Baseball legend Randy Johnson rips apart modern-day pitchers
Randy Johnson had a Hall of Fame career back in the days when starting pitchers were worked harder than a team of Clydesdale horses pulling a cart.
And if the manager had to show up when you were in a jam and get in a fresh arm, it was usually at a point so dire that they might as well have called them relief pitchers because they made the starters finally say “what a relief.”
So of course Johnson’s having none of baseball’s modern trend toward five-inning starts, tight pitch counts, and bullpen-by-committee games where the starter goes five and four relievers pitch one inning each to finish the game.
Johnson believes starting pitchers aren’t being given the chance to pitch their way through a jam after about the second time through the opposing lineup.
“If they are only pitching five or six innings and something gets a little tough, they’re allowing the bullpen to come in and clean up their mess,” Johnson told USA Today. “That’s where I learned how to pitch. I didn’t learn how to pitch by watching the bullpen come in for me after five or six innings and cleaning up my mess … that’s just my opinion.”
Chicago Cubs General Manager Jed Hoyer, meanwhile, pointed to modern baseball analytics as rendering obsolete the long outings of Johnson’s day.
“With four full-season affiliates and huge signing bonuses and guaranteed contracts, no one is able to take that risk with their pitchers. Nor should they,” Hoyer told The Athletic.
After all, with Tommy John surgeries on the rise, it seems like the casualty rate for young pitchers’ elbow ligaments is barely better than the casualty rate for soldiers in a World War I trench,
York also points out that a nine-inning complete game today isn’t the same as one from days of yore either.
“The game was simply different. When you were pitching a complete game, you might be throwing 100 pitches, 105 pitches,” Hoyer said. “Guys swung at the first pitch, guys hit the ball on the ground, they sacrifice bunted a lot.”
In 1991, Rickey Henderson led the majors in pitches per plate appearance with 4.34. At the other end of the scale, Ozzie Guillen faced just 2.85 pitches every time he stepped up to bat.
This year, more than 50 players have faced at least four pitches per plate appearance, while Andrelton Simmons stands dead last in that stat with 3.25.
Plenty of other factors are playing into increased pitch counts — more strikeouts means more hitters facing, by definition, at least three pitches, and an increased emphasis on walks means lots of guys looking at ball four.
It all adds up to pitchers doing more work in five innings than they used to do in seven or eight.
Once again using 1991 as a baseline, Jack McDowell led the league in complete games with 15. He and Roger Clemens, the top two guys, combined to go the distance 28 times.
So far this season, there have been only 25 complete games pitched in all of Major League Baseball.
Meanwhile, changing baseball roles have created a whole new generation of star-caliber players. Arizona’s T.J. McFarland is one of those guys who can come in with the entire third trimester of a game still yet to be played and give opposing hitters fits as they adjust to a new pitcher in the game just as in the old days they’d be facing a starter for the third time and getting their timing down against him.
As a result, the Diamondbacks have the third-best bullpen ERA (2.85) in the big leagues.
“In terms of my role, I don’t want a starter to only go four or five innings, but that’s why I’m here, to be able to bridge that gap,” McFarland told USA Today. “When you look at good teams that are in first place and going to the playoffs, there’s three or four guys in the bullpen that are shutdown guys. So starters don’t necessarily need to go that long.”
What’s perhaps most interesting of all is the effect this has had on pitchers’ win-loss records.
Starters who only pitch five or six innings leave a lot of control over the game’s final outcome to the three or four relievers that might end up finishing the games from their bullpens. As a result, 20-win seasons — the old benchmark of how good a starter was — are so rare that serious baseball analysts hardly give any credence to wins and losses as being reflective of a pitcher’s true abilities.
Johnson may be lamenting the decline of a role he filled so well during his playing days, but the stats say the bullpen-by-committee is here to stay, an essential part of baseball strategy, and a fine way for guys who used to be used only in no-hope situations becoming worthy of big money as teams need bullpen depth more than ever.
And if it puts Tommy John surgeons out of work and shortens disabled lists for starting pitchers? I think most owners and general managers would say that’s a very good thing.
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