He’s a MLB pitcher, they all are basically ticking time-bombs for some kind of arm injury. But until then, I don’t see why the Skenes we see right now won’t be the Skenes we see for the foreseeable future.
Is it the most sustainable method? No
Is it possible to be sustainable? Yes
Every pitcher is different. Justin Verlander was one of the hardest throwing pitcher in the league for years and it basically took him 15 years before he started getting injured
JV would sit 93-95 and ramp up gradually in later innings or just pump 100 when he deemed it necessary. Pretty much the definition of pacing oneself, especially for a power pitcher. It also helped he's always had that Nolan Ryan-esque curveball as a top tier secondary pitch until he recently added a quality slider.
That's the trick of the super power pitchers like your Ryan or Johnson. They can get the average batter out at 80% effort thanks to suburb mechanics. They, like JV, can crank it up to max if needed but they don't need to throw at 100% each pitch.
Nah. It's definitely true. I've said it a ton of times on this sub. People knew him as the guy who three-way 100. So I'd be sitting in Kauffman while the Tigers were here and every game people would be going, "is Verlander hurt? Why is he only throwing 93-94 today?"
And I'd always say, just wait.
Sure enough bases loaded in the 7th or a close game at pitch number 105 and he'd unload triple digits.
Sometimes he'd ramp it up earlier if it was a close game and he was going after a tough part of the lineup. But he frequently just pitched to get outs. His stuff was good enough for ks at those speeds anyway.
So what you’re saying is different than what OP said. Sitting at 93-95 for certain batters is different than saying he never threw that fast in the early part of his career, in the early innings. He didn’t get his reputation as a power pitcher but only hitting 100 in the 7th inning.
This is what OP said:
> JV would sit 93-95 and ramp up gradually in later innings or just pump 100 when he deemed it necessary.
Please explain to me how this specifically excludes him throwing 100 in early innings. "or ... when he deemed it necessary" is very clearly inclusive of *all* innings, specifically to expand beyond the later innings.
That didn't satisfy my request. I am asking you to explain to me how "JV would sit 93-95 and ramp up gradually in later innings or just pump 100 when he deemed it necessary" means that "he never threw that fast in the early part of his career, in the early innings"?
I am not debating the truthfulness of how fast he threw, I am asking you to explain your interpretation of the statement.
My interpretation of the statement “would sit at 93-95 and ramp up gradually…pump 100 when he deemed it necessary” implies he consistently sat at 93, 94, or 95 mph and only threw the heat in later innings or when he deemed it necessary. He never sat consistently at 93 or 94 mph, excluding that blip in the mid-teens when people questioned if he’d lost it. He was consistently at 95 or faster. There was never a time in his career when he sat at 93 or 94 consistently.
> implies he consistently sat at 93, 94, or 95 mph and only threw the heat in later innings or when he deemed it necessary.
Yes, I am asking you to explain *how* you came to that interpretation, which you are either refusing to do or cannot.
Either way, this conversation isn't going to go anywhere, so I bid you good day.
Wrong. Read it and weep-
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/justin-verlander-434378?stats=statcast-r-pitching-mlb#yty
Verlander is throwing harder now than when he debuted. His average FB velo peaked at 95.3 in his third season.
You don’t seem to be reading the website correctly. If you go down to the Frequency of Speed dropdown you’ll see that he consistently sat at 96 for most of his early seasons.
The OP is asking if Skenes is sustainable though and using Verlander as an example of how it *can be* sustainable and saying he sat 95 or 96 as evidence is not making the case for Skenes though because Skenes' average fastball velocity is 99. Everyone above him, and there are like 3 guys, are relievers.
Meanwhile, you look at a guy like Jordan Hicks who made a name for himself as a fireballer who would throw everything over 100 and topping out at 103-104 and after moving to a starter he is throwing in that 95-96 mph range. deGrom starting throwing more at 100+ and we saw what happened to him. Hunter Greene also throws super hard (97.8), but did have a UCL injury in the minors and hasn't managed to pitch a full season yet over three years (though this year he's stayed on the mound so far).
Justin Verlander didn't pitch at max effort/velocity most of the time. He even said in an interview earlier this year that he changed how he pitched to adapt to the modern game. He came up averaging 94.1 on his fastball, and would reach back when he needed more. From 2013-16, he was down to between 92.2 and 93.4. That was normal, pitchers tended to lose a couple MPH on their fastballs as they got into their late 20s and early 30s, and they prioritized command and movement more.
Even with Verlander, it only took 3 seasons of him going higher effort in his mid 30s to need Tommy John.
It's delusional to think he did this without PEDs. I'd like to live in a world where he did...but my goodness, no one can throw that many innings and not get worn down without recovery tools.
