the wisdom of pitching fewer games and fewer innings.
At least that is the official tale.
In the 1960s, Dick Raditz of the Boston Red Sox was a closing pitcher (someone who typically works the last inning to nail down a victory). The term ‘closer’ in the current sense of the game had not been invented – yet Raditz was a notorious flamethrower and his job was well known—blow away the last three hitters – striking them out for added emphasis. In most games, that is what he did, and because he faced so few batters, he could air it out and let it fly.
By the 1980s starting pitchers routinely exited after eight innings – letting the closer mop up the last few outs, though this hardly settled the question of overall pitching management. Before the ninth inning, the removal of a starting pitcher was still a dicey matter. Out of tradition and habit, mangers were loathe to yank anyone earlier in a game, and by the time they did, it was often too late. Of course, starting pitchers had their bad days – driven from the game by a barrage of early hitting that could not be ignored, and ball clubs have always kept a few lesser arms in the bullpen ready just in case. Yet an early relief appearance usually signaled a game already out of hand as mangers normally stuck with pitchers until the dishonor of multiple runs outweighed the dishonor of an early exit.
Did managers really need to wait until a game was in the dumpster before acting?
That became the unspoken question among serious students of the game.
In more recent years, the notion of winning has pretty much overtaken the mystique and honor of a complete-game effort. The mystique has become more like nostalgia—still floating around pitchers like Roy Halliday making quick work of batters in very few throws. Yet even though he often leads the league in complete games, Halliday only finishes a small fraction of his games, and it’s the odd outing when any pitcher ‘goes the distance.’
With year-round conditioning programs and top notch medical care pitchers are stronger and more durable than ever, and I’d expect more complete games rather than almost none. It may be that greater strength exposes pitchers to greater injury since they can throw harder than ever, and the human body can only stand so much unnatural motion.
More likely, the game itself has changed – not so much to save the pitchers’ arms as to keep the best pitching in the game at all times. Take a pitcher strong enough to throw nine innings and compress that effort into seven or eight – and holy cow – they can air it out and let it fly a whole lot more than before. They can also throw more pitches to each batter – using these extra throws for increased tactical effect. As Curt Schilling once said – there are no wasted pitches. And a shorter outing only adds to a pitcher’s arsenal for each at-bat.
On the hitter’s side, they are seeing fewer decent offerings – those pitches thrown over the plate in a zone they can reach with power. Only the great pitchers can ‘paint the corners’ consistently – just barely entering the hitting zone in a way nearly un-hittable – or missing just off the plate to entice an off-balanced swing. Now – with pitches to spare – even average pitchers are nibbling and missing as they try to paint for themselves. And they can afford to try because they aren’t worried about going the distance and saving those pitches for the end of the game.
In response, batters are waiting longer – waiting on pitches out over the plate instead of hacking away at the nibbling – forcing the pitcher to throw closer to the strike zone (or else lose the batter to a walk) – ‘working the count’ in the language of the game. Hitting is now all about ‘plate discipline’ and ‘patience’ and ‘selectivity.’ It was always about those things, of course. But with pitchers who don’t need to worry about nine inning performances, working the count has become the central focus of hitting – more than swing theories, bat sizes, body armor, and everything else about hitting that has changed in recent years. The empire of hitting has struck back by way of the shouldered bat, and pitchers are feeling their wrath.
As hitters become more patient, pitchers now throw even more pitches and leave games after ever shorter outings, and with complete games a near-thing of the past, pitch-counts, not innings, have become the central endurance statistic of their effort.
As a result, bullpens are chock full of relievers entering games no matter the situation or obvious need, and the last two innings have become the institutionalized province of closers earning ‘saves’ and setup men bestowed with a brand new statistic called ‘holds’ – further establishing the normality of routine bullpen appearances.
This is not the end of the story, though. Likely the arms race will continue as batters become ever more patient and pitchers ever more nibbly, and I would not be surprise to see a standard of six innings from starters and a new seventh-inning specialist with a title and honor not yet coined.
Although the game of baseball never seems to change – it does – and will continue to do so – because nothing ever stays the same except for how the the pace becomes increasingly glacial and games longer each year.
