Hellickson Pulled Early (UPDATE)
Jeremy Hellickson, Uncategorized July 29th. 2010, 11:25am[Update] Jayson Stark reports that the Rays are just “monitoring [his] workload”…That is fishy. Three innings is not “monitoring a workload.” That sounds more like somebody else might get traded and the Rays may need Hellickson to pitch this weekend.
[12:25pm] Jeremy Hellickson was pulled today after just 3 innings and 37 pitches. He struck out 4 and had not allowed a run. One person at the game said there was no sign of injury.
If Hellboy isn’t injured, one has to wonder if he is being traded or promoted (Wade Davis traded?).
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[...] be ruled out for the Rays top pitching prospect. 12:35 p.m. Eastern -Rays top prospect Jeremy Hellickson was pulled early from his AAA start. Could a Rays move be coming? 12:30 p.m. Eastern -The White Sox [...]
Just what being reported from GM Mike Birling:
A lot of twitter followers are wondering about Helly. He is fine. Just keeping his innings in check.
Yeah, that’s a load of crap. 37 pitches is not a workload issue.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Cork Gaines, Cork Gaines, Tampa Bay Rays Buzz, Dave Nichols, Lorenzo Cordoves and others. Lorenzo Cordoves said: RT @RaysIndex: Rays Index: Hellickson Pulled Early; Move Coming? http://bit.ly/c6x7uS #Rays [...]
Last I saw Dunn is still in the Nats Game…
if friedman trades hellickson for dunn, than we need to check him into a rehab asap.
Davis and Shields for Greinke!!
Grobsch, is that from you, or did you hear that somewhere?
It’s for me!! But Greinke is possible. KC is selling everyone these days.
Helly comes up. Davis goes to Houston. Oswalt to Phillies. Jason Werth to TB? or maybe a strong lefty in the pen? but im not sure who that would be.
il take davis and shields for greinke all day long please
werth is supposedly off the market…
Frankly, I buy the innings management stuff. Every reason to believe we’ll be in the thick of things come Sept. Managing his innings now (a) maximizes what we can get from him in Sept ala Price 2008 or (b) keeps him fresher should we lose someone to injury before then. I think all the sellers are asking way to much and we see no deals by Sat.
You could certainly be right. But if it was just trying to limit his workload, wouldn’t it make more sense to have him throw 60-70 pitches over several starts instead of 37 in one start? Or is his new pitch-limit 40ish? That seems too extreme.
Maybe moving him to 30-40 pitches is a plan to get him ready for 2-3 inning stints in Sept. One time through the batting order once per series helps keep Beniot and Soriano fresh. Admittedly, the timing is fishy and this is just a guess.
I am with Cork, no baseball manager would ever limit a person to 40 pitches and make that the regular plan. That is dumb. You try and limit his pitches that is fine have him through 60-70 because you still want to maintain his arm endurance. Having him throw 40 pitches is going to reduce that extremely especially for another month before the roster’s expand. You do not want to mess with the endurance of a pitcher. Let them have the endurance of a starter while limiting his innings and then pitch 2 innings of relief that is fine.
This is way too fishy for that simple excuse. 2 days before the dealine, they go, “oh wait lets limit his pitches by 60 per game”.. Hahaha I DO NOT think so!
And if we trade Hellboy for Dunn, I will be working my way down to the Trop after work to put Friedman & Company out of their misery
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I suppose it could have been a which ever comes first thing 3 innings, 50 pitches, or don’t start an inning w/ more than 35 pitches…
Okay, just making sure, that would an interesting deal just don’t know if the Rays would do a 2 for 1 with major leaguers… Plus I heard that Grienke tweaked something last time out, and it still doesn’t give us a bat…
The Key in Starks twitter post is his ‘source’ ruled out trade but didn’t rule out call up…
thanks, completely forgot to link to the Tweet…also, you are correct, it appears that Hellickson is not being traded. But the callup could be related to somebody else being traded. Although really, I’d still put it at less than 50% chance something happens. This move could very well just be preparation in case something happens.
That’s definitely a good point. The Rays might not do anything but may have something in place so naturally, they would want Hellickson to be ready.
This is all about the Hellickson in the bullpen, which is a great way to bring up guys who are on innings watches and help the big ball club. Nothing else to see here.
