I heard there were riots in the streets of Allentown last night after the first win of the season. I should probably not mention anything else in this post, for fear of detracting attention away from win #1 in franchise history. But because the Iron Pigs stink like, well, pigs, we’ll turn our attention to something a tad more important. Is something wrong with Andrew Carpenter? Something might be, and it might be something I’ve discussed at length in other places; the Rule of 30.
Tom Verducci at Sports Illustrated has been tracking this phenomenon, something he calls the Year After Effect, and more generally, the Rule of 30. I’ll let him explain it
Why can’t they throw 200 innings? Simply put, they’re not conditioned for it yet. It’s like training for a marathon. You need to build stamina incrementally. The unofficial industry standard is that no young pitcher should throw more than 30 more innings than he did the previous season. It’s a general rule of thumb, and one I’ve been tracking for about a decade. When teams violate the incremental safeguard, it’s amazing how often they pay for it.
Pitchers generally feel the effects of abusive increases in workload the next year, not the season in which they were pushed. In other words, you might be able to finish that marathon for which you didn’t properly train, but your body will have hell to pay for it. I call it the Year After Effect.
Here’s the way I track it: Find major league pitchers 25-and-under who broke the 30-inning rule. In some cases a pitcher’s innings the previous season may have been artificially depressed, such as by injury, so I’ll use his professional high for the baseline, or, in the case of a recent draftee like Kennedy, his college workload. All innings count (minors, majors, postseason).
Looking at this concept, its interesting to look at Carpenter’s innings log
2006: 132.1 IP (college + minors)
2007: 163.0 IP (minors…..+31 innings over previous season)
As Verducci notes, the impact is normally felt the next season. Carpenter pitched really well in his one spring training appearance, so this might just be your typical slow start. But it does merit watching. Also, applying this rule, you have to wonder if maybe JA Happ doesn’t qualify also
2002: 51.0 IP (college)
2003: 83.0 IP (college)
2004: 129.2 IP (college+minors)
2005: 78.1 IP (minors)
2006: 160.2 IP (minors)
2007: 122.1 IP (minors+majors)
Happ was injured for much of 2005 after pitching over 40 innings more than his 2003 campaign in 2004. Last season he nursed a sore arm for much of the year.
Verducci is very clear that this isn’t a 100% iron clad rule, but its a very simple principle, and its something to consider, especially for our young arms, the strength of our farm system.
Phuture Phillies 
A couple of thoughts.
First, I haven’t seen Carpenter pitch, so I cannot comment on whether his “stuff” seems to have suffered. However, although he increased his workload, I cannot say this was a huge increase over the prior year (31 innings, not 50 or 60).
My concern about Carpenter is more what I call the “A ball effect.” Put succinctly, guys who really know how to pitch can look like world beaters in A ball and sometimes even AA ball, but they just don’t have good enough stuff to continue to be dominating in AAA or the majors. Carpenter may fall into this category or, at the very least, he may have an adjustmment period. . . . . . We’ll know the answer soon enough.
Speaking of injured young pitchers, is there any word on Mathieson or Drabek? If either of those guys come back an already strong assembly of young pitchers looks that much better. And, really, if he’s healthy, Mathieson could contribute very soon – it would be nice to have him as a right-handed option out of the pen in the 7th or 8th inning. I am tired of seeing Ryan Madson and Tom Gordon get smacked around. It would also be nice to have a potential closer come from the ranks rather than have the organization use Brett Myers again if Lidge leaves.
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Carpenter has had 2 bad starts afer a decent first start. Let’s keep things in perspective here and allow him some time to grow.
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There’s no doubt that he might be fine. But it does need to be monitored. Not only did he cross the innings barrier, but he’s making the biggest jump in the minors from A ball to AA.
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Do I dare ask to see what Cole Hamels’ breakdown would look like?
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Hamels’ breakdown
2003: 100.3
2004: 16.0
2005: 35.0
2006: 181.1
2007: 183.1
Of course he spent time on the DL last season, and he also spent time on the DL in 2006. One has to wonder if they didn’t push him too much in his debut. 100 innings might not seem like a lot, but with him pitching infrequently his last 2 years of high school because of the broken arm, it might not have been wise. Then he was injured for almost all of 2004 and 2005. I get extremely nervous when he goes over 100 pitches, especially in games where its not necessary, like last Friday. 105 is the danger number, any more than that is putting the arm at risk, not just in that start, but in terms of the cumulative damage.
Again, this isn’t a 100% rule, but in most cases, I think it offers a possible explanation, moreso than just saying “well, it was bad luck”
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Pitch count is probably a more important barometer than overall innings. If a minor league guy goes 100 pitches every outing, I’m not going to be as worried about his total number of innings. However, in CH’s case, I think an injury is almost inevitable. He missed so much time in the minor leagues and that time is valuable over the long run. I don’t have the numbers in front of me but it seems like starting pitchers who logged consistent innings at the minor league level do a better job of avoiding major injuries. Glavine and Maddux come to mind. For the Phillies think about Brett Myers’ minor league career
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I wonder what role a young pitcher’s attitude toward conditioning plays with respect to the Rule of 30. Hamel’s attitude seems great. He seems to be paying attention to taking care of himself after the problems he had in ’04 and ’05.
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I’m not sure Hamels didn’t benefit from losing that time in ’04/’05. The injuries weren’t of the career-altering variety, the lost development time hasn’t hurt his early MLB results, and if you subscribe to the “only so many bullets in the gun” theory, he’s saved almost all of them for the big leagues.
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Carpenter may be having difficulty adjusting to the cold weather. Last night the Reading play by play Steve Degler said that he was having trouble spotting his fast ball and hit 88 in the third inning but was in the mid 80’s to start the game.
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Thats a good point. The thing is, and this is something I’ve really started to buy into, is that its probably best to limit innings and work on refining your stuff in the lower levels. I think sometimes we get caught up in looking at a guy’s K/9 rate, or his walk rate, but at the end of the day, guys in short season ball, Low A and even High A should be focused on accumulating the skill set needed. Teams shouldn’t be taking away a pitcher’s pitches (Floyd’s curveball), they should be helping these guys to maximize the skillset they already have, as well as adding additional tools to the arsenal, all while monitoring workload and training regiments and keeping the players as healthy as possible. There’s just no reason for a 19 year old kid to throw 150 innings in Low A. It serves no real purpose, and only puts the arm at risk.
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Does anyone remember an SI article from the late 1980’s? In it, the auther related the number of innings with a young pitcher’s age. Conclusion – high numbers of innings pitched prior to age 25 = early career ending breakdown while delaying large numbers of innings pitched = longer career. He predicted Dwight Gooden’s early demise. Highlighted long careers of Warren Spahn and Nolan Ryan. I think that’s at play with large number of 22, 23, 24 year old pitchers being rushed to the majors.
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Great little site here.
You guys are depressing me with the pitch count/total inning discussion! But yeah, I think CH will have some cumulative effect from these injuries. The one that really bothers me is Drabek. There was an article in the inky that basically said he was total overpitched very early on, during his amateur days and then his rookie season piled onto that. (Of course I think Conlin wrote it…) The bottom line is that his father should never have allowed that to happen and it clearly contributed to his early serious injury.
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