Nola

[msstate7]

Good grief he's good. Wish we had a true Friday night guy. Do Sexton, Tatum, or Hudson have a chance to be that guy?

[msstate7]

He's averaging 116 pitches per sec start. Is that irresponsible of college coaches to extend obvious big time prospects?

[smootness]

He's averaging 116 pitches per sec start. Is that irresponsible of college coaches to extend obvious big time prospects?

I don't think it's a big deal. They're pitching once every 7 days.

[Todd4State]

I think that Dakota Hudson, Austin Sexton, and Jesse McCord have a chance to be that type of a pitcher for us. We'll see how it works out- Woodruff and Lindgren have the stuff to be that type of a pitcher for us and it just hasn't worked out that way.

Throwing a guy 116 pitches isn't being irresponsible in my opinion. I was watching the Cardinals on MLB Network tonight and John Smoltz was talking about arm injuries. It's a hot topic right now in MLB. But he was saying- and I agree with him- that what we are doing with pitchers isn't working as far as limiting them. Dr. Andrew's came out with a program which was actually intended to be a rehab program and people have tried to make it a one size fits all type of deal- and it's just not that way.

I think it depends on the pitcher, how much effort he puts into his delivery, how he looks mechanically at the moment, how tall/big the pitcher is, whether he has an injury history and things like that.

So, no- I don't think what they did with Nola is irresponsible. He's going to get six days of rest as well to recover.

[dickiedawg]

I also saw on Sportscenter I think where Andrews said in a lot of cases the players could opt for less extreme measures but they want to go ahead and do the TJS because others have been so successful with it.

[smootness]

Throwing a guy 116 pitches isn't being irresponsible in my opinion. I was watching the Cardinals on MLB Network tonight and John Smoltz was talking about arm injuries. It's a hot topic right now in MLB. But he was saying- and I agree with him- that what we are doing with pitchers isn't working as far as limiting them. Dr. Andrew's came out with a program which was actually intended to be a rehab program and people have tried to make it a one size fits all type of deal- and it's just not that way.

Leo Mazzone is on the radio here in Atlanta, and this is the topic he gets most fired up about. His philosophy is that pitchers should pitch more often but exert themselves less each time they pitch. Basically he's saying that the two main reasons pitchers are getting hurt so much is a) a lot of guys are now max-effort guys where they're throwing as hard as they can at all times and using poor mechanics instead of taking a little off, not having quite the velocity but working on feel, movement, proper mechanics, and control; and b) guys are throwing less when they're not pitching, so they don't build up their arm strength and they also don't know how to pitch - they're just throwers.

He thinks pitchers should throw more consistently, pitch at 85-90% or so, and throw more innings, not less, so they can learn how to pitch and gain experience.

I think he's pretty dead-on.