Slang Editorial :: Never Underestimate The Value Of A Holla'

Thursday, September 24, 2009
Wilburrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!

Wilbur Wood is one pitcher i've always wanted to read more about but never have. He was one of the few great knuckleballers, which made him more durable, and he also had his hayday during a period of crazed high innings starting pitching that i think we still fail to understand today... but STILL: check out his innings and starts for a five year stretch from 71-75.

In 72 and 73 he made 48 AND 49 starts. 49 starts!! For 376 innings!!!!!!!!!!!! This is totally fucking insane. In the first four of these seasons he threw over 320 innings and in all of them he made at least 42 starts; though, clearly the high usage got to him, as he managed "only" 291 innings despite starting 43 games in 1975. And then, poof! He injured his arm and his career was more or less over, at the age of 34.

What the fuck was in the water in the 70s? Clearly strategy and usage patterns had a lot to do with it all, but I am always surprised that more conclusive analysis hasn't been done to test whether or not the decision to use four man, high-volume rotations throughout the early to mid 70s was ultimately a more effective strategy in both the short and long-term (ie injuries, etc). But if you wanna see some crazy stats, just go to baseball-reference.com and check out the lines of Wood, Mickey Lolich, Nolan Ryan, Gaylord Perry, Don Sutton and so forth. Among them, Wood was by far the most used, but all of them regularly ran 38-42 starts and 300+ innings throughout the 70s. And while some guys from the period (Frank Tanana, JR Richard, Vida Blue, Mark Fydrich) gassed out early, Ryan, Perry, Sutton, Lolich, and many others enjoyed very long, consistently successful careers. So how knows? But I'm sure that there's more thinking here to be done than already has.

Labels: baseball, MOM'S BASEMENT, quickthoughts, statistics

posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 9/24/2009 03:48:00 PM 1 comments

1 Comments:

jayson said...: Honestly, I love when reading when you write about baseball so fucking much (and, I mean, think about what this statement means coming from ME) that I sometimes secretly wish you only ever wrote about it. But of course, please don't only write about baseball.; 9/25/2009 10:38:00 AM