[quote]LankyMofo wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]LankyMofo wrote:
[quote]therajraj wrote:
If that’s true, I’m surprised how sharp a drop his abilities took. He was insanely dominant in 2011.
I expected a long slow decline.[/quote]
I was hoping for a long slow decline. With our starting pitching staff, if he could pitch consistently with a 3.5 ERA we could still be somewhat competitive as a team. If he’s out there averaging 4.5, we have a serious problem. [/quote]
I wouldn’t worry too much about it. For one, control issues creep up quite often in Spring Training. I didn’t see any video of his outing, but I suspect he was missing by just a little as a result of nibbling. Sometimes, a pitcher has poor velocity that day and tries to compensate by staying a little further off the corner than normal, falls behind a lot and has to challenge hitters more when they find themselves behind in the count. With diminished velocity, it’s tough to challenge hitters when you’re behind in the count without getting pounded.
If he goes in for an MRI or his next start gets pushed back by more than a couple days, I might start to worry. But there are times when a pitcher just doesn’t have anything going at all that day, even guys like Halladay. Apparently he was down around 84-86mph, which is low by anyone’s standards other than Barry Zito’s. But if he was just fatigued today yet still only gets back up to 87-90 he can be a very effective pitcher.
One thing that happens when velocity dips is that movement increases. Assuming the control thing is just an aberration (and with Halladay’s track record we would be remiss to consider it anything but an aberration) he can still succeed at a slower velocity. Maddux did it his entire career. Halladay has the sort of pitch arsenal where it won’t be hard at all for him to make that sort of adjustment if he has to.
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You know more about baseball than I do, but given his very recent history I’m very concerned. If we were talking about a young stud I’d defer to your knowledge, but we’re talking about a 35 year old guy who has been a work horse his entire career, was injured for a major portion of last season and even when he was pitching, was not very effective.
If anyone can pull it off, it’s Halladay, his work ethic and willingness to do what it takes is legendary. I just can’t help but feel the man’s body is hitting a wall.
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He might be hitting a wall. But keep in mind that his injury last year was a strained lat, not a rotator cuff/labrum issue or anything to do with his elbow. Something in the rotator cuff or the elbow flexor would be cause for serious concern. I think his struggles are more likely a result of being rusty and essentially having to do “redo” his Spring Training in the middle of the year when he returned. It’s one thing to work into pitching shape in the offseason and going into Spring Training. It’s a totally different animal to work into regular season pitching shape IN the regular season against guys who already have a couple hundred plate at-bats under their belt. I think that at least partially explains his high walk total compared to his last several full seasons.
I would just be surprised if he really is done as an effective pitcher. Will he round back into form and be the Halladay of the last several years? Maybe, maybe not. I still think he has a few very solid years left in him. It’s just really rare to see a guy go from the top of his game to totally washed up in just a year or so, especially at the age of 35. 35 isn’t young by any means, but it’s not ancient either.
I guess when all is said and done, I think it’s way too early to say that this is the beginning of a sudden end to his effectiveness. All the innings that he’s accumulated over the years aren’t that indicative of a big workload at all, either. Keep in mind that even though he’s thrown at least 220 innings 7 times in his career, he’s only pitched in one postseason and he’s always had exceptionally low walk totals each year, which keeps his pitch count much lower than most pitchers. 220 innings’ worth of pitches for Halladay is probably like 190 innings’ worth of pitches for most others.