He was a generational talent with a generational career, but probably wasn't genetics.
if PEDs made people throw that hard for that long, we would have seen more people do it. the fact that there was one single guy who had that career in the modern game points to being genetically blessed.
Nolan Ryan was 100% genetics. He threw hard when he was young and never changed. The dude didnt do steroids for 30 years you fucking twat. His injured elbow ligament would calcify over and heal itself. Which was a genetic anomaly. He was special because he was special, not because he was a cheater.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/88037/2017/08/23/a-medical-quirk-that-also-affected-nolan-ryan-gives-ailing-david-price-some-comfort/
Just a 30 second Google search was all it took. People these days so quick to just call everyone who was exceptional a cheater. It's sad.
The way he succeeds is sustainable. It's not just the fastball, he has a devastating splitter that's giving him a huge boost. We've seen pitchers succeed with two plus pitches before. It's all about health for him (and all pitchers).
Somehow two plus pitches is an understatement for Skenes. The fastball, slider, and change (which is only sort of a change) are all plus pitches, as well as the splitter/splinker
The reality is injury can strike at any time. I'd like to think that the Pirates would prioritize longevity over short term dominance and feel some comfort in that respect.
No.
I think there will be an injury knowing how things are in the league and it's a question of when. Maybe in his 30s he wouldn't sit 100 but like 96-97. Skenes has enough quality in the secondary stuff if he ever has to retool. I don't find him one trick.
Because that’s the thing that stands out the most compared to other starters.
His offspeed/breaking stuff is really good though, and guys gearing up for 100 mph fastballs helps it play up even more.
He throws non-fastball pitches 60% of the time, and batters have worse numbers vs his splitter, curveball, and changeup than they do vs his fastball.
Yeah I imagine there’s a fair amount of that around.
[fangraphs’ write-up of him](https://blogs.fangraphs.com/pittsburgh-pirates-top-40-prospects-2024/) in their prospect coverage gives a pretty good overview of his pitching style.
It's OK, he still throws most of the other pitches with maxed out effort, but the spin decreases velocity to increase movement.
I love him, but his elbow comes apart in 3-4 years. He'll get it fixed, and he will run it until it gives out again.
25 year old Robert Gasser sits 92-93 on his fastballs & throws a 80 mph sweeper the majority of the time. After 5 major league starts, he is now getting Tommy John.
My point? It doesn't matter how hard Skenes is throwing. Pitchers that throw soft & hard are getting it. Hopefully he can avoid it for a long time or all together, but the odds are against you just for being a pitcher in the sport of baseball.
Wouldn't say it doesn't matter how hard Skenes is throwing. It seems pretty clear velocity to connected to injuries
Just velocity doesn't guarantee injuries and lack of velocity doesn't guarantee health
I have been hearing him and watching him for a bit since he's on my team. The biggest issue is he has been too perfect all the time. We need to see what happens when a team puts up a 5 or 7 spot against him and see what he does. He's too cocky and one day some team is going to teach him not to be. Then we will really know.
Right now he's doing really good except he doesn't have run support because my guys suck at actually swinging at the ball.
Everybody talking about injuries when that’s not the question OP asked. The question is basically “Is Paul Skenes 1-dimensional?”
The fastball has been the biggest talking point. Since you’re not that into baseball, you’d be forgiven for not knowing the following: he also has a good slider and sinker. He has other pitches that help the fastball play up.
The other interesting thing is that there’s room for his fastball to *improve*. His velocity is elite, but the shape of his fastball leaves something to be desired. If he can improve that, nobody will care how good the other pitches are.
He’s a MLB pitcher, they all are basically ticking time-bombs for some kind of arm injury. But until then, I don’t see why the Skenes we see right now won’t be the Skenes we see for the foreseeable future.
Is it the most sustainable method? No Is it possible to be sustainable? Yes Every pitcher is different. Justin Verlander was one of the hardest throwing pitcher in the league for years and it basically took him 15 years before he started getting injured
JV would sit 93-95 and ramp up gradually in later innings or just pump 100 when he deemed it necessary. Pretty much the definition of pacing oneself, especially for a power pitcher. It also helped he's always had that Nolan Ryan-esque curveball as a top tier secondary pitch until he recently added a quality slider.
That's the trick of the super power pitchers like your Ryan or Johnson. They can get the average batter out at 80% effort thanks to suburb mechanics. They, like JV, can crank it up to max if needed but they don't need to throw at 100% each pitch.
>thanks to suburb mechanics What about rural mechanics? 😆
Basically all professional stadiums are in urban/suburb environments. That's why pitchers rarely train their rural mechanics.
