Reese Kaplan -- Let's Focus on Health Instead of Performance Metrics

There are both a great many ways to win ballgames and just as many ways to lose them.  Some of it has to do with the caliber of the players on your roster, some with their effectiveness executing on the field and some is just pure luck.  Another variable that enters into games is bad umpiring, something Buck Showalter has been prominent in challenging, nearly every time to his point of view.

We've all grown up watching teams who execute Little League fundamentals like the hit and run, hitting behind the runner, hitting against the shift and bunting the ball when they're giving you the free base based upon their overly aggressive defensive shifting.  Who can forget what it was like to face the old St. Louis Cardinals or Houston Astros who seemed to be bonafide experts in this type of baseball play?

Then there were the teams that lived and died by the long ball.  Earl Weaver was famous for his regard for the three run homer.  No one dislikes a ball flying over the fence when it is your team's player that hit the pitch, but there was a period during the steroid era and again recently when too many teams overly emphasized launch angle and the distance a ball travels while paying precious little attention to other aspects of the game.  

Now if your lineup resembled the Big Red Machine then you could get away with that approach, but when the power and RBIs are concentrated primarily on two players it's not likely a winning formula.

Just as you look at the ways to use offense to win games the same issues arise when it comes to defense and even more so to pitching.  How you position your fielders needs to be consistent with what your pitchers are capable of throwing.  It is sensible when you have a fireballer whose velocity renders pulling the ball a slim probability then dictates you should not be hugging the lines when the likelihood of a hitter getting in front of a pitch to drive it there is not a bet worth taking.  

Then you have the question of what type of pitchers does your team employ?  If you asked many folks what was Tom Seaver's greatest attribute they would rave about his ability to strike out batters.  Everyone likes seeing a pitcher dominate in that way, but despite his 10 consecutive strikeout feat and his 19 strikeout games that at the time set or tied records, for the most part he was a good but far from great pitcher if the only metric at hand was the almighty K.  

Many would be shocked to learn in his entire career he surpassed the 250 K mark just three times and the strikeout-per-inning-pitched mark just once.  Yet he stayed healthy and managed to notch over 3600 Ks during his long career.

Nowadays pitchers are schooled from the minor league level to throw it with maximum effort all the time which, correspondingly, coincides with the plethora or Tommy John surgeries and related stress caused to the arm, shoulder and wrist because baseball players in the past knew that unless they were named Nolan Ryan you didn't attempt to throw triple digit speed on every windup.  

Look at the Mets sad history with pitching injuries not just this season but in the several preceding it and you have to conclude that something's just not right.

Think about pitchers who have thrived for a very long time in the game without maximum velocity.  Big Bartolo Colon is a great example of someone who didn't always prevent pulling the ball with his velocity, but remained pitching well into his 40s based upon pinpoint control.  Then there are the pitchers who embrace non-standard pitching efforts like the knuckleball, the sidearm delivery or unusual positioning of the ball prior to releasing it.  

These types of techniques once mastered have led to some surprisingly good results without having to throw as if you're attempting to penetrate a wall with every single pitch.  

Ideally every baseball team should look back at the history of the game before there were personal trainers, computerized metrics and whatever the fad-of-the-week has been that is supposed to render a player more competitive than his peers.  How many of these things did players like Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Pete Rose, Bob Gibson, Steve Carlton or Phil Neikro embrace to prolong their careers and bolster their output?  It's likely not very much.  

So instead of trying to outdo the other teams in the division for the latest and greatest metric to enhance performance, perhaps a smarter approach would be to do what's necessary to ensure health and longevity.  How many teams can win when their best players are on the sidelines due to muscle strains, bone problems or leg issues all traced to an overly aggressive training regimen rather than focusing on staying in the lineup?