The Johnny Cueto Experience

Johnny Cueto was very good in 2014. By traditional metrics, he was excellent: 20 wins, 242 strikeouts in 243 2/3 innings, a 2.25 ERA and 0.96 WHIP. By more advanced metrics, he was good but not quite that good: 3.30 FIP, 3.21 xFIP, 3.15 SIERA. Per FanGraphs, Cueto had 4.1 WAR, ranking him 14^th among pitchers. Baseball-Reference had Cueto with 6.4 WAR, which placed him 6^th among pitchers. No matter how you look at it, Johnny Cueto was good in 2014.

Johnny Cueto threw 3659 pitches during the regular season last year, making him one of only six pitchers to throw 3500 or more pitches. [NOTE: for this article, I’m only using major league regular season pitches thrown.] Cueto is not a big guy for a pitcher. He’s listed at 5’11, 215. The other five pitchers to throw 3500 or more pitches last year were David Price (6’6”, 220), Corey Kluber (6’4”, 215), James Shields (6’3”, 215), Max Scherzer (6’3”, 220), and R.A. Dickey (6’3”, 215). Of these six pitchers, Cueto had the greatest increase in pitches thrown from the previous year.

So, based on his high pitch total last year and low pitch total the year before, should we be worried about Johnny Cueto in 2015?

Let’s start with the high pitch total. Using the Baseball-Reference Play Index and the FanGraphs Leaderboards, I gathered some information. The following chart shows the number of pitchers who threw 3500 or more pitches each year going back to 2000, along with the average number of pitches thrown per pitcher in their high-pitch year, the average number of pitches thrown by those same pitchers in the following year, and the difference between the two.

YEAR N	# of Pitchers >3500 pitches	Avg Pitches Year N	Avg Pitches Year N+1	Difference (N+1)-N
2000	15	3664	3202	-462
2001	17	3617	3213	-404
2002	13	3614	3028	-586
2003	9	3609	3132	-477
2004	8	3651	3332	-319
2005	8	3679	3390	-289
2006	7	3648	3437	-211
2007	8	3606	3175	-431
2008	8	3624	3254	-370
2009	6	3646	3499	-147
2010	13	3621	3514	-107
2011	11	3661	2965	-696
2012	2	3693	3675	-18
2013	6	3600	3402	-198
TOTAL	131	3635	3256	-379

 

As you might expect, pitchers who throw 3500 or more pitches one year are likely to throw fewer pitches the following year. That’s the nature of regression to the mean. To throw 3500 pitches, a pitcher is likely to be having a good, healthy season. Things happen in baseball and it’s difficult for any group of pitchers to have back-to-back good, healthy seasons. Some are going to get injured and some are going to pitch worse and pitch less. In this case, the average difference was 379 pitches. Over the last fourteen years, pitchers who throw 3500 or more pitches one season have averaged 379 fewer pitches the following season. These days, 379 pitches is about 3 or 4 starts.

What about performance following a 3500-plus pitch season? The following chart shows how pitchers who threw 3500 or more pitches in one season performed in the following season.

Years	Pitchers >3500 pitches	Better ERA+	Worse ERA+	Better K%	Worse K%	Better BB%	Worse BB%
2000-2013	131	42%	58%	37%	63%	52%	47%

 

Once again, keeping in mind regression to the mean, it’s not surprising to see that these pitchers were worse the following season. Looking at ERA+, 58% of these pitchers were worse in the year following their high pitch total year. The majority (63%) also had lower strikeout rates, but improved walk rates (52% improved their walk rate in the year after their high pitch year).

More specifically, the following chart shows the difference in innings pitched (IP) and runs allowed per 9 innings (RA/9):

Years	Year N AVG IP	Year N+1 AVG IP	DIFF	Year N RA/9	Year N+1 RA/9	DIFF
2000-2013	228	205	-23	3.87	4.08	+0.21

 

Over the last fourteen years, pitchers who threw 3500 or more pitches in one year averaged 228 innings pitched that year. In the following year, they dropped to 205 innings pitched, a difference of 23 innings (this matches up well with the 379 fewer pitches thrown). In their high pitch count year, these pitchers had an RA/9 of 3.87. The following year, their RA/9 went up to 4.08, an increase of 0.21 RA/9.

