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Publication Date: July 22, 2003
Oh, the Humanity
For those of you who got here since this time last year, go read at least part of this. This report is an annual part of a long-term research project where I'm tracking pitcher usage numbers for, essentially, every Division I starter along with minor league statistics over a five-year period in order to check for correlations between high workload and future injury or ineffectiveness rates. There are, unavoidably, a ton of numbers here, but they matter, so let's slog on through. This year, through improved data gathering and verification methods, I was able to gather lines for over 15,000 starts, which is around the 97% range.
The Hall of Shame
For starters, here are the worst single-game starts from NCAA pitchers last year, with the actual pitch count entries listed first and the estimated counts listed after:
Team Pitcher IP H R ER BB SO AB BF NP Tennessee-Martin Jonathan Spiceland 8.2 8 6 6 9 8 33 44 191 Southeast Missouri State Tim Alvarez 9.0 9 2 2 3 9 35 40 165 Cal State Sacramento Chris Kinsey 7.1 10 15 14 4 10 30 37 160 Eastern Michigan Anthony Tomey 7.2 11 7 7 5 9 31 39 159 Delaware State Tim Vaillancourt 8.2 2 1 0 8 14 29 37 159 Kansas Pat Holmes 9.0 7 3 3 3 7 34 38 157 Ball State Brian Lynch 10.0 10 3 3 2 8 36 40 157 Southeast Missouri State Tim Alvarez 9.0 8 5 5 1 7 34 37 156 South Carolina Steven Bondurant 8.1 10 4 4 2 12 32 35 155 Rice Jeff Niemann 8.2 9 4 3 1 8 31 35 155 Miami, Ohio Graham Taylor 9.0 10 4 4 4 6 35 39 155 Arizona Richie Gardner 8.1 7 3 3 5 7 31 37 155 North Carolina A&T Michael Hauff 7.2 7 9 4 5 9 34 39 154 James Madison Kurt Isenberg 8.2 6 4 4 6 9 31 38 154 Stanford John Hudgins 9.0 7 4 4 2 6 35 38 152 Xavier Adam Jahnsen 7.2 10 3 3 5 3 31 38 151 North Carolina A&T Toby Middleton 9.0 8 5 5 6 8 31 38 151 Alcorn State Dan Smith 6.0 17 15 13 8 2 33 41 151 West Virginia Jason DiAngelo 9.0 7 5 4 4 7 32 38 150
Team Pitcher IP H R ER BB SO AB BF NP North Carolina A&T Joey Peascoe 9.0 14 11 10 6 8 40 49 165 Binghamton Mark Messina 6.1 12 9 6 5 7 35 40 164 Wisconsin-Milwaukee Geoff Lefeber 9.0 16 8 8 2 8 42 47 163 Western Michigan Brad Mumma 8.1 8 1 1 3 12 35 38 162 Fairleigh Dickinson Gregg Pleeter 9.0 8 5 5 5 11 36 41 160 Chicago State Houston Mad 9.0 9 8 3 8 4 38 47 160 Maryland-Eastern Shore Leon Tilghman 7.0 13 9 6 3 7 37 40 158 Grambling State Darryl Honor 8.0 12 11 8 6 6 36 46 158 Rider James Hoey 8.0 6 4 2 5 10 32 39 157 Duquesne Adam Haun 9.0 13 10 9 11 8 36 48 157 Central Connecticut St. Barry Hertzler 11.0 9 1 0 2 11 41 45 157 Prairie View A&M Chris Smith 8.0 12 13 9 7 4 37 46 156 North Carolina A&T Joey Peascoe 7.0 12 10 6 2 8 36 40 156 Nicholls State Matt Overman 9.0 8 7 6 5 10 36 41 156 Cal State Northridge Leo Rosales 9.0 13 3 3 3 10 38 42 156 C. W. Post Michael Vicaro 7.1 10 4 4 5 7 32 39 156 Appalachian State Scott Clark 8.2 8 3 3 5 8 34 41 156 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Jimmy Hamon 9.0 11 7 6 6 6 37 44 155 Manhattan Ryan Darcy 11.0 7 1 0 1 11 41 42 155
The 191-pitch outing by Spiceland, May 11 against Murray State, is the worst I've been able to document. Obviously, take the estimates with a grain of salt -- once you get out into that territory any formula has some trouble with it. On the other hand, most of these fairly easily fall into the category of "too much," given that most of them involve over forty batters. Even ignoring the estimates, the other list shows that there were at least 19 times this year a team admitted to having a pitcher go at least 150 pitches.
Season Totals
Here are the 100 worst season totals. I'll include a link to the the full list at the bottom. The Spiceland case actually points up an interesting effect of the exponential nature of the PAP formula; the 191-pitch outing was his only game to go over 120 pitches this year. It's an open question, though, whether doing something absurd like throwing 191 pitches once is more damaging than throwing 125 a dozen times, so we'll keep an eye on him as a test case. As I hinted at last week, Verlander went over 120 pitches 11 times, leading the nation in that category.
