Priority: Pitching

Outside of Juan Soto's record contract with the Mets, most of the action this offseason has centered around starting pitchers.  There were two big free agent signing with Blake Snell going to the Dodgers and Max Fried joining the Yankees.  There was also the trade with Garret Crochet changing the color of his Sox.  We've even seen less-heralded starters cash in big, such as Luis Severino's deal with the A's.  And teams signing relievers with the intention of turning them into starters (Clay Holmes to the Mets).  There are plenty of big names still on the board, too, so we haven't seen the last big-money contract for a starting pitcher this offseason.

The old adage is "you can never have enough starting pitching," which some teams are clearly taking to heart.  The Dodgers had about nine starting pitchers on the roster last season, yet still somehow didn't have enough and ended up with only three healthy starters in the postseason.  Even with those guys set to return next season, they still went out and got Snell, who was arguably the best free agent starting pitcher available.  And they locked him up early, too.  It was right around Thanksgiving.  (Although, there's no doubt Snell not wanting to repeat what happened to him last off season was a factor in that.)

Of course, there's a huge irony surrounding this sudden focus on starting pitching.  They're paying even No. 2 or 3 starters ace-type money, which indicates that quality starting pitching has never been more valuable.  Meanwhile, less is expected of starting pitchers than ever before.  In many cases, they're expected to get you through five innings once every five days and that's it, then it's a parade of hard-throwing relievers (who get burnt out from overuse by September). 

You would think that with the financial investment that's being put in, starting pitching is the priority.  And, in a way, it is.  Teams like the Dodgers stockpile starters because they know how important it is to not need to get 12 outs from your bullpen every game, and they want to make sure they have enough in case of the inevitable injuries.  But, it's still interesting to see teams spending so much money on starters when they'll still utilize the formula and only ask the starter to give them five maybe six innings.

This obviously doesn't apply to all starting pitchers.  There are still a handful of legitimate aces who'll pitch until you literally have to take the ball out of his hand.  And I'm sure there are plenty of starters who'd love to go longer into games if only their teams would let them.  Maybe that's what we're about to see with all of these starters getting big contracts.

All of this coincides with the release of MLB's report about the abundance of pitching injuries.  The timing was obviously a coincidence, but maybe the report's findings will further influence the pitching market.  Because the results, while not surprising, were telling.

It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the main cause of these injuries is the increased focus on velocity over the past 15 years.  Fastball speeds have consistently gone up.  So have the injuries.  It's a fairly obvious correlation.  The emphasis on maximum velocity has resulted in guys throwing as hard as they can on every pitch before another hard-thrower comes in.

"Maximum velocity" doesn't just apply to fastballs, either.  The average speed of sliders, curveballs and changeups have all risen, too.  That has also helped contribute to the abundance of injuries.  Spin rate and movement have become just as important as velocity in this era of pitch tracking.  So, there's an emphasis on "stuff," with curveballs, sliders and changeups also being thrown at max effort every time.  Which puts stress on different parts of the arm every pitch.

While this next point makes total sense, it's also pretty telling that pitching injuries peak in early March.  It's in the ramp-up to Spring Training or the start of Spring Training itself when most of them occur.  So, obviously, those offseason training programs are a contributing factor.  Once the season starts, the number of major injuries that result in missing significant time are far lower, and they remain steady throughout the season.

That was actually discussed at the Winter Meetings (and has previously been brought up within the baseball medical community).  Because it's sort of a catch-22 situation.  Offseason pitching programs are a part of the problem.  Pitchers aren't using the offseason to give their arms a break.  But, at the same time, the offseason is when you want to tinker or learn a new pitch.  So, finding a solution will be difficult.

Another thing that's obvious, but was also mentioned in the report as a part of the problem is that it's not isolated to the Major Leagues.  Not even close.  It's the same thing at lower levels and has even made its way into amateur baseball.  Major League teams look at velocity and stuff, so that's how pitchers are being trained all the way up now.  Go all out for shorter stints.  Which is why we're seeing the same injuries to pitchers at all levels.

Both problems are interconnected.  The increased focus on velocity and max effort at all times is a contributing factor (perhaps the contributing factor) to the injuries.  And the idea of going all out for a shorter amount of time before going to the bullpen is why starters aren't expected to go much longer than five innings.  They don't do it on their way up through the system.  They sometimes don't even do it at the amateur level.  So, it's not that they can't throw more than five innings or 100 pitches.  It's that, with the way the game is being played at all levels these days, managers don't let them even try.

Which brings me back to the contracts we've seen pitchers sign this offseason.  Is this the start of a sea change?  Is the emphasis going to be brought back on getting length out of your starter?  After all, you're paying these guys millions of dollars because they're supposedly the better pitchers.  So, wouldn't you want your better pitchers pitching as often as possible--both in the game and more frequently?

Because, otherwise, these pitching contracts don't make much sense.  Don't get me wrong.  I think there's a massive amount of value in quality starting pitching.  It does make a difference.  Just ask the good teams that have deep starting rotations.  So, top-line starters are absolutely worth it.  Now if they'd just be allowed to prove that they're worth their contracts and pitch more than five innings in a game!