It has been a bittersweet season for fans of great young pitching (and let's be honest, who isn't?). Some of the game's top starters are barely out of nappies, as Matt Harvey and Jose Fernandez have been dominant in the NL East, Shelby Miller has been superb for the Cardinals, and even Clayton Kershaw is just 25 (how scary is that?). At the same time of course, we have seen how fragile pitchers are. Top prospect Dylan Bundy hurt his elbow before throwing a single regular season pitch and had to be shut down to have Tommy John surgery earlier this year. And in a cruel blow to the Mets, Matt Harvey tore his UCL last week and may have to follow Bundy down the path to surgery. These injuries serve as a constant reminder of how pitching is a violent activity, and regardless of impeccable mechanics, superb conditioning and strict pitch count control, pitchers can get hurt on any pitch.
So should this change the way we treat pitching prospects? Young players, particularly those drafted out of high school, tend to spend three or four seasons in the minor leagues. On many levels, this makes sense, as hitters and pitchers can adapt, improve and learn whilst facing similar competition. Young players just aren't skilled enough to play at the highest level. For the most part, this is true. However, Jose Fernandez has proven this season that playing at every level in the minor leagues isn't necessary to be an impactful major league player. Fernandez hasn't just held his own, he's been the best rookie in the Major Leagues this season, despite throwing a handful of innings above single-A. Actually, Fernandez hasn't just been one of the best rookies this season. He's been one of the best pitchers outright, with incredible ERA, WHIP and strikeout numbers, made more impressive by the fact he is just 21 years old.
Of course, Fernandez is the exception, rather than the rule, but the point stands. Should top pitching prospects be hurried to the Major Leagues so that they don't waste their innings in the minors? With the exception of a few pitchers (Verlander, Buehrle, Ryan etc.), all pitchers break down at some point, suggesting that there are a finite number of innings an arm can throw. Rather than throw 200 or 300 innings across three seasons in the minor leagues, prospects could throw 150 of those in the Major Leagues. Perhaps their command won't be fully refined and the breaking pitches will lag behind the fastball, but innings in the minors generates nothing for a team, whereas in the Major Leagues they will be productive, even if they're not as dominant as they could be.
After Bundy went down with injury earlier this season, much was made of the fact he threw an extortionate number of pitches in high school. Whilst there is nothing Major League teams can do to combat this, they can promote their pitchers to the big league club earlier, perhaps in a bullpen role to start with (as the Cardinals frequently do). Whilst these pitchers still have plenty of learning to do, they would be providing value with their innings, rather than using them in the minors where they don't help the team. The issue might not be as poignant for the top prospects, because guys like Strasburg, Gerrit Cole and Fernandez likely only throw a couple of hundred innings in the minors anyway as they are fast-tracked to the big league club. But prospects like Tampa Bay right-hander Chris Archer work away in the minors for years (Archer racked up 770 innings in the Minor Leagues before this season), and every pitch they throw could potentially lead to an injury that ends their career or drastically reduces their effectiveness.
Prospects, and particularly pitching prospects, tend to be wrapped in bubble-wrap and carefully tended well into their careers, as innings limits, pitch counts and better conditioning has become much more prominent in recent seasons thanks to high-profile blow-outs that occurred to talented youngsters like Mark Prior and Kerry Wood. And whilst these have undoubtedly contributed to a general reduction in arm injuries, the point still stands that pitching is dangerous and violent. Perhaps teams could learn a lesson from Miami (that sounds odd), and begin to promote their pitching prospects earlier, to ensure that they can gain as much value as possible from the finite number of innings an arm can throw.
In the mean time, let's hope for a full and speedy recovery for both Bundy and Harvey, because they make baseball much more exciting when they play. And let's continue to appreciate how incredible pitchers like Buehrle are (2,851 innings and counting), never mind once-in-a-generation work-horses like Nolan Ryan (5,386 innings in his illustrious career), because the truth is, every pitch can lead to a disastrous injury.
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