Posted by David Wade on Monday, July 27, 2009 at 2:42 pm

For this installment of my series (click blog, then click my name to see the others) I was fortunate enough to have a sit-down with Keith Vorhoff, a great guy who’s currently working with the pitchers and catchers at the University of Kentucky as an assistant coach.  Keith made his way to U.K. after a stint with Southeastern Louisiana University, having worked with the pitching staff there.  He is a former college pitcher and has a B.S. in Exercise Science.  Right now he has the luxury of learning under the tutelage of U.K. head coach / pitching coach Gary Henderson.  Henderson has a phenomenal resume and a history of working with great baseball programs like Florida – and now Kentucky- a team that he has helped elevate to an annual conference contender in the very difficult S.E.C.  Just a few weeks ago, two U.K. pitchers (James Paxton and Chris Rusin) were selected in the first four rounds of the MLB draft. 

Basically, I was looking for some insight on handling pitchers from inside the dugout and I found a good source that was close to home. 

One of the first things I wanted to know was how pitch counts factor in coaching decisions.  If I’m to try and use them to second-guess a coaching decision, I needed to see if coaches give them any weight in the first place.  Turns out that not only are they used, they are probably used more than most people realize.  I’d like to summarize his thoughts here, emphasizing (by his request)  that they are his opinion, and not implying that opinion is universal in the game, or even of the entire U.K. baseball staff. 

That said, Vorhoff prefers to monitor a pitcher’s number of pitches over a 7 day period.  He feels this is particularly effective for relievers, an area that we haven’t even addressed in the analysis so far.  He feels this is a good approach because a coach may fall in love with an effective reliever and run the risk of riding him too hard.  As for starters, at the college level they usually only go every six days, so Vorhoff feels they are even easier to monitor.  As far as a set number per outing, he stressed that there is no hard and fast rule to a benchmark of say 100, because a pitcher may really be laboring and coaches might have to really start taking notice way before then.

That’s right- far before we even get to 100- which the PAP system doesn’t even count as a harmful outing.

There are several reasons for this, according to Vorhoff.  A primary example would be when a guy that usually works in and around the zone has an appearance in which he is unusually wild, issuing walks and going deep into counts.  This could be a red flag to the coaching staff that he’s a little off on a particular day, even if mechanically he looks o.k.  The deeper counts will obviously be more tiring, and the lack of control could mean something is off.   In this example, coaches may get concerned far before 100 pitches for the game, even if the pitcher is still keeping runs from crossing the plate.    

We also talked about how a pitcher’s repertoire plays a big role in how long you can let them go, and Coach Vorhoff gave me a nice example of that.  Take a guy that features a sinkerball and changeup and he may be able to go deeper in games without as much risk for two main reasons. First, the stress on the arm of those two pitches is far less biomechanically than that of say, a hard slider. Secondly, a sinkerball pitcher will often become more effective as he tires- a slight loss in velocity could produce even more movement on his pitches- sometimes making him harder to hit or producing more groundballs if he’s losing arm speed. 

Compare that last point to the pitcher that relies on a four-seam fastball and a hard slider.  As this pitcher tires, he may lose both velocity and movement, tempting him in later innings to reach back for a little more to make his fastball remain effective or his slider have as much bite as it did earlier in the game and thereby putting himself at risk for injury or ineffectiveness.

We can carry the differences in these two pitching styles a step further for our example, as Vorhoff explained that high strikeout guys (as we’ll imagine our imaginary fourseam guy is) may start showing signs of fatigue far earlier in a game than a pitcher that’s getting lots of groundouts.  In this case, Vorhoff feels that pitches per inning can help a coach be on the lookout for a hurler who may be getting into an appearance that causes concern.  Basically, he feels that a guy averaging around a dozen pitches per inning in a particular game has a far greater chance of going with a high total number of pitches as opposed to someone who has been equally effective, but has a couple of innings with 30-40 pitches thrown due to some deep counts, an error, several foul balls, some strikeouts after a full count, etc.  One pitcher may hit his 100th pitch the same inning as the other, but the guy who has had consistent innings in regards to pitches thrown could be cruising, where the other may be more fatigued due to a couple of stressful innings sprinkled in amongst his others.

I told Coach Vorhoff about the Baker-Harang outing that prompted me to start this series and asked how much responsibility he felt would likely fall on an MLB manager in regards to pitchers’ workloads. In other words, I had guessed that type of monitoring was done more at the minor league level and big leaguers may be expected to go deep every game if need be, since making it to the big leagues pretty much means you should be able to pitch anyway. Vorhoff reminded me that in the minors, it’s far easier to pull a guy when he reaches a certain point, as essentially the games don’t count. He felt that in MLB, as it is in the NCAA  (or any situation where you are coaching to win a competitive league) that coaches must balance their desire to win for the day with the necessity of keeping their arms healthy. Vorhoff felt the only way to do this is to simply trust your bullpen and pull guys when they’re tired. This is harder than it sounds because a tired starter may still be your best pitcher, but he felt that you have to fight the urge to win for the day to best position your team for the season. 

Coach Vorhoff felt that’s where managers at the highest amateur and professional levels have a difficult job.  There is enormous pressure to win each day, yet they have to protect their players for the long haul.  Of course, there’s also the economic pressure facing a MLB manager, since clubs routinely invest millions of dollars in the arms of these pitchers.  Then there’s the economic interests of the pitcher himself, who stands to make millions more if he can stay healthy and rack up some impressive win totals. 

I’m wrapping this up with my judgment in my last installment, given my findings presented in these past few articles, of Mr. Baker.  I will argue that he is not guilty of risking Harang during the rain delay outing.  This is not at all the conclusion I thought I would reach, but by golly, right is right.  Am I right?