MESA, Ariz. — Scott Emerson has heard the argument that pitchers should throw fewer innings in 2021 after an abbreviated 2020 season. The Oakland Athletics’ fifth-year pitching coach is not ignoring it.
He just doesn’t subscribe to its reasoning.
The way Emerson sees it, that line of thinking is incomplete. It lacks what he believes is critical evidence, something he thinks there is no way to collect until after the upcoming season is over.
“There’s no data,” Emerson said on Tuesday. “Someone would have to really give me some data to support why we should look into guys not throwing as many innings as they did in [2019].”
The A’s starting pitchers are expected to be ready to throw roughly 100 pitches by Opening Day and the organization has been preparing them to do so through simulated games against A’s hitters.
Ramping up towards what is expected to be a full 162-game season is a potentially daunting task for pitchers who are coming off a season in which the league played just 60. It’s the kind of process that requires the proper amount of monitoring from coaches and training staff and one that the A’s are undergoing with the help of metrics compiled from the abbreviated schedule.
If a pitcher is struggling to maintain his velocity in comparison to what he threw a year ago, the Athletics are taking note and caution.
“What’s great is we have the Statcast information and we have the Trackman information,” Emerson said. “We can compare that information to last year.”
That’s how the San Francisco Giants are approaching this spring, too. They are using the data they have available to them from last year and comparing it to the data they are collecting in Cactus League outings, bullpen sessions and simulated games.
Giants manager Gabe Kapler said that those tools — Trackman, Rapsodo and Statcast — can help create an environment that is equally as intense as Cactus League action when used correctly.
That has allowed the Giants to be in no rush to have pitchers such as Johnny Cueto, Kevin Gausman and Anthony DeSclafani make their spring training debuts. As a matter of fact, left-handed pitcher Alex Wood is the only potential member of the Giants rotation who has appeared in a spring training game this year.
Similarly, no potential A’s starting pitcher has seen Cactus League play yet and Emerson said they won’t until the week of March 8. That doesn’t mean they aren’t preparing to play. It’s a line of thinking shared by the A’s and Giants.
“For a pitcher, build-up can occur in side sessions, it can occur in live batting practice sessions, it can occur in games,” Kapler said.
Wood, who owns a 3.45 career ERA in eight MLB seasons but hasn’t recorded one below 5.00 since 2018, has appreciated the Giants’ spring strategy. Because of their analytical approach, he said he’s learned a lot, too.
“Baseball has really taken a deep dive into analytics and how to get answers to questions we’ve never had answers to before,” he said. “How to use it to your advantage, how to use it to the players’ advantage and to build your repertoire, how you want to attack hitters. It’s been amazing.”
The extra layer of security provided by analytics is not the only thing Emerson believes he and other teams have working in their favor when it comes to getting their pitchers ready for a full season’s workload without restriction.
Emerson’s pitchers — and many other throughout the league for that matter — were throwing throughout the pandemic before baseball returned to play. Emerson said it’s something the fans may not even realize because it hardly appeared on TV and there was no way for them to track the innings.
“It wasn’t like they took a year off,” Emerson said. “These guys were pitching in the summertime whether it was at their local facilities and throwing. I feel very confident in our guys going out there (in 2021).”
There’s plenty to consider when it comes to getting a pitcher ready for the season, especially after such a bizarre schedule in 2020 that disturbed routines and prevented any MLB pitcher from recording more than 90 innings pitched. For Emerson, though, the focus remains the same. In a lot of ways, so does the strategy.
“Getting to the mound fresh is what we want them to do,” Emerson said. “That’s every year. Managing their workload not only in the game but in the bullpen and especially with relievers, monitoring their work in between and talking to them and seeing how fresh they are. That’s the No. 1 goal.”
The process of achieving that is well underway for the A’s and the Giants. Both teams are proceeding with whatever caution they believe to be necessary, though neither organization sees a 2020-induced barrier in their way.
“We’re treating this season like any other 162-game season and I think that’s how it should be,” Emerson said.
