I don’t know yet what to think of Nolan’s involvement. I don’t necessarily think it is bad simply because he is involved – it seems a little early to make that call right now. While I believe that he should leave JD in place, because he’s done a good job in talent acquisition, I’m not as enamored with the development side of the organization. Basically this team cannot develop pitchers. I cannot get mad at tinkering if it needs to be tinkered with.

As for the strategy itself, I think it probably is a good move. Texas is widely considered one of the hardest places to pitch. People always say the heat wears down our pitchers as the year goes on more than other teams, and I’ll admit that I kind of see how that could be true. The question is what are you sacrificing to push your talent in this way?

It probably all amounts to playing the odds. By limiting pitchers in low levels, you probably keep most of them healthy all the way through the system, but few, if any, will develop the durability to be effective starters in Texas (though they may make very nice trade chips to other teams). On the other hand, pushing guys more at lower levels will almost certainly cause more injuries – we’ll likely lose at least one and maybe two of Beavan, Main, Feliz, Ramirez and Font – but those that do persist may develop the ability to go deep in games and not falter in the Texas Summer.

Now, is that ethically the right move? Who knows. Strategically? For this organization, I think you have to seriously consider it. I also think that it means you need to adjust your draft strategy accordingly – find pitchers who have shown durability in college so that you aren’t shocking their system by doubling their workload all of a sudden.

...when you suggest Nolan Ryan might not possess all the answers to all the important questions and problems that the Rangers (or any other team for that matter) have.

Surely you are aware that on the seventh day, when God rested, he turned over his duties to one Lynn Nolan Ryan Jr.

...any real way for Nolan’s “decree” to not be troubling.

decree that Ryan sent forth? All I really recall is a TV or radio interview where someone (Lavine?) said that minor league managers did not have to hold their pitchers to a strict pitch count. They could allow their pitchers to exceed the pitch count based on game conditions, etc. I think people are making something out of this that is not there.

...I don’t think Nolan, as a personel guy, is what the team needed. Nolan as the president, ok, i can deal with that… but when every year you are either hiring a new manager, gm, or team president, at what point do you give them all to get on the same page and follow a plan though for more than, say, i dunno… 12 months…

Nolan scares the $hit outta me as a personel guy and for the exact reason ajm says… what worked for him isn’t necessarily gonna be right… and in a place where he walks on top of rose petals and bare virgins backs, who’s gonna tell him that what he’s saying is a bad idea if it is one?

Was this a Ryan gut feeling “pitchers need to be pushed to more innings” with no data to back it up…

or has he in the past seen studies or done research that would back up this philosophy.

Well if we have a few pitchers that start blowing arms out, then Ryan is setting himself up to be majorly critizied.

But on the other hand, not only did he have high pitch counts, rotations were also smaller… so he had a lot of innings pitched, as well. In 1972, he pitched 284 innings, in 1973 it was 326 and in 1974 it was 332 2/3. In those three seasons, he pitched 20, 26 and 26 complete games out of 39, 39 and 41 starts. He pitched 12 seasons of 220 or more innings, which now is considered to be freakishly durable. The point is as much as high pitch counts in a game can be bad, high pitch counts in a season are what leads to fatigue, etc. and wanting pitchers to go 100-110 pitches every time out, up to 120 on occasion, still won’t approach the season-long cumulative pitch counts Nolan racked up.

If you can get your starting pitcher to still be strong after 100-110 pitches, instead of being gassed, the benefits are that your bullpen is less taxed, and relievers that do enter the game are put in better situations since pitches 105-110 are thrown for strikes instead of ending up out of the zone or in deep left field.

I wouldn’t think Ryan is out by himself on an island in his thinking here. Ryan has been at this game a long time. That does not necessarily mean that he knows it all about developing pitchers, but it probably does mean that he has access to the opinions of a lot of very well respected longtime baseball men, whether inside the organization, or externally. I can’t think that his many years within the industry in several different capacities, he hasn’t bounced these ideas off of many pitching coaches, scouts, other pitches, and front office personnel. It is probably an opinion developed over time. I would like to think it is an opinion he developed from past experience and through other’s experiences. I agree that just because he is Nolan, that it doesn’t mean that his words are gospel, but at the same time, he is an intelligent person who has been very successful in many areas of his professional life, and someone who has spent many years observing the evolution of the way pitchers are handled, and that can’t be written off. He is in a unique position with the club in that this is a job he wants to do, and not a job he needs. He, unlike the majority of general managers, scouts, player development personnel etc can afford to do some minor experimentation with things such as this and not be worried about his job. Would it seem like the end of the world to him if he messed up here? Probably not. He would move on to other things that he has been successful at. That is not the case with most others in charge of a major league baseball team. Most would probably fear losing that job or that position, and would be afraid to ever go out on a limb and take a chance if they thought the move might backfire on them. I doubt Ryan has those worries. Also, from what I have read, I don’t see this as Ryan saying that he wants the Ranger’s pitchers throwing X amount of pitches per game as much as it is overall conditioning of the pitchers, which would in turn allow those pitchers more stamina to go deeper into the games. I don’t think he is advocating any Cy Young/Babe Ruth type pitch counts as much as he is trying the get the theoretically best pitcher in the game (the starter) to stay in the game longer so to skip the weaker middle relief. Arm injuries are going to happen whether the pitchers are coddled or not, although I do believe there comes a point where over working them is detrimental, but it also may be possible that less injuries will happen if the pitchers are better overall conditioned. It may also be possible that we have more effective pitchers when they get here. I like the plan that Ryan is implementing. I don’t know if in the end it will be beneficial or not, but with the Rangers track record, it might not hurt to try.

