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Comprehensive Pitch Count Report 2005
Publication Date: August 9, 2005
Year Four
I said when I started this project that I would need five years of data to do anything useful. I think that's probably still true, but I'm curious enough that I'll start looking for interesting results some over this offseason -- after all, some of the pitchers from the 2002 report have been in the minors for four years by now.
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 once again improved data gathering and verification methods, I was able to gather lines for almost 16,000 starts, which is around the 98.5% 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 NP Troy Landon Brazell 10.0 11 6 4 2 13 168 Washington Tim Lincecum 9.0 7 4 4 7 13 165 Air Force Paul Pratt 6.2 7 6 6 7 5 156 Norfolk State Josh Eason 7.0 13 8 7 4 9 153 Troy Landon Brazell 8.1 6 2 2 5 4 152 South Alabama P.j. Walters 9.0 12 5 4 0 8 152 Murray State Billy Fares 8.2 9 4 2 1 7 151 Southeastern Louisiana Rodney Story 9.0 12 6 6 1 7 151 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Trey Hearne 10.0 4 1 1 3 12 150
Team Pitcher IP H R ER BB SO NP North Carolina A&T Eric Neal 9.0 8 6 4 11 8 182 North Carolina A&T Michael Hauff 9.0 14 6 6 5 15 178 Coppin State Matt Bellon 8.0 13 15 14 9 6 176 Alabama State Stanton.william 8.0 9 13 10 10 6 167 St. John's Anthony Varvaro 9.0 7 6 3 8 11 163 Sacred Heart Mike Milazzo 8.0 12 10 7 9 2 162 Brown Jeff Dietz 9.0 10 8 1 4 8 161 Florida A&M Michael Tavernier 9.0 8 8 1 5 8 158 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Trey Hearne 9.0 15 6 4 2 9 155 Savannah State Jeremiah Fielder 9.0 7 8 6 6 6 154 McNeese State Jacob Marceaux 9.0 9 3 3 6 9 154 Chicago State John Torres 9.0 12 10 7 5 4 153 Massachusetts Matt Torra 10.2 3 4 1 2 16 152 Stanford Greg Reynolds 11.0 10 4 4 1 10 152 Grambling State Demetrius Marshall 9.0 10 8 8 5 7 151 Buffalo Tony Kurtz 9.0 7 3 2 7 9 151 North Carolina A&T Michael Hauff 9.0 11 4 3 3 12 150 Georgetown Thomas Braun 9.0 5 5 5 7 10 150 Quinnipiac P Egan 9.0 7 6 4 5 8 150
As always, take the estimates with a grain of salt, both up or down. The good news is that we're now down to only 9 confirmed 150+-pitch outings, down from 15 last year and 19 the year before; it's possible that small amounts of progress are being made. On the flip side, although I don't believe that a pitcher's prospect status should be a factor in overuse, I also know that I would like to have seen what Lance Mestepey's career should have actually looked like, and Tim Lincecum may be that good, so that one's worrisome. Similarly with the Torra start; it's only an estimate, but 10.2 innings with 16 strikeouts is enough for two starts.
Season Totals
Here are the 100 worst season totals. I'll include a link to the the full list at the bottom.
