Dusty Baker is famous for his savvy managing style and deep understanding of the game of baseball.  Okay, I had a lot of trouble writing that sentence without laughing/crying.  Dusty is actually more famous for his horrible, horrible misuse of pitchers.  After running the Cubs rotation into the ground during his time in Chicago, he has moved on to Cincinnati to ruin a another young talented staff in Cincinnati.

In Chicago, he completely ruined Prior’s arm, riding him into the ground.  Wood always had mechanical and injury problems, but after a few years under Dusty, his arm almost completely fell off.  He was moved to the bullpen where he has had some success but his arm was never the same.  Zambrano is a horse, but even his arm has been unable to withstand the Dusty effect, as he has had a penchant for breaking down the last few seasons in the second half.

While the big 3 of Prior, Wood and Z are remembered by most people, but what about the 4th pitcher in that amazing rotation that got eaten up by Dusty?  That’s right, I’m talking about Matt Clement.  He was a stud pitcher for the Cubs from 2002-2004 under Dusty.  He threw what seemed like millions of pitches, as Baker left him in way too long night after night.  He went to Boston in 2005 and had an all-star season.  Surprise surprise, his arm began a slow decline of injury and fatigue after that.  Now it appears Clement is retiring after shoulder problems:

Matt Clement’s comeback has come to a close. The veteran pitcher informed the Blue Jays on Sunday that he plans to retire from baseball after spending the past three years attempting to return from right shoulder complications.

Attaboy Dusty.  Good luck Edinson Volquez and Johnny Cueto.  Oh and a little piece of advice: If you are on pitch number 156 and struggling in the 7th inning, don’t hold your breath waiting to get pulled.  Dusty just wants you to reach back a litttttle farther to get that last out.  Oh and grab a bat in the bottom half of the inning, because you are probably going back out for 1 more.

ShysterBall had a post yesterday about the science of pitch counts, citing an article that suggested that teams should look a little more closely at how their pitchers tire during the game.  Sometimes a simple pitch count doesn’t tell the whole story.

However, the most interesting part of the post to me was a section that highlighted a couple of guys and their ridiculous pitch counts.  First was Washington’s Tom Cheney, who in 1962 threw a complete game…in 16 innings.  It took 228 pitches to get the job done.  That would make CC Sabathia blush.

The second example was Nolan Ryan, which was not surprising.  Ryan would routinely flirt with 200 pitches in a game.  He’d walk a lot of guys, strikeout others, and rack up huge pitch counts.

These kind of things are absolutely unheard of these days, in fact last year we all complained about how the Brewers were abusing CC by making him go for 120 pitches in a game.  Then you have guys like Harden who are almost sure injury cases when they pitch over 100 in consecutive starts.

Of course the change in the culture has its pros and cons.  It must have been awesome to watch a guy like Ryan simply never give in and reach back for a heater at 170 pitches.  On the other hand, guys like Harden wouldn’t exist in the majors.  The kid is a strikeout machine and after being pushed like that, he’d be out of the league within a couple years back then (or now if Dusty was in charge).