Will we ever see another full season of Clayton Kershaw?
craig44
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in Sports Talk
I think we have seen his last full season. next year will be his age 34 season. he has not had 30+ starts or 200+ innings since 2015. It seems he had a more severe arm injury than was reported. He will end up missing over 2 months this season.
It seems mid 30s is not the time when most pitchers become more durable.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
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200 innings is a thing of the past. In 2019 only 5 NL pitchers threw over 200 and none of them were over 210.
32-33 starts also seems to be the most guys are getting, so Kershaw's 2019 was certainly a full season with 28 starts, just 5 fewer than the most he's ever had, and his 137 ERA+ was very good.
He had 10 starts last year and the most anyone had was 13. His ERA+ was 198 and he had the 2nd best WHIP among the starters who got Cy Young votes.
Hopefully his elbow problem is not career threatening, but it does not appear he will be among the leaders in Innings pitched from this point on.
The era of specialization has eliminated high innings pitchers along with a lot of things. 5 innings is the target.
No matter what your diet and training methods are they haven’t come up with the secret of saving pitchers arms
"I spent 50% of my money on alcohol, women, and gambling. The other half I wasted.
something has changed of late. whether it is overuse of youth pitchers, weight training, lack of long toss, poor mechanics, I dont know. I do know it was not that long ago that pitchers were able to start 35 games and throw 220+ innings.
these were not all Maddux, Glavine and Moyer types either.
Max effort guys like R. Johnson, Clemens, Schilling, K Brown, and others were able to pitch every 5th day and average 7 innings+
Even Verlander, who is a max effort guy, averaged his 35 starts and 200+ innings.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
think they are babied too much. work horses are work horses because they work. day in, day out. gibson, ryan, niekro, pedro. list goes on and on. these guys threw. day in, day out. no pitch count. no getting yanked in the middle of a no-no or shut out just because some spreadsheet said “its time”.
have we seen a "full season" from Kershaw in the past 5-6 years??
no, we have not seen a full season from Kershaw since 2015 I believe.
even if we lower the bar to only 30 starts and leave innings out of it, He hasnt done that since 2015
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Verlander isn't a max effort guy. He routinely throws harder in the 7th/8th/9th inning because he doesn't put forth max effort earlier in games.
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The bar has already been lowered and will probably never be raised.
Every guy you mentioned is retired. ****It's OVER.****
Pitchers don't decide how many starts they get, or how many innings they pitch anyway, so why criticize them for it? It's the manager who removes them from the games, probably under strict instructions to do so.
Here's three starters that I am familiar with that have played for the Twins in the last few seasons;
Jose Berrios, since 2016 he's had 32 starts twice and pitched 200 innings once, and just barely at 200.1 in 2019.
Jake Odorizzi, since 2014 he's had at most 33 starts (once) and never pitched over 187.2 innings.
Kenta Maeda, had his most starts and innings pitched in his first season (2016) with 32 starts and 175.2 innings.
All three were at one time "top of the order" pitchers, so they should be getting the most starts and innings pitched.
I then looked back at the Twins pitchers since 2010 and only three guys (other than Berrios) pitched over 200 innings during that entire time.
Carl Pavano twice in 2010 (221) and again in 2011 (222).
Phil Hughes in 2014 (209.2).
Ervin Santana in 2017 (211.1).
It's over.
To further illustrate that point, the 2019 Angels very nearly became the first team to have NO ONE throw 100 innings. Trevor Cahill ended up leading the team with 102-1/3. No one else reached 100.