Team Pitcher GC GE PAP V IV Tennessee-Martin Jonathan Spiceland 9 5 753571 1 0 Wright State Casey Abrams 15 7 721050 7 1 Old Dominion Justin Verlander 15 12 666398 5 6 Fairleigh Dickinson Gregg Pleeter 11 10 569445 5 3 Western Michigan Brad Mumma 11 8 542666 4 2 Southeast Missouri State Tim Alvarez 13 5 541815 3 1 North Carolina A&T Joey Peascoe 9 6 499922 2 2 Nicholls State Matt Overman 15 11 490003 3 2 West Virginia Zac Cline 13 10 459248 4 3 Rider James Hoey 11 9 448440 4 0 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Jimmy Hamon 14 10 430959 4 0 Arkansas-Pine Bluff Kevin Banks 14 13 425637 3 2 New Mexico Jamie Vermilyea 14 13 424021 3 3 Stanford John Hudgins 22 14 408457 2 6 East Tennessee State Tim Turner 14 8 363185 4 2 North Carolina-Charlotte Zachary Treadway 13 9 362592 3 2 Rhode Island Jared Trout 12 10 354078 3 2 Coppin State Juan Miranda 12 11 353719 3 2 Alabama Brent Carter 16 1 344964 3 2 Evansville Adam Rogers 13 10 322596 3 1 North Carolina A&T Toby Middleton 13 12 316883 3 0 Appalachian State Scott Clark 9 4 315160 3 0 Southern Illinois Jake Alley 14 11 308612 4 1 Manhattan Ryan Darcy 13 11 307233 2 2 Illinois State Kyle Bloom 11 6 294192 2 0 Western Michigan Keith Perez 10 6 283030 3 0 Bethune-Cookman John Gragg 13 11 282625 2 3 Arizona Richie Gardner 16 2 282612 2 4 Minnesota Glen Perkins 13 8 275098 2 2 Louisiana Tech Adam Kirkendall 15 0 270898 3 3 Brigham Young Paul Jacinto 13 9 268585 2 1 Virginia Military Phil Hendrix 15 11 266736 2 1 Binghamton Mark Messina 9 8 262145 1 0 Wisconsin-Milwaukee Geoff Lefeber 12 10 261673 1 0 Eastern Michigan Dave Pieron 15 13 260346 2 1 Centenary Kevin Cassidy 12 12 258130 2 2 Prairie View A&M Chris Smith 9 9 257712 2 0 Cal State Sacramento Chris Kinsey 13 11 256521 1 2 St. Peter's Doug Grant 10 9 253341 2 1 Northeastern Justin Hedrick 11 10 248294 2 1 Richmond Tim Stauffer 15 10 244263 2 2 Wake Forest Kyle Sleeth 14 10 242745 1 3 Prairie View A&M Marcus Lewis 11 11 240715 3 0 Delaware State Tim Vaillancourt 11 3 238643 1 1 Fairleigh Dickinson Jesse Anziano 9 9 237797 2 0 James Madison Kurt Isenberg 14 9 237032 2 2 Rice Jeff Niemann 18 0 235209 1 3 Eastern Michigan Anthony Tomey 13 8 234618 1 1 Jackson State Anthony Johnson 10 5 234208 2 1 North Carolina State Michael Rogers 17 0 229442 2 7 Texas-Arlington Aaron Pullin 17 13 224342 2 1 Long Island Dan Barrios 12 11 224089 2 0 Evansville Mitch Prout 9 7 223524 3 0 Oklahoma Mark Roberts 15 10 223396 2 1 Miami, Ohio Graham Taylor 12 4 222101 2 0 North Carolina A&T Michael Hauff 9 6 219007 2 0 Butler Aaron Phillips 15 14 218949 2 2 Ohio State Scott Lewis 12 8 218772 1 4 Maryland-Eastern Shore Leon Tilghman 9 6 218672 1 1 Gonzaga Ed Clelland 12 10 217988 3 1 Ohio Shaun Peet 5 2 217673 2 0 Nevada-Las Vegas Robbie Van 17 14 217048 3 0 Cal State Northridge Leo Rosales 16 10 216169 1 1 Chicago State Houston Mad 8 7 216125 1 0 Tennessee Tech Dusty Eubanks 12 9 213630 2 1 St. Louis Ben Hutton 11 7 212844 2 2 Toledo J.R Duffey 11 9 211747 2 2 South Carolina David Marchbanks 19 14 210691 2 3 Tennessee Tech Doug Vincent 10 8 208342 2 0 Eastern Illinois Damon White 15 9 208090 2 2 Charleston Southern Ian Holmen 11 10 202061 2 1 Austin Peay State Dustin Smith 13 2 201918 3 1 Ball State Brian Lynch 14 0 198847 1 0 Stanford Ryan McCally 14 9 195832 2 1 Grambling State Darryl Honor 1 1 195112 1 0 San Francisco Kevin Rose 14 13 194148 1 1 Kansas Pat Holmes 10 5 193193 1 0 Duquesne Adam Haun 10 10 191600 1 0 Washington State Aaron MacKenzie 13 10 191424 2 1 South Carolina Steven Bondurant 17 8 189432 1 1 Central