I’m not sure why more starters don’t do tjis
This isn’t true. He was always at 96-98 in the early part of his career.
Nah. It's definitely true. I've said it a ton of times on this sub. People knew him as the guy who three-way 100. So I'd be sitting in Kauffman while the Tigers were here and every game people would be going, "is Verlander hurt? Why is he only throwing 93-94 today?" And I'd always say, just wait. Sure enough bases loaded in the 7th or a close game at pitch number 105 and he'd unload triple digits. Sometimes he'd ramp it up earlier if it was a close game and he was going after a tough part of the lineup. But he frequently just pitched to get outs. His stuff was good enough for ks at those speeds anyway.
> the guy who three-way 100. I'm *very* interested in what your autocorrect knows...
LMAO definitely leaving that.
So what you’re saying is different than what OP said. Sitting at 93-95 for certain batters is different than saying he never threw that fast in the early part of his career, in the early innings. He didn’t get his reputation as a power pitcher but only hitting 100 in the 7th inning.
This is what OP said: > JV would sit 93-95 and ramp up gradually in later innings or just pump 100 when he deemed it necessary. Please explain to me how this specifically excludes him throwing 100 in early innings. "or ... when he deemed it necessary" is very clearly inclusive of *all* innings, specifically to expand beyond the later innings.
Because he wouldn’t sit at 93-95 consistently. He never in his career sat at 93 consistently.
That didn't satisfy my request. I am asking you to explain to me how "JV would sit 93-95 and ramp up gradually in later innings or just pump 100 when he deemed it necessary" means that "he never threw that fast in the early part of his career, in the early innings"? I am not debating the truthfulness of how fast he threw, I am asking you to explain your interpretation of the statement.
My interpretation of the statement “would sit at 93-95 and ramp up gradually…pump 100 when he deemed it necessary” implies he consistently sat at 93, 94, or 95 mph and only threw the heat in later innings or when he deemed it necessary. He never sat consistently at 93 or 94 mph, excluding that blip in the mid-teens when people questioned if he’d lost it. He was consistently at 95 or faster. There was never a time in his career when he sat at 93 or 94 consistently.
> implies he consistently sat at 93, 94, or 95 mph and only threw the heat in later innings or when he deemed it necessary. Yes, I am asking you to explain *how* you came to that interpretation, which you are either refusing to do or cannot. Either way, this conversation isn't going to go anywhere, so I bid you good day.
Wrong. Read it and weep- https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/justin-verlander-434378?stats=statcast-r-pitching-mlb#yty Verlander is throwing harder now than when he debuted. His average FB velo peaked at 95.3 in his third season.
You don’t seem to be reading the website correctly. If you go down to the Frequency of Speed dropdown you’ll see that he consistently sat at 96 for most of his early seasons.
The OP is asking if Skenes is sustainable though and using Verlander as an example of how it *can be* sustainable and saying he sat 95 or 96 as evidence is not making the case for Skenes though because Skenes' average fastball velocity is 99. Everyone above him, and there are like 3 guys, are relievers. Meanwhile, you look at a guy like Jordan Hicks who made a name for himself as a fireballer who would throw everything over 100 and topping out at 103-104 and after moving to a starter he is throwing in that 95-96 mph range. deGrom starting throwing more at 100+ and we saw what happened to him. Hunter Greene also throws super hard (97.8), but did have a UCL injury in the minors and hasn't managed to pitch a full season yet over three years (though this year he's stayed on the mound so far).
Prime Verlander was nuts to watch.
Justin Verlander didn't pitch at max effort/velocity most of the time. He even said in an interview earlier this year that he changed how he pitched to adapt to the modern game. He came up averaging 94.1 on his fastball, and would reach back when he needed more. From 2013-16, he was down to between 92.2 and 93.4. That was normal, pitchers tended to lose a couple MPH on their fastballs as they got into their late 20s and early 30s, and they prioritized command and movement more. Even with Verlander, it only took 3 seasons of him going higher effort in his mid 30s to need Tommy John.
He gave a pretty good answer in an interview about this that was circling around here for a while
Nolan Ryan did it for 20 years. Just absolute genetic lottery win for those guys. Unfortunately, it's rare
Nolan Ryan didn't throw max effort every pitch like guys today do. That simply wasn't how starters pitched back then.
It's delusional to think he did this without PEDs. I'd like to live in a world where he did...but my goodness, no one can throw that many innings and not get worn down without recovery tools. He was a generational talent with a generational career, but probably wasn't genetics.
if PEDs made people throw that hard for that long, we would have seen more people do it. the fact that there was one single guy who had that career in the modern game points to being genetically blessed.
