Amaroq
Posts: 1100
Joined: 8/3/2005 From: San Diego, California Status: offline
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athkatla, The concept of a 'pitch count' is a relatively recent innovation, based on some medical research that has found that over-use of youth pitchers can lead to an increase of injuries and arm problems for them as adults. A number of youth leagues now have a mandatory 'pitch count limit', e.g., if your pitcher has thrown 60 pitches, you must immediately remove him; he may not throw a 61st pitch. In modern major-league baseball, there is no mandatory 'pitch count'. Some teams have a management philosophy which relies on them, and our broadcasters have really picked up on it so they're always talking about it on TV; I think the majority of teams are not using the concept on a regular basis for their starting pitchers, because you will management talking about a player coming back from injury say "We had him on a pitch count today..." which seems to imply that they wouldn't on normal days. The average starting pitcher in MLB does throw right around 100 pitches, and the belief is that beyond that his performance is likely to drop off, sometimes disastrously. However, it is not uncommon to see some of your best pitchers throw 120, 130, or 140 pitches in a single outing. In PureSim, the 'limit' is intended to give you some sense for when the pitcher is likely to get tired, and seems to be based pretty much directly on the "Endurance" attribute. You might contextualize it as 'your pitching coach warning that the pitcher is past his "optimum performance" point.' Personally, I don't mind my top pitchers exceeding their 'limit', especially if the drop-off to the relief pitchers is pretty steep - I figure a 'tired' exceptional player is better than a 'fresh' mediocre one. Since I let the computer manager make the substitutions for me, I use the 'Hook' option on 'Player Usage Settings' screen to express my tendency for 'Very Patient' with my superstar starters and 'Patient' with my middling starters, leaving a shorter hook setting for my worst starters.
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