Lets make something very clear, no baseball mind in the industry ever would put an innings watch on a pitcher. It would be a term that maybe baseball people would use to the media to simply numbers for the uneducated public. It is all about pitch count.
Which pitcher has put more wear and tear in his arm:
The pitcher that pitches 4 innings and 110 pitches or the pitcher pitches 8 innings at 75 pitches. The answer is obvious, the former pitcher does.
Innings are an arbitrary measurement of the stress put on pitcher’s arm.
With that knowledge, the problem with such a drastic drop in the pitch count will deter from the pitching endurance that he has built up over the year. That is NOT prudent idea by the Rays, he can be a useful spot starter and reliever, let him pitch 60-70 so he could do both. With what they are doing they are going to limit him to an inning or 2. Each one of our starters could use a skip in the rotation, do you want to start Batting Practice Andy or Hellboy.
Look they know their pitchers better than I do, but what I do know is that they are limiting what Hellboy can do for the Rays in September that is dumb.
Aren’t all the studies on pitchers with huge jumps in their workloads done on an innings basis? Pitch counts are more of a game by game thing. Over the course of the year you assume an average inning is 16.5 pitches or whatever. The Rays didn’t limit Price to 20,000 pitches last year, it was an innings limit as I recall.
I don’t think Hellickson is better than any Rays starter today. They are using the Price model, which I like.
I agree with Gus. The metric on the full season they keep talking about is innings count for our young pitchers. I see John’s point about endurance, but I know I’ve heard JoeMa and Friedman talk about limiting Davis’ innings this year.
If by “all studies”, you mean one article written by Tom Verducci, then yes.
Maddon mentioned last week that Hellickson was a bullpen option. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see him this weekend against the Yankees. He would be the perfect antidote to the Swisher/Posada late inning problem. Maddon has said over and over that the only way they’re going to get past the Yankee hump is to beat them in the late innings. I think Hellickson may get a look in that role this weekend.
Sledge and Gus,
Listen, think and use common sense, innings are used for the media and common person. Open your mind and think. Innings mean nothing, it can not measure a single metric.
Maddon and Friedman talk behind close doors they will talk about how many pitches a pitcher has thrown on the season that is the only metric can determine the wear on a pitcher. It is common sense.
Innings are used to make the numbers more “common folk” friendly. They are not going to say to the media well David Price has a 3,100 pitch limit this year; sadly that is too difficult for the public.
Also when they say “I hope they reach 200 innings”, it is their hope that they are efficient enough to reach that innings goals.
If you truly believe that innings a metric of any type in terms of wear, then explain to me what innings as a metric would tell me? (Hint: You can not). Because if you do then you are agreeing that the pitcher with the 150 innings pitched had more work and wear on the arm than the pitcher with 100 innings pitched, which is obviously wrong. A pitcher throws pitches, not innings.
And if you still believe that innings is a metric that is used by baseball professionals behind closed doors then you are either unintelligent or just being simple minded and lazy. Just because someone says something to the media does not mean that it is what they use in real life, they dumb it down.
This is PR 101. When we had our team PR Rep, he always reminded of “KISS” when talking to the media. K-eep I-t S-imple and S-tupid
Talk down much? (over innings vs pitches no less… it’s not even advanced sabremetrics)
John S, you’re probably right, at least to an extent, I’ve heard Jim Duquette on xm talking about one season when the mets tried keeping track of bullpen pitches, and he said that was unprecedented… Even at that if their was an innings limit seems to me that it would be 5 not 3…
I was noticing earlier that Sonny hasn’t had an appearance since the 19th, it could be possible that the Rays are planning on DLing sonny retroactive and bringing up Hellboy for a week…
Sonny has options left, they wouldn’t have to DL him. My guess is Sonny demoted for Hellickson for a bit possibly. Sonnanstine hasn’t even been warming up lately for action, let alone being used in 10 days. Might just be for the weekend
John S,
Thanks for smartening up things for us. We were such idiots and you showed us the light. Can we follow you in your name as THEE baseball guru? Perhaps you have a sweet trademark or maybe you wear trendy glasses that we can sport ourselves in homage to our great wise leader!!!
Why make this an option year, when here hasn’t been sent down all year, and you can DL him for 4 days and have him right back?
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