Poker and Kerry Wood

Best I can tell, the single most boring conversation in this world involves one guy telling another guy intimate details about his rotisserie/fantasy football team. The second-most boring conversation involves one person telling another about his/her golf game.

And third, would be me telling you how I just won a poker tournament in Tunica, Mississippi.

Still, I bring it up because, well, I just WON A FREAKING POKER TOURNAMENT. The background to all this is a yadda yadda thing (Question: What were you doing in Tunica to begin with? Answer: I have a good friend and yadda yadda yadda we ended up playing poker in Tunica). It is also worth pointing out that I have absolutely no poker skills whatsoever. None. I had entered two poker tournaments before, I believe, and I was out of both so quickly that the dealer was not sure I fully understood the rules ("No son, you don't say 'Gin' in this game").

So then I was at the Gold Strike Casino in Tunica, and I entered the tournament to do my part to help the casino management buy new felt for their poker tables, and I was flailing around, waiting to get knocked out, going all in at entirely inappropriate times when -- about two hours into the tournament -- I looked down and noticed I had a lot of chips.

There were, best I can tell, a few ringers in the tournament. One guy had a hook instead of a hand. That's usually a bad sign, I would think. Another guy wore all black and a black hat. Another guy would close his eyes before he bet and mutter strange calculations.

Meanwhile, I'm like "Hey, two SEVENS! That seems pretty good to me!" I realize these guys play in lots and lots of tournaments, and I'm sure in the long run they cash in while guys like me eventually lose their wedding rings. But it must drive these guys absolutely bonkers to have some goofball like me win a poker tournament. In fact, I think my victory (600 bucks!) is conclusive proof that poker does not qualify as a sport in any possible way, and they should immediately stop showing it on ESPN Classic (or at least not show it 24 hours a day).

OK, on with the show.

* * *

Buzz Bissinger just did an interesting piece for Play Magazine on Kerry Wood, and the rushing of young pitchers. I don't know Buzz, but I admire his work a lot, see him as a bit of a hero, and I thought this story brought up numerous issues that are pretty fascinating. I agree with some stuff, disagree with other stuff, but the point to me is that it's all worth discussing. Maybe I'm saying all that just because I don't want Buzz to call me a slimebucket.

ANYWAY, the two main topics from the article worth discussing for me are:

1. Are pitchers really being rushed today compared to pitchers in the past?
2. Pitch counts. Good or bad?

Let's start with No 1. I would say that if you asked most people around baseball they would tell you that, yes, pitchers are being rushed compared to years ago. Tony LaRussa, I think, speaks for most folks when he told Buzz, "I'm really not sure how I slept through that second stoplight."

No, wait, I'm sorry, he said, "The economic push is to bring kids up, and it's unfortunate."

I have to say, that is exactly what I would think too. Bissinger in the piece says that "the rule of thumb is that a pitcher should get some 400 innings in the minors before being called up." That makes sense too. He points out that Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, Randy Johnson, Curt Schilling all those guys got more than 400 innings in the minor leagues. And look, they've all held up. They've all been really good.

He then writes that Mike Pelfrey did not even get 100 innings in the minor leagues before he was called up, and then he struggled. Mark Prior got barely 50 innings and he's been a shoulder-disaster since then. He mentions Felix Hernandez, who was called up young and pitched some 300 or so minor league innings and has had elbow issues. He also brings up Francisco Liriano and his blown-out arm, though that seems misplaced since Liriano DID get 400-plus minor league innings. He got almost 500 innings, actually.

Anyway, the point is made.

But is it? Bissinger quotes Nolan Ryan prominently in the piece. Ryan is one of the marvels of longevity -- the guy could probably get people out now. Ryan did not get 400 innings in the minor leagues (312 innings). In fact, of the 44 pitchers who have won 175 or more games since 1970, about half of them (21) did not get 400 minor league innings. We're talking about such longevity legends as Roger Clemens (167 minor-league innings and counting), Bert Blyleven (167 innings), Don Sutton (265), Mike Mussina (189) and so on.

Meanwhile, a few of the more famous arm-blowouts did get 400-plus innings, including, er, Tommy John (447 innings).

None of this proves or disproves anything other than to say the issue of keeping pitchers healthy might be a bit more complicated than the number of minor-league innings a guy pitches. But to the question at hand, are pitchers being rushed more quickly than in years past: I suspected yes. I ran a few numbers and the answer appears to be, "No."

I looked up, by decade, the number of pitchers who were 21 or younger and had seasons throwing 150-plus innings in the big leagues.

Here's what I came up with:

1960s: 32 different pitchers.
1970s: 26 different pitchers.
1980s: 15 different pitchers.
1990s: 5 different pitchers.
2000s: 8 different pitchers (so far).

Remember, also, there were many fewer teams in the 1960s and 1970s. Even when you look solely at 22-year-old pitchers with 150-plus innings (this would include those rushed college pitchers), there is a huge gap:

1960s: 42 different pitchers.
1970s: 41 different pitchers.
1980s: 27 different pitchers.
1990s: 22 different pitchers.
2000s: 15 different pitchers (so far).

I have to say, these numbers blew me away. I realize age is only one way to judge inexperience -- pitchers 40 and 50 years ago got more minor league innings every season than they do now -- but I think it's pretty clear that general managers are significantly more careful with their young pitching prospects now than they were the 1960s and 1970s.

