Worn Down: The Most-Abused ACC Pitchers of the Year

As NC State was preparing for its ACC Tournament elimination game against North Carolina, head coach Elliott Avent was tempted to start ace Carlos Rodon on three days rest. Avent told the media that his reasoning was, “He didn’t pitch a lot of pitches on Friday.” 

Rodon threw 109 pitches in just over 5 innings three days earlier, a fairly substantial number by MLB standards. David Price, a former Cy Young Award winner who is among MLB’s leaders in pitch count this year, has topped 109 pitches five times this season. Rodon did it six times in his last 10 starts. Clayton Kershaw, the undisputed best pitcher in baseball in recent years, hasn’t had a pitch count that high in his last 15 outings. 

But college is different from the Majors. Rodon usually gets a week between starts, instead of the four days that is common in the bigs. So let’s look at how Rodon measures up with the other elite pitchers in the ACC. 

Ten pitchers, including Rodon, were named to the three All ACC teams last week.  Here’s a look at their pitch counts for the year: 

 

Starts

Pitches

Avg. P/Start

Carlos Rodon NC St

14

1582

113.0

Jake Stinnett MD

13

1432

110.2

Daniel Gossett Clemson

12

1304

108.7

Bryan Radziewski Miami

13

1337

102.8

Trent Thornton UNC

13

1322

101.7

Matthew Crownover Clemson

13

1315

101.2

Luke Weaver FSU

14

1401

100.1

Chris Diaz Miami

14

1376

98.3

Andrew Suarez Miami 

14

1273

90.9

Brandon Waddell UVa

12

1018

84.8

Since pitching with a tired arm is more stressful for a pitcher, throwing the 130th pitch of a game is going to be more harmful than throwing pitch 100. The writers of Baseball Prospectus came up with a statistic called Pitcher Abuse Points, to measure the impact of high-pitch-count starts for a pitcher. 

The current MLB leader in Pitcher Abuse Points has a total of 65 so far this season, and only three MLB pitchers have more than 40. 

Here’s a look at the All Acc pitchers, ranked by Pitcher Abuse Points. 

 

Pitcher Abuse Points

Carlos Rodon NC St

317

Jake Stinnett MD

297

Daniel Gossett Clemson

256

Matthew Crownover Clemson

119

Bryan Radziewski Miami

109

Luke Weaver FSU

90

Trent Thornton UNC

66

Andrew Suarez Miami 

24

Chris Diaz Miami

21

Brandon Waddell UVa

0

Rodon averaged 22.6 Pitcher Abuse Points per start, which is higher than the total points accumulated by Waddell and Diaz all season. Only 9 MLB pitchers have more points this season than Rodon averaged each time out. 

Rodon had starts of 68 and 76 abuse points this year, which are each more than Trent Thornton’s season total. 

Most remarkably, Coach Avent lightened up Rodon’s workload this year, compared to previous seasons. Here’s a look at Rodon year-by-year: 

Year

Pitches

Average pitches/start

Abuse Points

Avg. abuse points/start

2012

1738

108.6

467

29.2

2013

2008

111.6

496

27.6

2014

1582

113.0

317

22.6

Career

5328

111.0

1280

26.7

Rodon is expected to go near the top of the MLB Draft. However, teams selecting him may have concerns over the fact that he is one of the most abused college pitchers in recent memory.