Snobs vs. Slobs

From the if-you’re-shocked-about-this-you-haven’t-been-paying-close-enough-attention department, Mark Prior cut short a throwing session Tuesday because of soreness in his shoulder, and is leaving spring training today to go see a specialist in Los Angeles.

We’ll talk about the Tribune Company’s less than admirable smoke-and-mirrors act that attempted to keep this injury under wraps and the generally sleazy nature of the PR machine that is the Chicago Cubs in a moment. First, let’s discuss why this injury probably really shouldn’t surprise anyone.

The Same Old Story: Pitcher Abuse Ignored

In my pitchers and catchers preview I discussed the Baker/Hendry regime and the pattern of their overlooking the importance of pitch counts for young pitchers. Dusty Baker is a notorious abuser of starting pitchers of all ages, but has been particularly abusive to the Cubs’ young starting pitchers. Baker has had one or more of his starting five in the top ten in Baseball Prospectus’ Pitcher Abuse Points since he took the helm of the Cubs in 2003:
2003: Kerry Wood (3rd), Mark Prior (4th), Carlos Zambrano (10th)
2004: Carlos Zambrano (3rd) (Wood, Prior both hurt this season)
2005: Carlos Zambrano (2nd), Mark Prior (3rd).

Prior was just 22 years old when he was 4th in baseball in PAP in 2003. He averaged 113.4 pitches per start, the most by any pitcher in baseball. He made just 21 starts in 2004 because of injuries. Coincidence? I don’t think so. It’s easy to forget when you’re watching his 6’5” 230 pound frame create them purty mechanics and laser-straight fastballs, but Prior was only 22 and should have been protected from throwing so many pitches in a game. Consider that before the 2003 season, the most pitches Prior had ever thrown in a season (college or pro) was 167 2/3 innings between AA, AAA and the NL in 2002 (and that total was 30 more innings than he had ever thrown in a college season). In 2003, Prior threw 211.3 innings – 43 2/3 innings more than he had ever thrown in his career – and that’s before factoring in the 2003 postseason, which added 23 1/3 innings more to his workload. And, again, he averaged more pitches per start than any other pitcher in all of baseball. The Cubs simply threw him into the fire after it was clear he was ready for the big leagues, and throughout the course of the 2003 season, had him throw 67 innings more than he had ever thrown in a season in his career. Including the postseason, prior threw more than 230 innings in 2003. At age 22. Did I mention he was only 22?

Last season, Prior finished third in total pitcher abuse points. Only 24, he was still at an age when his pitch count should have been restricted. That Prior finished third in pitcher abuse points last season is particularly remarkable considering: he made only 27 starts last season, and every other pitcher that finished in the top five made at least 32; and, if you’ll recall, a big part of the the reason he only made 27 starts is because he got hit in the pitching arm by a line drive.

You can interpret that information however you like, but this is how I’m going to interpret it: Dusty Baker basically crammed a season’s worth of pitcher abuse into Prior’s 27 starts. After Prior returned from getting hit in the pitching arm by the line drive, Dusty eased him back in. Sort of. Prior threw 71 pitches in his first outing back from the injury, 82 pitches in his second outing, and 102 in his third outing on July 7. From then on Prior didn’t throw fewer than 100 pitches until August 30, when he gave up 3 runs in six innings against the Rockies and was pulled after 94 pitches. In the ten starts he made in that stretch, Prior averaged 114.4 pitches per start and had a 131 pitch outing. Considering the injury he had and the fact that it was on his pitching elbow, that seems nothing short of insane to me. If I were managing the Cubs I would have restricted Prior to 110 pitches maximum for the rest of the season; but then, if I were managing the Cubs, I probably would have restricted Prior to 110 pitches maximum until his 27th birthday.

