Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
September 13, 2005
Pitchers and Aging

Chris Jaffe presents a long and excellent article on pitchers aging patterns at Baseball Think Factory. One part I'd on which I'll comment:

So just to recap - from 1876 to the 1980s baseball went many changes - the pitchers were moved back twice, given a mound, lost the spitball and shineball, had several eras of high- scoring offense, and low-scoring deadness. It survived two world wars and other, smaller conflicts. It integrated, adopted night baseball, conquered the minor leagues, went to airline travel, coast-to-coast leagues, and paid grown men to put on silly looking costumes and serve as mascots. Yet throughout all this turmoil, one consistent held true: fastballers started earlier, got up to speed quicker, entered their prime earlier, peaked earlier, and - through at least the first stages of decline - performed considerably worse than junkers.

Then came the 1980s. Now absolutely none of that is true. The exact opposite is going on. Sure. OK. Why not? What the hell.

Ideas? Explanations? I'm empty folks. Not a clue. I can throw a few things out - the 1980s is associated with the rise of the split-fingered fastball. Does that have something to do with it? I dunno. Pitch counts? (shrugs). Maybe. You know what though? None of these really explains it because there are two separate things going on - not only are fastballers aging better, but everyone else is aging worse. How the heck does the rise of the splitter cause curveballers to pitch worse at age 34? It's the damnedest thing.

I would suggest weight training may be the cause of the shift. Weight training helps the pitchers throw harder longer, and healthy, strong muscles can stand more wear and tear. Just like weight training helped batters hit the ball farther, it makes sense that the same type of training keeps pitchers younger longer.


Posted by David Pinto at 05:15 PM | Pitchers | TrackBack (0)
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