While i agree that maybe building pitchers up to work longer (stamina, etc) isn’t an all around bad idea…. working young pitchers into high pitch counts just seems like a sure fire way to get a buncha guys recovering from TJ surgery.

I also don’t like the idea of the team president setting club policies like this, nolan may have been a great player but that doesnt mean he knows how to develop great players

to open up.

It would be great to have the local media ask some of the questions AJM is asking. Especially a question like, could JD not implement this idea if he felt the consensus of the developmental staff were against the idea.

I think, though, that Ryan as the messenger has more effect on the minor league pitchers. So, it is important to distinguish between a groupthink decision delivered by Nolan, and a decision decreed by Nolan.

Sure is a big turnaround from the Fuson days with the tandem starter system.

how much power should someone with no real experience in terms of developing players and overseeing on-the-field baseball management be given?

Do you feel that JD has more experience in the realm of player development?

They have still done things like start Castillo in the bullpen then move him to the rotation to limit innings, and we have not heard about any pitchers being left out there way too long, the only exception perhaps being the no hitter.

Beyond some vague comments I’m just not sure there is a “there” there.

What part do the Snow Monkeys play in his pitching development plan?

I think Adam covered most if not all, of the “what ifs” to this edict-someone tossed in the idea that there might be an attempt to build durability -maybe some merit, but “built” durability can be done also in other than game conditions. My thoughts on pitch counts:
-does it include warm up pitches before the game? before each inning? how much does this vary? (and consider starting vs relief pitchers). What about in-between game workouts and pitches. And how does this schedule(today’s schedule, which has to be variable for each pitcher), compare with with the workouts of 30-40 years ago? And of course, it’s not significant most of the time, but pitchers field their position and throw to different bases-included in the pitch count?. If there was an accompanying “plan” to build stamina along with pitching later into games, I could go along with it—but doesn’t sound like it.

What was his minor league career like?

I don’t have the internet know how, or frankly the care, to research it but simply by looking at his career stats it doesn’t look like it was very long. He was drafted in the 12th round in ‘65 out of high school and made his ML debut the next year.

Also the example I think of is Bill Parcells. Back in the 80’s and early 90’s Parcells was a great coach who’s style of game was great. Fast forward to the early 2000’s and he didn’t adapt to a changing sport and his game was not successful anymore. Thats what I see with Nolan. He was a great pitcher in his time and did things most people couldn’t ever or will never duplicate. But the game has changed so much since then. The players, both pitchers and position players, are bigger, stronger, faster, etc. Back in Nolans era there wasn’t the kind of specialized pitchers in relief and so Nolan would pitch deeper into games. Nowadays we have loogys, setup men, closers. The absolute best HS pitchers generally take 3 years minimum to even make it to the bigs. Much less 12th round draft picks.

What scares me is him coming in here and trying to implement his old school ways on a new school era of players and because of his aura of invincibility with the public and with Hicks it will happen. He needs to focus on getting butts in seats at The Ballpark. Do a few more commercials and radio spots and leave the player development to the guys who have been around the game the last few years

That’s the question. If Nolan said all pitchers need to go 100 or 110 pitches, that’s bad (Hunter’s statement seemed to indicate this, but we need more info). But if Nolan removed a sub-100 pitch edict, that’s good. In fact, it would the complete opposite of what AJM is worried about – in that situation, Nolan is empowering the lower level managers and coaches to make their own decisions on whether to let someone go past 100. It would be the removal of top-down decision making and would let the people in the trenches to use their own knowledge and experience.

Another thing I am wondering is does this mean there are no more inning limits on pitchers. For the past several years I have read and heard about they want to hold so and so back so he doesn’t pitch too many innings. There have been studies that show if a young pitchers increases their inning totals by more than 30 (I think) a year they are more prone to injury. So does this edict or supposed edict from Nolan mean we have stopped caring about inning totals? I look at Hunter being 2nd in the minors in IP and Beavan pitching into the 7th inning several times so far including his very first pro start this year and think to myself there is no way those players do the same thing in this organization before this year.