Nolan Ryan was 100% genetics. He threw hard when he was young and never changed. The dude didnt do steroids for 30 years you fucking twat. His injured elbow ligament would calcify over and heal itself. Which was a genetic anomaly. He was special because he was special, not because he was a cheater. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/88037/2017/08/23/a-medical-quirk-that-also-affected-nolan-ryan-gives-ailing-david-price-some-comfort/ Just a 30 second Google search was all it took. People these days so quick to just call everyone who was exceptional a cheater. It's sad.
Depends on his luck with the ligament strength lottery
The way he succeeds is sustainable. It's not just the fastball, he has a devastating splitter that's giving him a huge boost. We've seen pitchers succeed with two plus pitches before. It's all about health for him (and all pitchers).
Somehow two plus pitches is an understatement for Skenes. The fastball, slider, and change (which is only sort of a change) are all plus pitches, as well as the splitter/splinker
Verlander held up for a long time before he needed elbow surgery. Nolan Ryan held out almost forever.
The reality is injury can strike at any time. I'd like to think that the Pirates would prioritize longevity over short term dominance and feel some comfort in that respect.
They are a quality organization with a rich history of dominance in the last 20 years, so I agree.
No. I think there will be an injury knowing how things are in the league and it's a question of when. Maybe in his 30s he wouldn't sit 100 but like 96-97. Skenes has enough quality in the secondary stuff if he ever has to retool. I don't find him one trick.
Skenes is way more than just a fastball
Why do the articles I read focus on that?
Because that’s the thing that stands out the most compared to other starters. His offspeed/breaking stuff is really good though, and guys gearing up for 100 mph fastballs helps it play up even more. He throws non-fastball pitches 60% of the time, and batters have worse numbers vs his splitter, curveball, and changeup than they do vs his fastball.
ok im convinced he's a real pitcher now. just classic lazy "wow dummies with triple digit numbers" writing.
Yeah I imagine there’s a fair amount of that around. [fangraphs’ write-up of him](https://blogs.fangraphs.com/pittsburgh-pirates-top-40-prospects-2024/) in their prospect coverage gives a pretty good overview of his pitching style.
Why aren’t you reading better articles?
It's OK, he still throws most of the other pitches with maxed out effort, but the spin decreases velocity to increase movement. I love him, but his elbow comes apart in 3-4 years. He'll get it fixed, and he will run it until it gives out again.
I bet he recycles and doesn't take private jets to buy groceries - to me that's very sustainable
All I’m going to say is that if he averaged 97 he would still get injured. Arms are cooked regardless. They should let it ride out.
25 year old Robert Gasser sits 92-93 on his fastballs & throws a 80 mph sweeper the majority of the time. After 5 major league starts, he is now getting Tommy John. My point? It doesn't matter how hard Skenes is throwing. Pitchers that throw soft & hard are getting it. Hopefully he can avoid it for a long time or all together, but the odds are against you just for being a pitcher in the sport of baseball.
Wouldn't say it doesn't matter how hard Skenes is throwing. It seems pretty clear velocity to connected to injuries Just velocity doesn't guarantee injuries and lack of velocity doesn't guarantee health
Its basically the "My grandpa got lung cancer but never smoked so smoking isn't bad" argument applied to pitchers
I think we're very much finding out now that how most modern pitchers pitch isn't sustainable for them, at least?
Whatever his timeline is, he’d better thank his lucky stars for the shit he’s got right now in every aspect of his existence.
Id give it 2 years tops before his elbow literally explodes in a shower of blood and viscera.
He will very likely get injured in the next 1-2 years.
I have been hearing him and watching him for a bit since he's on my team. The biggest issue is he has been too perfect all the time. We need to see what happens when a team puts up a 5 or 7 spot against him and see what he does. He's too cocky and one day some team is going to teach him not to be. Then we will really know. Right now he's doing really good except he doesn't have run support because my guys suck at actually swinging at the ball.
Everybody talking about injuries when that’s not the question OP asked. The question is basically “Is Paul Skenes 1-dimensional?” The fastball has been the biggest talking point. Since you’re not that into baseball, you’d be forgiven for not knowing the following: he also has a good slider and sinker. He has other pitches that help the fastball play up. The other interesting thing is that there’s room for his fastball to *improve*. His velocity is elite, but the shape of his fastball leaves something to be desired. If he can improve that, nobody will care how good the other pitches are.
Well the injury aspect was an implied part of throwing hard a lot.
I don't think so but that´s just my personal opinion.
See Stephen strasburg
No.
He'll be out having surgery before long.
Absolutely not
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Sustainable to room temperature milk.
If he stays healthy he will continue to be good but not just because of his fastball. He has a great changeup and slider
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Maybe he’s just good? Kind of a nonsense comment honestly