Yeah, professional athletes don't do the South Hills. Maybe the new pickleball courts on Baptist Road will start to sway them, though. Pretty sure Minkah, Highsmith, and the fellows like to do that at North Park.
Skenes had a no-hitter through 7 and they took him out?
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Yeah, professional athletes don't do the South Hills. Maybe the new pickleball courts on Baptist Road will start to sway them, though. Pretty sure Minkah, Highsmith, and the fellows like to do that at North Park.
I know or Dodger. So what. This is a college football board. Pitt never, ever has a player over 5 years and now with NIL as we saw with Jordan Addison, we are going to essentially be the Pirates when we get someone really good. So let's move past that.
Yea, but if you are the Pirates, you really dont have a need to protect his arm. He is a 5 year player. Unless you think a few extra pitches is going to blow him arm out in 5 years, you ride him. Who cares if his arm is dead for the Yankees? He had a no freaking hitter going!
Why do the Pirates have to protect him? He isnt going to be here long and he has very little wear and tear on his arm at this point. Wasnt he not even a pitcher early in college. I'm not saying you make him throw 100+ pitches every game but lets be reasonable. At least have him complete a no-hitter. Hypothetically, he could have only thrown 6 more pitches to get the no-no. And if it was 40 more, so what?
The roads arent good enough. There have been Pitt coaches who lived in the South Hills but I cant think of a pro athlete since the Pens moved out of Southpointe.
The Succos got to make sure Skenes stays fresh for when they get that mega trade offer from the Yankees or Dodgers.
Because he's here now and he's their top investment - to jeopardize his health because "he isn't going to be here long" is asinine and foolish!
Why should the Pirates care what his arm is like in 5 years when he's in NY or LA? Seriously, why? Because its a friendly thing to do? He has an expiration date here.
The longer they have him, the less he's going to bring back in a trade. So, ideally, you trade him after Year 2 or maybe Year 3. Throwing an extra 20 pitched last night wasnt going to blow out his arm. Why do I have to be in charge of everything?
I'd have probably sent Skenes out for the 8th, simply because the sixth and seventh were so easy for him. He obviously wasn't laboring at that point.
However, are we sure Justin Verlander is the guy we want to use as a comp here? Yeah, Verlander threw a lot of pitches in a no hitter late in the 2019 season. And then in the 2020 season, Verlander pitched a grand total of six innings. And then in 2021 he pitched a grand total of, well, zero innings.
Of course no one knows, or has any way to know, if there is any causation there. But that's kind of the point. No one knows. Which is why teams are so cautious.
And by the way, for the people blaming "analytics", there is no analytic basis for any given pitch count number. But if there were, it almost certainly would not be a nice, round number like 100.
This is another one of those things that you are absolutely sure about, when in reality you have no idea what so ever.
It's not just one night they are worried about. It's collectively they want to keep is value as high as possible.
This doesn't make sense. So break it down for me;
They kept him at 100 pitches, so does that mean they can get a HOF-level player for him in a few years?
If he threw 110, does that mean they get just an All-star level player for him?
If he threw 120, does that mean they get just a good starting field player?
If he threw 130 pitches, would it have decimated his arm to the point, he had very little value?
Let the dude try to get the no-no. That's one of the biggest thing in all of sports. He's essentially a rental player anyway.
It means they can tell the Yankees he has always stayed below x pitches per game/week. Then douchebag Nutting can get a bigger return for his bank account.
Right but how much less will the Yankees offer if he threw 30 extra pitches this ONE game in his career? That's the whole point. If he stayed below a pitch count every game in his career except one where he had a no-hitter going, will the Yankees offer less? I mean, the answer is OBVIOUSLY no. Right?
But its one game. The Yankees arent going to offer less if he went over his pitch count one time. Protecting his arm for the Yankees and preventing his no-hitter was clearly the wrong move. I am right here. There's not even a debate. 1 game wasn't going to bring less value for him in a few years.
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You can throw Johan Santana in the conversation as wee, he was all of 31 when he refused to exit.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying as well. Even if 100 isn't inherently "the number," it has sort of became the number by virtue of it being what these guys are usually limited to/used to maxing out at.
