Well, now that we know what Brandon Morrow’s stuff looked like with the Jays in 2010, let’s move on to understanding pitcher workloads since 2007.

First – a foray back into my thought process for the days of rest penalty in the metric. If you look back to the second article on Cumulative FU’s, I proposed that for consecutive day appearances, the FU’s be multiplied by 5. For 2 to 4 days of rest, the FU’s were multiplied by 2. For the standard, every 5th day – there was no multiplier for the FUs.

When I looked at the predicted FU’s for all pitchers (and as you’ll see shortly), the high use relievers – 80-100 innings in a season – had the highest workloads – significantly higher workloads than starters for the most part. I thought, I may have to make an adjustment to the metric – but I wanted to look at starter vs. reliever injury rates first.

I downloaded Jon Roegele’s Tommy John Surgery (TJS) list (@MLBPlayerAnalys), and then classified pitchers as relievers (if 80% of more of their innings came from relief innings), or starters. I compared numbers from the 2007 to 2016 seasons. Only pitchers who pitched 10 innings in a season were included in the analysis.

I looked at the sum of innings pitched and the number of TJS that occurred for all pitchers, and came up with a ratio of innings per TJS, for both starters, and relievers.

There were a total of 125092 innings pitched by Relievers during this time period, and 290401.1 innings pitched by starters. During that time, 151 relief pitchers required TJS, and 141 starters required surgery. This worked out to a ratio of 848.4 innings per TJS for Relievers, and 2059.6 innings per TJS. These data should likely be vetted a bit more carefully before they’re viewed as gospel – but this is a scary number. Aren’t reducing innings and pitches during the season supposed to protect relief pitchers’ arms?

I have argued that pitchers often throw harder when they move to the bullpen, and that this extra velocity places more stress on the UCL. In that same time period (2007, to 2016), relief pitchers threw their average fastball at a velocity of 91.5 +/- 3.35 mph, and starters threw their fastball at an average speed of 90.7 +/- 2.6 mph. Maybe, just maybe – those back to back to back appearances that relievers can make are worse for their bodies than the 6 innings pitched every 5 days?

Anyway – let’s move on to the workload metrics since 2007!

Starters

Team Workloads

The 2011 Rays take the cake for total workload for starting pitchers. Lead by David Price and Big Game James Shields, the Rays starters were not only good – they worked hard in the 2011 season. Overall, the highest average workload belonged to the tigers – particularly in 2014 and 2015 seasons.

Individual Workloads

The highest workload for a starting pitcher belongs to Justin Verlander in 2011. In fact, it is alarming to see just how many times Verlander and Sabathia’s names show up in the top 25 of this list. Those guys were horses in their prime – and it’s unknown how those huge workloads contributed to both of their recent injury problems. Conversely – how much of their durability during that time was because they worked so much, and had great pitching fitness?

Relief Pitchers

Bullpen Averages

The Rockies 2012 bullpen put in the most about of work during the past ten years. This was a direct result of a really bad starting rotation – only one pitcher cleared 100 innings pitched. The relief core was totally hung out to dry on this team. Overall, the Nationals had the highest yearly workload average for their bullpen (though this is driven by the late 2000’s when they were not very good).  There is a general trend for bullpen workloads to increase in the past 10 years – with 2015 having the highest workload for relievers in that time frame.

Individual Workloads

At first glance, I have to say – these numbers looked just… wrong. Then, I looked again – and they didn’t change.

Francisco Rodriguez put up an INSANE workload in 2010 – 62.84 – with nearly 1800 pitches, and over 100 innings. That’s a lot of exposure to high pressure situations, back to back days, and pitches per inning. The set up men, and the swing men – those who pitch more than an inning in relief, appear to have the highest workload levels. Something else that came up this weekend – was the topic of Dellin Bettances. After giving up a walk off in his third day of work in three days, people talked about his over use with the Yankees. In the past 3 years – no one has a higher workload than Bettances.

You are welcome to question the FU’s! Hit me up at michaelsonne@gmail.com, or on Twitter @DrMikeSonne if you want to debate these findings!