It’s easy to criticize Baker (and to a certain extent, Hendry) for his complete ignorance of the importance of pitch counts, but the reality is that pitchers get injured so frequently that Prior may have had these injuries if he had come up through any organization. Let’s not forget that Prior also had problems out of spring training last year and didn’t make a start until April 13, in spite of pitching just 119 innings in 2004. It is possible that Prior is just fragile and injury prone. However, the Cubs certainly haven’t helped themselves by throwing Prior into the middle of the fire every time they have had him healthy. One problem is that the Cubs have the ultimate “Yeah, but” on their team in Carlos Zambrano. Every time someone talks about pitch counts, Baker can merely point to Zambrano and say, “Yeah, but he’s never gotten hurt.” Of course, this is ignoring the fact (a) Carlos Zambrano is an extreme exception to the rule and (b) that Kerry Wood, a notoriously abused pitcher at an even younger age than Prior, has habitually fought arm problems, too. I believe that Prior is headed down a similar career path as Wood in terms of his durability, and I believe that at the end of the day, the blame for their continued injury problems (as well as those of Angel Guzman and probably other young pitchers in the Cubs system) has to fall squarely on the shoulders of the management team. I’m not saying the Cubs aren’t doing some things right in developing their young pitchers – after all, they did manage to have Prior, Wood and Zambrano healthy for one season. However, it seems pretty obvious to me that they’re doing more wrong than right in the realm of injury prevention.

To give an example in contrast: The Oakland Athletics are devout in the monitoring of their young pitchers’ pitch counts, and their track record of keeping their young pitchers healthy is practically the polar opposite than that of the Cubs. From 2001 through 2004, the A’s had 30+ start seasons from young pitchers:
2001: Hudson (25 years old, 35 games started), Zito (23, 35), Mulder (23, 34)
2002: Hudson (26, 34), Zito (24, 35), Mulder (24, 30)
2003: Hudson (27, 34), Zito (25, 35), Lilly (27, 32), Mulder (25, 26)*
2004: Mulder (26, 34)*, Zito (26, 34), Harden (22, 31), Hudson (28, 27)

Not only did the A’s put together two consecutive seasons of their big three young starters staying healthy (something the Cubs have not yet done), but when their young starters did get hurt, they managed their workload in such a way that they could come back and be more effective the following season (*- see Mulder 2003-2004).

You’ll also notice that Hudson, Zito and Mulder were all consistently healthy enough to make 30 or more starts three out of four years (or in Zito’s case, four out of four years), and that all three of them made 26 more more starts for four years in a row. That’s the kind of track record the Cubs would kill for right about now.

Baseball Prospectus did not start tracking Pitcher Abuse Points until 2003. But, unsurprisingly, the A’s pass the PAP test with flying colors. In 2003, Zito was the only one of their starters to finish in the top 30 in PAP (24th), and he averaged 107.1 pitches per outing. Hudson finished 31st in PAP, averaging 102.5 pitches per game. Mulder finished 57th, averaging 100.9 pitches per game. In 2004, two A’s broke the top 30: Zito (13th), averaging just one more pitch per outing – 108.5, and 22 year-old Rich Harden, who finished 22nd and averaged 101.8 pitches per outing. Hudson finished 31st again, averaging just over 102 pitches per outing, and Mulder scooted up the list to 36th, averaging just under 100 pitches per outing. You’ll notice that the A’s never let any of their starters breach the top 10 in PAP, let alone having two of them in the top five (a feat that Dusty Baker has accomplished twice).

What does this mean for the Cubs’ season? I guess it depends on what your expectations are. If you believed (for whatever irrational reason) that Prior and Wood could make 30 starts apiece this year and that the Cubs could contend for the division crown, then I guess you’d better change your expectations. I haven’t believed for one second that was going to happen this year, so my expectations (79-84 wins, 3rd or 4th place finish) haven’t gone anywhere.

The Same Old Song and Dance: The Cubs’ PR Machine

I’m not sure what’s more disturbing – the fact that the Cubs don’t really seem to have any handle as to how to manage their young pitchers, or the fact that they covered up this injury in such a way that would have made both George W. Bush and Richard Nixon proud. It’s not like it’s a secret that the Tribune Company owns the Cubs. It is no secret that the coverage of the Cubs in the Tribune sports page or on Cubs.com will give you about as much insightful, unbiased coverage of the team as a piece of Soviet propaganda would have given you of the Stalin regime. But this was a new low for the Tribune company. Presumably forseeing that leaks about Prior’s shoulder problems would eventually come, Cubs.com published this article on February 18: “Winter illness, not arm, slowed Prior; Ace merely taking it slow, confident he’ll be ready for opener:”

Mark Prior had yet to throw a bullpen session after three days in the Chicago Cubs camp, but the delay has nothing to do with his elbow, shoulder or any other part of his arm.