Might by some exception for Skenes if he was throwing over 100 regularly at LSU as someone mentioned, but I'm speaking in general.
Which conversation?
The one where just like Verlander, Santana didn’t pitch the entire next season because of a pitching injury?
Or do you mean the conversation where a pitcher that has already made $100,000,000+ decides to take a chance to get in the history books?
The odds increase of an injury every time he goes above a certain amount of pitches. It was the wrong move competitively speaking, but Nutsac doesn't care about that. He wants to maximize his chances of a big return.
I think it's become "the number", as much as it has become that, because it's easy. It's harder to watch a guy and say hey, he might be putting up zeros today but he's getting hit hard and he's really laboring, 85 or 90 is probably enough today, whereas it's easy to say, 85, hey, we can send him out for another inning, but woah, 97, we better take him out, with no further thought than that.
Verlander threw his first no no at age 24. 112 pitches. Second at age 28. 108 pitches. Look at Nolan Ryan and his age and pitch count for each of his SEVEN no hitters. Ryan had a 235 pitch game, and his opposing pitcher Luis Tiant went 14 innings in the same game. And those guys were back on the bump 3 days later.
Skenea is a tremendous prospect. But he has a whole lot more work to do before he gets mentioned in the same sentence as Verlander or Ryan. I get the logic in pulling him. But I disagree with it. Let him finish unless he’s in trouble or showing significant fatigue. Manager said he was tired, but that’s what he has to say if he’s pulling him in the midst of a no no.
are you actually arguing that Verlander, who threw 3 no hitters, at 24, 28 and 36, missed most of two seasons to injury because he was allowed to stay in and finish his last no hitter when he was 36 years old?
Skenes is a rookie and just making his bones. If he becomes the type of pitcher Verlander was when Verlander reached year 3-4, the next time a manager comes out and tries to pull him in the middle of a no no, he’ll tell the guy to get his ass back in the dugout, and the guy will comply. He’ll throw 130 pitches and not break a sweat doing it.
I had the pleasure of watch watching Verlanders 3 no hitters. In the second one, the closer he got to the goal, the higher his velocity went. He was hitting 102-103 on his fastball after 105 pitches like it was nothing.
This makes two times now that the most secure manager in professional sports (Derek Shelton) took away an opportunity for Paul Skenes to possibly pitch a no-hitter. WHY? What are they trying to save him for? I've heard Shelton say, they want him to be ready for "meaningful" games in August and September...WHAT??? This is Pittsburgh and like it or not, the Pirates have a history of not playing "meaningful" games tat late in the season. Shelton should be ashamed for taking away those two chances from Skenes.
Nolan Ryan is literally an all time outlier as a pitcher. If you have to use Nolan Ryan to make an argument, hey, Nolan Ryan did this, why can't everyone do it, then you've already lost the argument. Back when Nolan Ryan pitched people didn't pitch like Nolan Ryan. There's a reason for that.
Pretty much none of the other guys throwing back then threw as hard as Ryan did, or as hard as Skenes does, or, quite frankly, as hard as your average, run of the mill pitcher does today. Guys could throw more pitches back in the day because they did not throw nearly as hard, and they did not throw maximum effort on nearly every pitch. If Paul Skenes wanted to throw more pitches in a game he could dial things back, and instead of throwing 98-100 regularly he could throw 92-94. He'd could certainly throw more pitches that way. And he'd certainly be less likely to get injured that way.
Of course he'd also be easier to hit that way. Which is why he doesn't pitch that way. And neither do most other pitchers.
Verlander's first no-hitter finished the 7th with 93 pitches thrown (6 less than Skenes when he was pulled after the 7th).
Verlander's second no-hitter finished the 7th with 82 pitches thrown (17 less than Skenes when he was pulled after the 7th).
You say to look at Nolan Ryan as if he's not one of the best pitchers to ever play the game and a medical marvel. That's like entering a conversation where people are discussing budgeting for their kid's college tuition and using Bill Gates as your example to compare against.
