More evidence Dusty Baker set the Cubs back 5 years

Jaydee1978 — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 06:20:30 -0000

There's a FanShot that already addresses this Jeff Passan article in Yahoo! sports, but I figured this could use both a "what if" analysis and some lively discussion about the 2003 Cubs rotation abuse.

The section of the article that nauseates me is the following: "You’d hope so, though the universal consensus is that Cubs manager Dusty Baker abused Prior at the end of the 2003 season simply because he knew no better. In Prior’s last nine games, including three in the playoffs, he logged the following pitch counts: 131, 129, 109, 124, 131, 133, 132, 115, 119. House believes the overuse by Baker doomed Prior."

Looking @ Prior's gamelogs from 2003 (courtesy of Baseball Reference), during all 9 games, Prior left with the lead (including NLCS Game 6). By taking out 0.2 or 1 inning of work per game from Prior's arm, you come up with these pitch counts: 112, 104, 109 (didn't modify), 104, 97, 117, 113, 88, 95. Assuming the bullpen would've held up the lead, one could say that those extra innings worked (and subsequent pitches thrown) were unnecessary. One extra and probably related note on the extra pitches thrown--Prior seemed to inflate his pitch count right before he got pulled (he threw 34 pitches alone in the 8th inning on 9/21)

For you Wood fanboys, here's his pitch counts the last 10 games of the season (including postseason): 125, 120, 122, 114, 125, 122, 124, 117, 109, 112. Again, taking out 0.2 or 1 inning of work, you could come up with these pitch counts: 109, 96, 107, 114, 100, 95, 98, 106, 109, 100. Modifying Wood's workload was much more difficult--he pitched a CG shutout during the 2nd 122 pitch game, and a few of those games were either in doubt or losses.

Moral of the story: overusing your golden arms does NOT create a Braves-like dynasty; just a lot of heartache & millions of dollars wasted. All comments are appreciated.

Rooftop Flags

Jaydee1978 — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 06:53:35 -0000

Rooftop Flags

Can anyone provide a link or a list where of all the flags flying on Wrigley's rooftop? I've been wondering this for a while now...

SB Nation User Blog: Jaydee1978

More evidence Dusty Baker set the Cubs back 5 years

Rooftop Flags

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