Really. Honest. We promise.

The article continues with the Official 2006 Mark Prior Scapegoat of the Spring:

Prior is behind the other pitchers, workout-wise, because he was sick at the end of December and knocked out for about two weeks. How sick? He had to go to the emergency room at his local hospital.

“One morning, I woke up and I couldn’t swallow or breathe very well, so that’s why they rushed me to the [emergency room], and I had a CAT scan and stuff,” Prior said Saturday.

Ooohhh, I see. Prior is behind not because his shoulder is messed up, but because of a respiratory infection. That makes sense. Until you find out that Prior had said respiratory infection in December. I’m not a doctor, but it seems pretty unlikely that a respiratory infection would still be affecting his ability to, you know, throw a baseball with his arm (not his lung) two full months later.

Shockingly, it turns out the Tribune Company might have been somewhat disingenuous when they told the Cubs’ loyal fans there was nothing wrong with Prior. Leaks of Prior’s shoulder problems first came from the reliable keyboard of Baseball Prospectus’ Will Carroll two days after the aforementioned story appeared on Cubs.com. Said Mr. Carroll in his February 20 Under the Knife Column:

You can’t have spring training anymore without pitcher problems or at least rumors of said problems. Those usually start with the Cubs, and this year is no different. Reliable sources—the same ones that tipped us early to Mark Prior’s Achilles problem—now tell us that Prior is having shoulder problems. The Cubs deny this and point to Prior’s work on the mound. Prior was doing towel drills on Saturday, but this is the same type of work he was doing last year when there was a problem. According to our best sources in Mesa, Prior looks “weak and sick.” Until he throws, we just won’t know, though I’d like to believe Larry Rothschild. (Emphasis mine)

Later that week, Cubs.com published two different stories, both emphasizing Prior’s health. The first, on February 23, “Healthy Prior to be more aggressive,” all but scoffed at the idea that Prior might not be healthy:

In his short career, he’s been rumored to be traded twice, prepped for Tommy John surgery and this spring was reported to be “weak and sick.”

“In this day and age, if you can put something in some realistic or plausible scenario, eventually something will stick or might stick,” Prior said. “If it makes enough sense, people might believe it.”

Way to toe the company line and deflect those rumors, Mark.

The Tribune Company was ready to strike back, too. The same day, February 23, the Tribune Company published an article by Teddy Greenstein that attempted to discredit Will Carroll. The headline of the article was “Meet the source of Prior’s pain.” This is funny because it implies Carroll was the source of Prior’s “pain,” when really, it was his shoulder.

Carroll said his source is not affiliated with the Cubs—no surprise there—but “is someone who knows what Prior does in the off-season. Not just Prior, but a couple of players.”

Fair enough, but Carroll’s credibility came into question after he acknowledged Wednesday he didn’t know the source in March 2004, when word of Prior’s Achilles’ tendon injury first surfaced. Carroll searched his personal archives before realizing he never had written about the Achilles injury before the public knew about it.

Oh, snap! You show him, Teddy Greenstein! Poison that well! Discredit that pseudo-journalist! He made a mistake in referencing something he wrote two years ago! If one of his sources was wrong, all of them must be!

How interesting it is that now that we find out that Will Carroll was right all along, we’re not hearing a peep out of Cubs camp about Prior’s respiratory infection anymore. Hmmm…. How very interesting, indeed.

The Tribune Company ought to stop trying to suppress the truth. If Prior is injured, somebody is going to find out about it and proclaim it to the internet, which will just start the rumors a-flying. What good does it do the Tribune Company (and, for that matter, the Cubs) to suppress the truth? So they won’t have to face the inevitable hailstorm of media scrutiny? This is the Chicago Cubs, the third most popular team in the country in the third largest media market. There is always going to be a hailstorm of media scrutiny. What are they afraid of? Losing ticket sales? The Trib should stop this smoke-and-mirrors nonsense and address all rumors truthfully – after all, “if it makes sense, people might believe it.” When Mark Prior hasn’t thrown all spring because of a respiratory infection, it doesn’t make any sense. When Mark Prior hasn’t thrown all spring because of a shoulder injury, it makes a lot more sense.