Team Pitcher G GE PAP V IV North Carolina A&T Michael Hauff 15 13 752239 4 5 Troy Landon Brazell 17 4 675017 3 11 North Carolina A&T Eric Neal 24 16 551368 1 1 Coppin State Matt Bellon 14 13 438976 1 1 Washington Tim Lincecum 16 13 430068 3 6 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Trey Hearne 17 13 416435 3 6 Florida A&M Michael Tavernier 16 14 358747 3 4 Alabama State Stanton.william 12 12 325152 1 2 Southeastern Louisiana Bernard Robert 17 7 319849 3 7 Gardner-Webb Zach Ward 20 12 298035 2 7 Massachusetts Matt Torra 13 9 288134 2 3 McNeese State Jacob Marceaux 15 9 286028 2 7 Florida Alan Horne 19 0 266906 2 6 St. John's Anthony Varvaro 14 14 263844 1 2 South Alabama P.j. Walters 20 13 259572 2 4 Grambling State Demetrius Marshall 13 12 259471 3 3 Sacred Heart Mike Milazzo 16 8 247589 1 2 Austin Peay State Rowdy Hardy 20 7 242606 3 5 North Carolina-Greensboro Chris Mason 18 6 238929 3 9 Brown Jeff Dietz 15 14 230357 1 1 New Mexico Danny Ray Herrera 15 4 220815 2 5 Southeastern Louisiana Rodney Story 16 8 217351 2 4 Cal Poly Garrett Olson 19 8 206018 2 7 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Josh Mitchell 16 13 195627 2 5 Penn State Alan Stidfole 27 18 187745 1 6 Norfolk State De'mece Williams 14 11 187581 2 5 Utah Valley State Jed Jensen 18 10 185968 1 5 Air Force Paul Pratt 16 10 185613 1 2 Nicholls State Mark Fernandez 14 6 185047 2 5 Oklahoma State Thomas Cowley 16 4 176166 3 4 Alabama T.j. Large 18 6 175804 2 5 North Carolina-Asheville Tim Johnson 21 17 175727 2 2 Yale Jon Hollis 10 3 174375 3 4 Tennessee Luke Hochevar 18 16 170016 0 8 Wofford Austin Redwine 15 13 169731 2 2 Southeast Missouri State Joey Evans 21 12 169623 2 4 Loyola Marymount Stephen Kahn 17 14 164819 2 6 Ohio Anthony Gressick 11 9 163990 2 3 Georgetown Thomas Braun 19 16 161728 1 2 Savannah State Jeremiah Fielder 8 7 158464 1 1 Arkansas Nick Schmidt 19 8 155897 2 3 Murray State Billy Fares 18 6 150312 1 2 Chicago State John Torres 13 12 149606 1 1 Norfolk State Josh Eason 14 11 148877 1 1 Manhattan Chris Cody 13 10 147598 2 6 Vermont Derek Miller 10 9 142626 2 4 Northeastern Adam Ottavino 14 13 142590 0 7 Western Illinois Pat Kohorst 18 15 141683 1 3 North Carolina A&T John Primus 14 11 140768 1 5 Saginaw Valley Ryan Reid 2 2 140608 1 1 Stanford Greg Reynolds 22 20 140608 1 1 Western Kentucky Grady Hinchman 14 12 140371 2 2 Gardner-Webb Brandon Martin 53 28 139314 2 2 Louisiana-Monroe Matt Green 16 14 139163 1 4 Florida Atlantic Mickey Storey 23 21 137691 1 2 Winthrop Heath Rollins 17 13 137114 1 7 Troy Brent Adcock 17 5 135919 2 4 Lipscomb Alan Tungate 10 7 135859 1 3 Buffalo Tony Kurtz 18 13 135395 1 1 Lipscomb Zack Duncan 9 6 135243 1 2 Ohio Derek Witt 12 10 132318 1 2 Virginia Tech Jake Chaney 16 2 130863 1 4 Virginia Commonwealth Harold Mozingo 15 7 128214 2 4 Oregon State Dallas Buck 15 10 126850 2 4 Alabama Wade Leblanc 14 5 126717 2 5 St. Louis Ryan Bird 14 9 126109 1 6 San Jose State Branden Dewing 17 16 125003 1 3 Quinnipiac P Egan 3 3 125000 1 1 Virginia St Perkinson 1 1 125000 1 1 Yale Mike Mongiardini 9 2 124360 1 2 South Dakota State Tyson Bothof 14 6 124290 2 4 Texas Christian Sam Demel 20 4 123850 1 2 Boston College Joe Martinez 13 13 121608 1 4 Arkansas-Little Rock Bennett Cromer 15 12 118285 1 4 UCLA Hector Ambriz 18 7 117854 1 3 Pepperdine Kea Kometani 19 6 116407 0 6 New York Tech Chris Perez 11 9 114633 1 3 Birmingham-Southern Brandon Hynick 15 9 114560 1 3 George Mason Stacen Gant 14 9 114438 1 4 New Mexico Karsten Gaarder 20 4 113824 1 4 Wisconsin-Milwaukee Aaron Sorenson 12 10 110916 1 3 Central Florida Tim Bascom 16 2 109155 1 3 Jackson State Omar Stokley 18 16 108844 1 2 Texas Adrian Alaniz 23 3 108744 0 4 Georgia Southern Everett Teaford 17 6 