Hamel’s ERA in those first 10 starts was 2.61 in the Last 10 starts he has a 2.67 ERA. After the first 10 starts, his pitch counts had been high he pitched 2 bad games in a row giving up 13 runs in 9.2 innings. His ERA rose from 2.61 to 3.73 after those 2 starts. In his last 17 starts since his ERA is 2.53! 14 of those 17 were quality starts and the 3 that were not he allowed only 4 earned runs. His pitches per start in that span is 102.2. He has averaged 7.12 innings per start during that span.

Exactly my point. Innings do not matter! Number of pitches matter. If cole stays around 100 pitches, he should be fine. It is when a pitcher throws too many pitches that their arms are more prone to injury. Either way, pitching is unnatural and violent. Ptichers in general are prone to arm injuries. Injury could happen on the first pitch of the season or the 3500th pitch of the season.

You changed my mind. I am now extremely worried about Hamels pitching at all the rest of the year. Once he pitches 200-300 more pitches, I say we shut him down. Also, I think Utley, Howard and Rollins have played a lot this year. It could be really damaging to Howard’s ego if he is the first player over 200 strikeouts, he should probably sit the rest of the way out. After all, 39 homers and 119 RBI are very respectable. Utley has been hit by pitches more than anyone in the league. The next one could break a bone as it did last year. That could be damaging to the rest of his career too. Unfortunately, that’s another player down. Rollins had that ankle injury early in the year. He seems to be ok now but, what if he reinjures it?? Could he play the rest of his career on an injured ankle?? He should sit till April. I could go on and on!!
“First, let’s keep in mind that if we get into the post-season, that’s going to be another 100 to 500 more pitches for Cole. We could be setting back his career big time this season.”
Isn’t the goal to make it to the postseason?? Is it not the goal for the ace of the pitching staff to pitch 35 starts in a season?? Ever game a pitcher pitches, is the goal not to pitch 9 effective innings each time out?? The players that actually need a rest are in the bullpen!!!But, you want to use them more by using our best starter less???? Think!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, I do think altering his use later in September if we are out of it is a good idea.

But I think it’s safe to ignore the effects of pitching more innings in the playoffs for now. That’s not when you worry about long-term injuries. If we use him a lot and we do reach the playoffs, this may turn out to be the cause, and then clearly the benefit outweighed the costs.

As far as next year goes, I hope it’s clear that they should be lining up Cole against the Mets more often. It was clear to most people that the Mets and Phils were the best teams in the East (except for maybe the Braves, but they clearly were not the best within the first couple months) and Cole kept missing the Mets— this will only be his second start against them.

We have repeatedly made this the case. He was scheduled to pitch on five days rest in late June against the Mets, and Manuel inexplicably moved him up a day, causing him to miss the Mets just so that he would get an extra start before all-star break. Suddenly after the all-star break, Manuel decided Hamels needed more rest from all the hard work and set him up to pitch the 3rd game after break— thereby missing the Mets in the 3 subsequent games after break. If Cole had started the first game after break, he would have played against the Mets, and if Manuel had given him the 4th game after break, he would have played them then too. It was as though he was trying to keep him from playing the Mets, both shortening his rest and adding extra rest and missing the Mets two times he would have pitched against them. Then they decided to give Cole extra rest a couple weeks ago, allowing him to dodge the Mets.

He would be pitching his 5th game against them now instead of his 2nd, and we probably wouldn’t be 3 games back if we had. And he would have started the same number of games and had decent rest too.

I haven’t seen the study, but the Baseball Prospectus definition of the Verducci effect says that “Will Carroll independently found that pitchers who break the ‘Rule of 30’ tend to get injured.” I could be wrong, but I tend to believe that if BP is touting it, then they’ve done the research and it’s more than merely anecdotal. (In other words, Verducci’s original hypothesis might have been anecdotal, but BP’s independent confirmation probably isn’t.)

What if we had a crystal ball that told us that if the Phillies keep pitching Hamels for 7 IP every five days for the rest of the year, then there will be a 100% chance that they will win the World Series and also a 100% chance that Hamels will be diagnosed with major arm problems in the offseason. What do you do?

From the team’s (and fan’s) perspective, given your parameters, the decision is clear: you pitch him. As I noted above, I think Jerry Manuel has a point about sacrifices being made for championships.

If your parameters change to include “career-ending injury,” then it becomes a real conundrum. But unless I’m misunderstanding you and/or the arbitration process, he’s going to get paid next year anyway—not at the level of a premier free agent, but more money ($5m or so) than any of us are very likely to see in a comparable period of time.

Thanks for that info. I agree – if the Phils are in it, there’s really nothing they can do to save Hamels this year. But, they need to keep this in mind as the team progresses in case they get to a point of being out of it. And, even if they are in it, they can save his arm some innings if they use him wisely according to game situations. He’s worth keeping careful tabs on.

I’ve read about Will Carroll not using minor league innings in his total, and I suspect it’s a mistake. I don’t know this for sure, as I haven’t researched this myself, but it sounds a typical example of selection bias. When you look at pitchers who pitch in the minor AND major leagues in the same year, the team is probably likely to send them up if they are less of a health risk directly or less of a health risk simply because they have improved their mechanics. So unlike pitchers who are already at the major league level to start the year, those pitchers who move up to the majors mid-year are going to be pitchers who are healthier. As a result, their injury risk might be similar to pitchers who have thrown fewer innings. However, running the numbers, the effect of being healthier for reasons I already mentioned and the effect of throwing extra minor league innings will probably cancel each other out for the most part, making the minor league innings look like they are not causing damage to the arm— when instead the transition to the majors simply represents a lower health risk for external factors. I suspect if call ups were random, the data would show minor league innings to have an effect.

Now, I could be way off, and it’s possible he already accounts for this, but given some of the other math problems I’ve noticed him use (such as his mismeasured “expected MORP lost” in his Under The Knife column this year), I would guess he doesn’t.

I also can’t really think of a good reason why minor league innings wouldn’t cause arm damage, and I suspect any reasons would just be trying to justify the data after the fact.