Verlander who readily admits that pitching is on a different level now than his first few seasons in the league. Comparing pitching mechanics being used now to what Nolan Ryan was throwing is absurd. Pitchers are throwing way harder, their spin rates are much higher, and the lower release points are putting more strain on elbows. And Skenes has one of the lowest release points in the MLB among high velocity pitchers (think he's like 3rd lowest).
The three highest factors that have been shown to predict UCL injuries are Innings pitched, velocity of average pitch, and low points of release. Skenes is near the very top in two of those categories through the MLB, it would be ridiculous to subject him to the third in his rookie season.
Verlander who readily admits that pitching is on a different level now than his first few seasons in the league.
Not sure what you mean to say with this--are you suggesting that present day starting pitchers throw harder than a young Cy Young winning Verlander, who came out of the womb throwing 100? Or who finished his second no hitter at age 28 throwing 102-103 in the 9th inning with well over 100 pitches under his belt?
I acknowledge what Joe said about Nolan Ryan--he was a freak, one of a kind. there is no comparison to him. In fairness to that side of the argument, Verlander probably has some of that in him too, I remember Jim Leyland describing him as having a "rubber arm". You need to be a physical freak to routinely top 150 pitches and occasionally 200 like Nolan. You don't need to be a physical freak to occasionally throw 125. But you would probably need to take a week off and rest, which would have been easy to do for Skenes with the All-Star break, he would only thorw one inning at most in the AS game and could cruise thrrough that with his warm up stuff.
I see both sides of the issue and I'm not outraged like many by the decuison to pull him, but again, unless Skenes was laboring, I'd have left him in. The odds that he will be pitching for the Bucs in 3 years are virtually zero anyway.
Not sure what you mean to say with this--are you suggesting that present day starting pitchers throw harder than a young Cy Young winning Verlander, who came out of the womb throwing 100? Or who finished his second no hitter at age 28 throwing 102-103 in the 9th inning with well over 100 pitches under his belt?
I acknowledge what Joe said about Nolan Ryan--he was a freak, one of a kind. there is no comparison to him. In fairness to that side of the argument, Verlander probably has some of that in him too, I remember Jim Leyland describing him as having a "rubber arm". You need to be a physical freak to routinely top 150 pitches and occasionally 200 like Nolan. You don't need to be a physical freak to occasionally throw 125. But you would probably need to take a week off and rest, which would have been easy to do for Skenes with the All-Star break, he would only thorw one inning at most in the AS game and could cruise thrrough that with his warm up stuff.
I see both sides of the issue and I'm not outraged like many by the decuison to pull him, but again, unless Skenes was laboring, I'd have left him in. The odds that he will be pitching for the Bucs in 3 years are virtually zero anyway.
Skenes is a 22 year old professional athlete, he should be strong enough and in good enough shape to throw however many pitches he needs to in a given game. The pussification of professional athletes in this country has gotten so far our of hand it is ridiculous. What next for the Pirates? Do they start to monitor the number of steps that Bryan Reynolds has taken in a given game? Nolan Ryan at the advanced age of 25 was threw 20 Complete Games in a season. Followed that up with throwing 21 or more Complete Games in four of the next five seasons. Amazing how an old man like Ryan could do that, huh??? I doubt if the Pirates entire pitching staff will throw more then 5 the entire season.
I am willing to bet that if Pual Skenes (or any other MLB pitcher) had a no hitter going after 6 or 7 innings, they would want the chance to do something memorable and be given the chance to try and finish up what they have started.
The reality of it is, Derek Shelton has the most comfortable and secure job in not only MLB, but all professional sports. He manages a baseball team that has an owner that has little interest in trying to win a championship. A team close to the .500 mark, will get Shelton an extension. If his team ever ends up above the .500 mark, he will be given a lifetime contract.
We all know that talented players like Skenes, O'Neill Cruz and even Jared Jones (this one hurts the most because that means his girlfriend will leave as well) are just here temporarily and that their future teams like the Yankees, Braves, Astros and Dodgers will be very happy that the Pirates protected their future players.