108729 1 4 Illinois-Chicago Ryan Zink 21 18 108612 1 3 Utah Jason Price 19 9 108057 1 3 Central Michigan Ty Dunham 16 16 107067 0 5 Oklahoma State Scott Richmond 25 2 106910 2 3 Siena Josh Burnett 11 6 106671 1 1 Grambling State Darrell Law 14 11 106227 1 3 Virginia Commonwealth John Leonard 16 6 105181 1 1 South Alabama Jeramy Simmons 17 14 105059 1 4 San Diego State Alex Hinshaw 16 13 104993 1 1 Oakland Aaron Hines 14 12 103831 1 1 Rice Joe Savery 19 13 103826 1 4 Loyola Marymount Jeff Stevens 18 15 103294 0 4 Texas Tech Billy Carnline 18 0 102908 1 1 Toledo Nick Szczur 14 13 101917 1 2 Georgia State Romas Hicks 21 14 101131 1 2 Legend: G -- games counted (appearance I have records for) GE -- games estimated PAP -- PAP score V -- category V starts (133+ pitches) IV -- category IV starts (121-132 pitches)
Team Listings
Here are the twenty highest staff PAP's I could find:
Team GC GE PAP V IV North Carolina A&T 51 41 1465765 6 12 Troy 58 13 811817 5 15 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 52 44 679824 6 14 Southeastern Louisiana 60 24 611738 5 14 Washington 55 49 517799 4 8 Coppin State 50 46 452808 1 1 Alabama State 40 39 450081 2 5 Massachusetts 49 31 443321 3 9 Norfolk State 50 40 441146 4 7 Gardner-Webb 58 35 440563 4 9 Florida A&M 52 48 435254 3 6 New Mexico 58 14 431254 3 13 Oklahoma State 59 12 412105 7 11 Grambling State 43 38 411309 4 7 South Alabama 63 50 399073 3 10 Arkansas-Pine Bluff 48 42 339159 4 8 Alabama 63 24 338871 4 11 Brown 42 37 334605 1 6 Louisiana-Monroe 55 49 325966 3 9 Chicago State 58 52 321422 3 4
A&T, and several others of the HBCU's, are frequent fliers on this list; the usual claim is a lack of sufficient arms in relief. Washington's spot on the list is a disappointing change; most of that comes from the one really bad start for Tim Lincecum referenced above.
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 LaSalle 49 44 0 0 0 Army 53 50 17 0 0 Auburn 60 10 503 0 0 Jacksonville State 60 35 764 0 0 Jacksonville 54 47 3909 0 0 Cincinnati 55 39 4359 0 0 Northern Iowa 54 24 7993 0 0 Mount St. Mary's 45 32 9063 0 0 Texas A&M 55 45 10901 0 1 Butler 54 46 11176 0 0 Kent State 53 41 11466 0 1 Miami, Florida 60 44 12392 0 0
Auburn repeats once again, with their lowest total since I've been tracking; That's interesting given the coaching change; I don't have a full explanation, but it's encouraging.
A Quick Word about the New Pitch Count Estimator
When I first came up with the pitch count estimator in 2002, I only had around 700 actual pitch counts to work with. Given that, it actually turned out pretty well -- using a much larger population of 11,000 or so counts from the 2003 and 2004 season, the correlation of the original version of the formula with the actual counts is actually almost as good as anything new that I can come up with (.9202 versus .9208, for those of you scoring at home).
Even with that confirmation, though, I'm replacing the formula, because I've found that I made it more complicated than necessary last time. It turns out that only three factors really affect accuracy -- batters faced, walks, and strikeouts, so here's the new version:
EPC = 4.70 + 2.56 * BB + 1.97 * SO + 2.84 * BF
This one has the advantage that it's simple enough to be able to approximate in your head: 5 plus 2 /12 per walk plus 2 per strikeout plus three per batter works pretty well.
News
There's a really good news article from Will Kimmey at Baseball America this week; I'll let you go read that yourself as we try to figure out what it all means.
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. In response to a request I've had, a list sorted by PAP is linked in from the team report.
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