They might not be CAREFUL ENOUGH -- that's a whole other thing. As Bill James writes me: "I think we are pushing the young pitchers or at least some of the young pitchers along too fast. I think we would be better off if we could stop it. I can't prove it, but that's what I believe based on what I know."

* * *

As for Kerry Wood, I don't think he's so much a cautionary tale (though, of course, he is that) as an anomaly -- there were only five pitchers 21-under in the 1990s to throw 150-plus innings. In case you are curious, they are:

1. Steve Avery, 1991, 210 innings
-- Pitched pretty darned well for two seasons afterward, and the Braves went to two World Series during that stretch. Then had multiple injury/consistency issues.

2. Ismael Valdez, 1995, 197 innings.
-- Double digit victories first four seasons and then struggled with all sorts of problems -- done at 31.

3. Alex Fernandez, 1991, 191 innings
-- Outstanding pitcher until he was 27, done at 30.

4. Javier Vazquez, 1998, 172 innings.
-- No problems so far -- 200-plus innings each of the last five years (198 innings in 2004, but close enough).

5. Kerry Wood, 1998, 167 innings.

So, yes, Wood was clearly rushed, but I don't think there are many others like him. I did get an interesting response about Wood from a baseball executive I know, and I think it's worth putting here without comment:

"To me the problem with Kerry Wood is that his delivery was a wreck. He could get people out; his stuff -- the ball coming out of his hand -- said this guy's a dominant pitcher. But his delivery said that he would break down sooner rather than later.

"You don't face the problem very often, but when you do, it's tough. When a guy's ready to pitch and get people out, it's awfully hard to tell your scouts, your manager, your player development people -- no, his delivery isn't sound, he will break down, we have to wait on him. That to me was the situation with Mark Prior. His stuff was Cy Young quality. But he landed on his heel, and that's a pretty good sign that he will break down. So what are you going to do? Keep him in the minor leagues until he lands on his toe? The guy won 18 games his rookie year. He was one of the best pitchers in baseball. How are you going to wait?"

* * *

That leads us to question No. 2 -- are pitch counts good, bad, neutral, what? I don't have any great insights here, of course, but I think it's worth noting that nobody in baseball seems to like pitch counts. Nobody. Managers hate them. Pitching coaches hate them. Old pitchers hate them, but current pitchers (most I've talked to) hate them about as much. General managers hate them and player development people hate them and college coaches ignore them and high school coaches would have their pitchers throw 5,000 pitches if it meant beating Susan B. Anthony High.

Point is, pitch counts are incredibly unpopular, and yet EVERYBODY IN THE BIG LEAGUES bows down to pitch counts. It's really an amazing phenomenon, if you think about it. Imagine if tomorrow, someone in professional football determined that a running back cannot run the ball more than 10 times a game without becoming ineffective and/or breaking down. And the coaches all disagreed, the GMs disagreed, the players disagreed but IT DID NOT MATTER, teams all over the NFL immediately stopped giving their running backs the ball more than 10 times in any game.

That would be weird, wouldn't it? Isn't this sort of the same thing?

Here's the even stranger part: Nobody's really sure that pitch counts really prevent pitchers from getting hurt.

"It is simply impossible to reach into the data and make any clear connections between pitch limits and injuries," Bill James writes. "I'm not saying that such connections don't exist. I'm simply saying that we can't prove they exist. Or anyway, I can't."

Kerry Wood's contention in the story is that pitch counts have actually harmed his arm in part because he's tended to overthrow to work out of jams so he could stay in the game. I don't know if this is true, but it's not impossible. What puts more strain on a pitchers arm -- 89 pitches thrown as hard and with as much spin as humanly possible, or, say, 147 pitches thrown at 90 percent efficiency?

I don't know the answer to that -- I'm terrible at math -- but I do know that pitch counts have become prominent the last few years, rotations have gone from four to five man, and there does not appear to be an appreciable decrease in injuries or an appreciable increase in pitching quality.

Here's my question: What if some organization broke away? It would need to be an organization that had little to lose -- a losing organization perhaps, a small-market team, an organization that needed an advantage somehow (I wish I could come up with one of those). What would happen if they went to the four-man rotation? The advantages are obvious. It would mean paying one less starter. It would mean not throwing your fifth starter out there, and your fifth starter stinks. It would mean adding one more bat to come off the bench. It would mean more flexibility for your manager.

Then, on top of that, what if that organization simply IGNORED pitch counts -- what if they took out pitchers when they LOOKED tired, like they used to in the old days.

(I'm always leery of saying that people used to do things better in the old days because in the old days parents didn't put their kids in child safety seats. My parents would have had no problem with me riding on the hood of the car. Of course, that may have been a personal thing).

ANYWAY, what would happen if someone reverted back to the 1970s and 1980s? Would pitchers go down with injuries like the opening scene of "Saving Private Ryan?" Would the player's union picket outside their stadium? Would pitchers simply refuse to sign there? Or would MORE sign there? Would it work? Could it work?

I don't know the answer to any of that. I do know, however, that aces and nines beats aces and sixes every time -- and as my man Jack Keats said, that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.