Is this bad news for Johnny Cueto and the other five pitchers who threw more than 3500 pitches in 2014? Not really. I’ve mentioned regression to the mean a couple times. Based on regression, we would expect these pitchers to pitch fewer innings and have a higher RA/9.

With this in mind, here is a look at these 131 pitchers and their innings pitched and RA/9 in the year after they threw 3500 or more pitches compared to their Marcel projections for that year. Thanks to The Baseball Projection Project, I was able to find Marcel projections going back to 2001. The following chart shows each pitcher’s next-year Marcel projection for innings pitched and RA/9, along with each pitcher’s next-year actual innings pitched and RA/9.

Years	Year N+1 Marcel proj. IP	Year N+1 AVG IP	DIFF	Year N+1 Marcel proj. RA/9	Year N+1 RA/9	DIFF
2000-2013	194	205	+11	4.05	4.07	+0.02

 

Over the last fourteen years, pitchers who threw 3500 or more pitches in a season were projected by Marcel to pitch 194 innings the following season. They actually pitched 205 innings in that following season, for an increase of 11 innings over their Marcel projection.

When it comes to performance, we find that these pitchers averaged a 3.87 RA/9 in their high pitch total season and were projected by Marcel for a 4.05 RA/9 for the following season. They actually had a 4.07 RA/9 in the following season. It’s a very slight increase of 0.02 RA/9, which shouldn’t be anything to worry about, really.

So it would appear that throwing 3500 pitches in one season should not be a big cause for alarm. The pitchers who have done this recently did not perform any worse than their projections would have expected.

With Cueto, though, there was that other thing that worried me—his large increase in pitches thrown from 2013 (953 pitches thrown) to 2014 (3659 pitches thrown).

With this in mind, I looked at the 131 pitchers in this study to find the pitchers who had the largest increase in pitches thrown from one year to the next. I set the limit at no more than 2000 pitches thrown in the year prior to that pitcher’s 3500-plus pitch season. There were only 10 pitchers, including Cueto, who threw fewer than 2000 pitches in one season and more than 3500 pitches the next season. That screams “small sample size!”

Unfortunately, there is a problem with even this group of comparable pitchers—they aren’t very good matches for the Johnny Cueto Experience. For example, one of them was Barry Zito. Zito only had 92 2/3 innings in the major leagues in 2000, the year before he threw more than 3500 pitches, but he also pitched 101 2/3 minor league innings that year, so there really wasn’t a big increase in the number of pitches thrown from one year to the next. He gets eliminated. The same is true for Steve Sparks, Roy Halladay, Randy Johnson, Noah Lowry, and Adam Wainwright, all of whom had additional minor league innings that would push them over the 2000 pitch limit. Unfortunately, that leaves very little to work with—just three pitchers (Woody Williams, Roy Oswalt, and Chris Capuano).

Pitchers	Year N AVG IP	Year N+1 Marcels AVG IP	Year N+1 AVG IP	Year N RA/9	Year N+1 Marcels RA/9	Year N+1 RA/9
Williams/Oswalt/Capuano	226	182	217	4.07	4.18	3.95

 

These three pitchers did throw fewer innings in the year after their 3500-plus pitch year, but to a lesser degree than the group as a whole and they pitched more innings than projected by Marcel. Also, this group actually improved their RA/9 in the year after their 3500-plus pitch year and were much better than their Marcel projection.

Based on throwing 3500 or more pitches, it doesn’t appear there’s anything to worry about with Cueto. Based on such a large increase in pitches thrown from one year to the next, we don’t really know because there just haven’t been many pitchers allowed to do that over the last 14 years. My gut still tells me to be wary but the numbers don’t see a problem.