Connecticut State Barry Hertzler 12 11 187922 1 0 Alabama Taylor Tankersley 14 1 187058 2 3 Appalachian State Nick Peterson 13 3 185552 2 1 St. Mary's Eric Bowden 16 15 184971 2 1 Alabama A&M Douglas Henry 6 5 176843 2 0 C. W. Post Michael Vicaro 1 1 175616 1 0 Gardner-Webb Abraham Gonzalez 10 6 175097 1 3 Oklahoma State Scott Baker 14 6 174934 2 1 Texas Tech Nathan Fouts 10 3 169513 2 0 Texas-Pan American Travis Parker 13 10 167949 2 2 San Jose State Matt Durkin 15 1 167520 1 4 Youngstown State Kyle Sobecki 12 10 166725 1 0 Xavier Adam Jahnsen 12 5 161953 1 1 Mississippi State Paul Maholm 15 3 161164 1 4 Youngstown State Justin Thomas 9 6 160156 1 0 West Virginia Jason DiAngelo 10 9 159644 1 2 Baylor Steven White 19 0 157946 1 3 St. Joseph's Erik Hollman 5 3 157472 1 0 Jackson State Cory Floyd 10 7 156270 1 2 Louisville Scott Barber 16 11 154001 1 0 Legend: GC -- games counted (starts I have records for) GE -- games estimated PAP -- PAP score V -- category V starts (133+ pitches) IV -- category IV starts (121-132 pitches)
One mildly encouraging sign is that the #100 guy did better than last year; the cutoff moved from 187,000 down to 154,000. There may be an interesting followup study on the year-to-year change.
Team Listings
Here are the twenty highest staff PAP's I could find:
Team GC GE PAP V IV North Carolina A&T 48 39 1253632 9 4 Fairleigh Dickinson 39 38 1032597 8 5 Prairie View A&M 55 55 884512 8 1 Western Michigan 47 31 862864 7 3 Tennessee-Martin 47 33 821277 1 2 West Virginia 46 37 809949 7 9 Evansville 55 43 784364 9 4 Old Dominion 51 42 782832 6 6 Stanford 68 45 779114 5 10 Wright State 55 21 751789 7 2 Eastern Michigan 61 45 700872 5 5 Appalachian State 50 14 649069 7 2 Alabama 62 3 609757 6 7 Tennessee Tech 52 39 590264 6 3 Kansas 59 32 571072 4 5 Southeast Missouri State 51 16 560329 3 1 Arkansas-Pine Bluff 50 47 551797 4 5 Nicholls State 54 41 547986 3 4 South Carolina 67 43 521453 4 4 New Mexico 55 47 511666 4 3
In the interests of fairness to the coaching profession as a whole, here are a few PAP counts that I found admirable. It's not really a lowest list, since that would be too affected by the number of games I could find; it's just a few that I found impressive.
Team GC GE PAP V IV Arizona State 68 0 19098 0 1 Army 42 39 17299 0 0 Auburn 63 0 7578 0 0 Birmingham-Southern 51 14 24916 0 1 Cal State Fullerton 66 5 18113 0 0 Duke 54 43 21665 0 0 Eastern Kentucky 53 42 16131 0 0 Florida 59 10 20970 0 1 Kent State 54 15 23293 0 0 LaSalle 41 26 4448 0 0 Northern Iowa 55 7 22405 0 0 Pace 48 44 10932 0 0 Purdue 55 7 1243 0 0 Southern 51 47 9353 0 0 Washington 60 50 6652 0 0
Auburn is the only repeater on this list, as they come in under 10,000 PAP for at least the second straight year.
Comprehensive Lists
Finally, thorough lists for pitchers and teams:
The pitcher list has every pitcher that accumulated either 8 starts or 100,000 PAP; the team list has every team. Each list, of course, is subject to the limitations of the data that I have. Once again, on the comprehensive lists, I'm going to do something that's different from what I normally do, because I want it to be as accurate a record as possible when I come back to it in a few years -- I will update the records if I get data on additional starts. I've been a little slow on the one correction I got for last year's data, but I'll get it in as well within a week or two.
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| Boyd's World-> Breadcrumbs Back to Omaha-> Comprehensive Pitch Count Report 2003 | About the author, Boyd Nation |