Mooney44Cards;1172498 wrote:77,000 individual examples is a small sample size? They don't need to study pitchers with 1 to 2 days rest, because it rarely if ever happens. It would be like studying the effect of eating paste on 3 year old albino Italian children. How would you study it, and if you did, why would it matter since there are very few if any real world examples of it?

The small sample size he is referring to the short rest.

Why does it matter that this study says that pitching on 5 days rest doesn't change performance? How does that change the "babying" of pitchers? The study is using what is already done and saying that it works. That's what it sounds like to me.

pnhasbeen;1172496 wrote:I'm sure you could have assumed to have kept my beer example going, but it doesn't really matter.

But what I think really matters is the short rest. The long rest isn't going to happen in the majors. What would the ideal situation be for a MLB club? Having less than 5 starting pitchers. The four(or three) best starting every so many days. You can't say that because a pitcher does well on 5 or 10 days rest he will do well on 3. I'm sure skipping starts will be easier on a pitchers arm, but going on short rest is the key.

The numbers show that short rest had little to no effect on performance. It does not state that every pitcher should pitch on shorter rest. That would increase their total number of pitches pitched over the course of a season by a TON, and the study does show that cumulative pitch counts have a negative effect on performance.

What the study DOES tell us is that if you had to, throwing a pitcher on 3 or 4 days rest will not have a negative effect on his performance in that game.

pnhasbeen;1172500 wrote:The small sample size he is referring to the short rest.

Why does it matter that this study says that pitching on 5 days rest doesn't change performance? How does that change the "babying" of pitchers? The study is using what is already done and saying that it works. That's what it sounds like to me.

I don't know what to tell you at this point, I don't think you understand the study, or its purpose, or its findings.

Mooney44Cards;1172503 wrote:
What the study DOES tell us is that if you had to, throwing a pitcher on 3 or 4 days rest will not have a negative effect on his performance in that game.

Isn't that what managers do anyways when they have to?

Mooney44Cards;1172505 wrote:I don't know what to tell you at this point, I don't think you understand the study, or its purpose, or its findings.

It's telling us that a pitcher can pitch on short rest sometimes and still be as effective as they normally are? But pitching on short rest all the time will wear down the pitcher?

I feel like that was already known.

The main purpose of the study was pitch counts, not days of rest.

Pitch counts have declined a ton over the 21 years included in the study, so to act like "this is the way they already do it in baseball so it just proved they were right" or whatever it is you're saying is just plain wrong. The difference in the way pitchers are protected between 1988 and 2009 is huge. THIS STUDY was trying to see if the TREND of LIMITING PITCHES had any basis in reality when it comes to future performance and injury prevention. They found that the trend indeed does not have any basis in reality.

Mooney44Cards;1172498 wrote:77,000 individual examples is a small sample size? They don't need to study pitchers with 1 to 2 days rest, because it rarely if ever happens. It would be like studying the effect of eating paste on 3 year old albino Italian children. How would you study it, and if you did, why would it matter since there are very few if any real world examples of it?

No, but I'd be interested to see a distribution of how many of those are no rest, 1 day rest, 2 days, etc.

I also haven't read the full paper so I can't really comment.

Mooney44Cards;1172511 wrote:The main purpose of the study was pitch counts, not days of rest.

Pitch counts have declined a ton over the 21 years included in the study, so to act like "this is the way they already do it in baseball so it just proved they were right" or whatever it is you're saying is just plain wrong. The difference in the way pitchers are protected between 1988 and 2009 is huge. THIS STUDY was trying to see if the TREND of LIMITING PITCHES had any basis in reality when it comes to future performance and injury prevention. They found that the trend indeed does not have any basis in reality.

Doesn't the study also say that if a pitcher consistently goes out and pitches 100+ per game many times during a season that will wear them down? The cumulative effect? If it has a cumulative effect, why would managers force their pitchers to throw more if they can trust their bullpen? Also, if a pitcher is going good, most managers allow them to go above their pitch count.

I feel like you have the full study. No way you're getting all this from the little blurb in the OP.

I'm heading out so I won't be able to respond quite as fast. I'm not running away. hugs and kisses.

pnhasbeen;1172508 wrote:It's telling us that a pitcher can pitch on short rest sometimes and still be as effective as they normally are? But pitching on short rest all the time will wear down the pitcher?

I feel like that was already known.

Seems to me the study did a lot. It quantified and tested general hypotheses. Some were verified, while some weren't. Either way we have a better empirical understanding of the subject. Without knowing the entire methodology, it seemed like good science to me.

chicago510;1172512 wrote:No, but I'd be interested to see a distribution of how many of those are no rest, 1 day rest, 2 days, etc.

I also haven't read the full paper so I can't really comment.

I really am not sure how much of an issue this would be for a couple of reasons.

1. Little practical significance of extremely limited rest (i.e. 1 day),

2. I think given the assumptions of regression, the limited sample of the shorter rest days should not be a major concern.

pnhasbeen;1172445 wrote:Help me out here: Their study is trying to refute the practice that they studied? How can they say the pitch count benchmarks don't matter when the people they are studying follow those benchmarks? See where I'm getting confused? And I could be wrong, probably am. Just kind of confused about this study.

Yes indeed you are confused. I would suggest that you reread what was posted slowly. Decipher what was actually said, and then come back here so that everyone can explain it to you 8 more times until it sinks in.

Footwedge;1172563 wrote:Yes indeed you are confused. I would suggest that you reread what was posted slowly. Decipher what was actually said, and then come back here so that everyone can explain it to you 8 more times until it sinks in.

This was helpful.

No one cares about baseball. Pay them the money, supply skyline, and keep offering beer and baseball will thrive.

Correlation does not equal causation. How quickly everyone forgets when you talk about a sport as boring as baseball.

Correlation does not equal causation, you are correct in that. LACK of correlation almost always means NO causation. I'm not sure how that isn't completely obvious if you think about it logically but I have been pretty surprised so far with the direction of the thread.

Mooney44Cards;1172611 wrote:Correlation does not equal causation, you are correct in that. LACK of correlation almost always means NO causation. I'm not sure how that isn't completely obvious if you think about it logically but I have been pretty surprised so far with the direction of the thread.

True. Obviously there are situations where variables suppress, moderate, and mediate relationships but it appears from the abstract that the authors took into account the likely confounding relationships.

Also, as the 77,000 data points didn't come from 77,000 pitchers, the pitchers should serve as a control. Since a single pitcher should have many instances of differing days of rest, pitch counts, etc., they can control for a good deal of the variance. Thus the physical variables within each pitcher that accounts for injuries and performance can be controlled for with the multiple data points for each pitcher.

I coached HS summer baseball for about 10 years. We kept track of pitch counts but didnt live and die by them. We used them to guage when a pitcher was going to be running out of gas, and also to when we wanted him to pitch next. Some guys hit a wall pretty quick, some dont rebound as well and such and we took that in account but we didnt set a pitch limit for a kid, and then take him out when he got close.