Colloquy on Papelbon's Long Saves

Q.  Can you prove that it's OK to bring Jon in, in the 8th?  Do you know it's safe?

A. No.  I doubt anybody knows.

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Q.  Look, blast it, no matter how you look at it, it's better to be safe than sorry.

A. I think that DiceK should throw only 60 pitches once every two weeks.  Can you prove it's OK for Dice to pitch more than 30 pitches a week?  Well, then, it's better to be safe than sorry, right?

If "better safe than sorry" is a law of baseball gravity, then everybody throws one pitch a year, right?

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You can't just arbitrarily pull a workout limit out of your ear, with ZERO evidence, and call that the reasonable-risk point.  Who said 1.0 innings was that point?

You're not going to let me just say that anything over 30 pitches a week for DiceK is dangerous without asking me where I got my beloved 30-pitch figure. Well, same goes for me and yer beloved 1.0-inning save.  ;- )

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Q.  Do YOU think it's safer to go 1.0 innings?

A. No, I really don't.  When Bill James refuted PAP, the obvious question was, "so what do you use to avoid injuries?"

James, in his iconoclastic way, proposed that more pitchers may get hurt because of underuse than overuse:

"Backing away from a pitcher's limits too far doesn't make him less vulnerable; it makes him more vulnerable.  And pushing the envelope, while it may lead to a catastrophic event (a sudden tear due to muscle fatigue - Dr D) is more likely to enhance the pitcher's durability than to destroy it."

For the same number of innings, 60, 70, 80, or 90, I don't think you have ANY reason to believe that more outings is safer than fewer outings.

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Look.  Use the reductio ad absurdum to organize your thinking.  Picture a continuum here:

[ —- A —- B —- C —- D —- E —- ]

A equals one game appearance per month, 180 pitches.

B is a normal starting pitcher, 30-35 games times 100-130 pitches.

D is a normal relief ace, 60 outings times 1.25 innings.

E is the far extreme, the ultimate LOOGY, five game appearances per week, 4 pitches, one batter.

Maybe it is "safer" — in the middle of the line — for a pitcher to drift towards throwing fewer pitches, more often.   But when did this become a 1.0 inning imperative?  If Papelbon is at risk throwing 1.1 innings, where is Matsuzaka on the risk line?

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Just me personally, kiddies.  :- )   I think when we start wringing our hands about 1.1-inning appearances as being abusive, we have finally gone round the bend.  LOL.

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Q.  OK.  But couldn't Papelbon's innings totals get too high?

A. Same problem.  Nobody has proved what is high.

Rivera, Smith, and many others threw the same 75-80 innings that Papelbon.  On the other hand, the Angels liked to keep the older Troy Percival to 55 innings a year.

Interestingly, Troy didn't last as long as some guys….

One thing you can say, though, is that the 60-80 IP level has been time-tested by many 15-year closers.  That doesn't mean 90 or 110 is unsafe.  It means (sorta) that 60-80 is known to be safe.  So there's that.

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Q.  Is Papelbon the type of pitcher you feel OK with using for more IP than other closers?

A. Not really.  Not compared to some other type of pitcher. Well, maybe a little.

Granted, he's big, throws hard, drives well, uses his lead hip and shoulder, and gets a lot of K's.  In that respect he's a classic workhorse, if you were talking about 250-IP SP's.

But interestingly, some other big flamethrowers were not as durable as Rivera, Hoffman, Franco, etc.  Gossage and Percival weren't super-durable.  Of course, you do have Lee Smith, Roberto Hernandez, Jose Mesa.

I would suspect that body type doesn't matter much in projecting the durability of closers, for reasons I won't get into here.   The career saves list is not dominated by hurkin' Sasquatches.  It is dominated by high-K guys, though.

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Q.  You like this D-O-V basketball paradigm, where a perimeter shooter loses his touch as he gets tired.  Does that tell you anything about Jon?  Does he throw worse in the 9th after he has closed the 8th?

A. Interestingly, Papelbon has had much better results after pitch 25.  You might almost say he's a natural starter.  Anyway, he's quite the nightmare on pitches 25-50.  I guess he should be throwing 2 innings every time.  We remember that Bill James wrote up ideal use of a relief ace as frequently involving 2.0 innings.

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Supposing your super-closer weren't as good in the 2nd inning?

Earl Weaver would spit on the floor, light up another smoke and say, "What's your point?  He's still a lot better than anybody else I got."  He did that to Jim Palmer for a million years.  Earl knew that just because you're not at your very minty-freshest, it didn't mean you got to take the rest of the night off.  Y'feel me?

It's a sabermetrician's angle, that if you can discern the slightest dropoff, that you've proven the athlete should not be competing.  That's not the way sports are played, though.

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Q.  What would you want to see in projecting a long career for a closer?

A. First of all, that he closes, that he gets 9+ strikeouts a game.  Most relievers are only effective for a few years.  Check that saves leaderboard again and you'll see that as a group, these 9K hosses last a lonnnnnnnnng, lonnnnnnnng time.  :- )

But second, see drmikemarshall.com.  Mike Marshall threw literally 3x as much as other closers, and his arm stayed as fresh as a daisy (he injured his rib cage trying a new pitch).

Marshall says it's all about mechanics.  If they're smooth and down the driveline, you can throw a lot.  If your mechanics are lousy, you're done early, regardless.

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Q.  So what's the bottom line?

A. The Red Sox are frequently in pennant races. :- )

Set yourself a rational workload for Papelbon — the level that has proven to be OK for pitchers like him — that is, 70-90 innings a year including playoffs, and stay within that.

And then use those 70-90 innings' worth of "Papelbon smart bombs" to win the division.   If the tying run is on base in the 8th, and you don't care for your matchups, you'd better believe you gotta bring him in.

At some point the winning factors in here.

BABVA,

Dr D