KC Royals: Yordano Ventura And Pitcher Abuse

By John Viril | Feb 7, 2015

Kansas City Royals pitcher Yordano Ventura’s ability to take over as the staff ace will help determine whether Kansas City can return to the post-season in 2015. Those hopes took a big hit when SI.com’s Tom Verducci showed that Ventura’s innings increased more than any other under-25 pitcher in baseball.

Verducci’s article raises concerns that the KC Royals might have ramped up Ventura’s innings too quickly. Instead of taking over as the no. 1 starter, Verducci’s research suggests that the 23-year-old Yordano Ventura could regress due to pitcher abuse.

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The tendency for under-25 pitchers to struggle after increasing their innings pitched by more than 30 from the previous season is known as the Verducci Effect.

Yordano Ventura pitched 208.1 innings in 2014 including the playoffs, which was an increase of 58.1 innings over the 150.0 he threw in 2013. This 38.9% increase comes after Ventura jumped his innings from 109.1 to 150.0 from 2012 to 2013.

However, things aren’t quite as dire as they might appear.

First, there’s a lot of doubt whether the Verducci Effect really exists. Multiple studies refute Verducci’s premise that under-25 pitchers who increase their innings pitched by more than 30 innings show a significant drop in subsequent performance (see here, here, and here).

Second, the real measure of a pitcher’s wear and tear should be the number of pitches thrown rather than innings pitched. It’s pretty obvious that an 8-pitch inning simply isn’t as taxing as a 23-pitch inning. Unfortunately, Verducci doesn’t use the number of pitches—probably because minor league stats rarely include them.

Yet, we can project that Yordano Ventura’s number of pitches per inning have declined since his walk rates declined in 2014. In 2013, Ventura walked 9.9% of hitters at AAA and 9.4% in the major leagues. In 2014, his walk rate dropped to 8.8% with the Kansas City Royals.

Third, the KC Royals have controlled Ventura’s development since signing him as a 16-year-old in 2007. This fact is significant because Ventura did not wear out his arm throwing summer showcases as a teenager like many top prospects that come up in the United States.

Verducci attributes this youthful heavy use, and the desire to light up radar guns for major-league scouts, as a major cause for the current elbow surgery epidemic.

The final reason that Yordano Ventura’s jump in innings might not be so dire is his easy mechanics. While Ventura threw a harder average fastball than any starter in major league baseball, he doesn’t seem to require an undue amount of effort in his windup and pitching motion to generate this velocity. You can see for yourself below:

While Verducci’s piece can’t help but cause me some concern, I’m not really too worried about it. I think Yordano Ventura will be fine in 2015.

Next: Comparing KC's Eric Hosmer and Paul Goldschmidt

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