It's no secret to anyone that I've been on the Parra IP count /
workload concern bandwagon since the beginning of the season, if not
earlier. In fact, I'm pretyt sure I've been driving the thing. Well,
the fact is, Parra has put together a pretty good season despite his
bad start, and in terms of his overall season he is probably our second
most valuable pitcher behind Sheets, and third most valuable pitcher
since Sabathia was added to the rotation.
But, in his last 5
starts, the old Manny Parra, from earlier in the season, has appeared.
And now we have to concern ourselves with workload once again. You see,
the genius of Yost is that not only did the organization not put in
place any publicized plan to limit Parra's IP; they've sent him out on
the mound, continually, to inefficient outing after inefficient outing.
Parra's pitch count and WHIP throughout the season are witness to the
relative stress of his IP, and the fact that he's repeating his
delivery a lot, a lot with men on base, and throwing a lot of pitches
in particular innings when he loses control support a case that Parra
has carried a stressful workload this season. Now, there are arguments
that can take the blame off of Parra somewhat (he has the worst
defensive efficiency of any of the team's starters), but that doesn't
change the fact that his workload is both heavy and inefficient.
So
now we have these trends -- Parra's season forms three neat segments
thus far, divided by the few times he has pitched two consecutive
quality starts. Using his first and last consecutive quality start
stretches, we can divide Parra's season in the following manner:
April 5-May 25: 10 GS, 49.3 IP, 31 R; 932 NP (0 efficient outings)
May 30-July 25: 11 G, 10 GS, 64.3 IP, 20 R; 995 NP(4 efficient outings)
July 30-August 20: 5 GS, 29 IP, 18 R; 480 NP (1 efficient outings)
April 5-May 25: 1.72 WHIP; 18.9 NP/IP; 5.66 runs average, 4.93 IP/GS
May 20-July 25: 1.29 WHIP; 15.47 NP/IP; 2.80 runs average, 5.85 IP/G
July 30-August 20: 1.62 WHIP; 16.55 NP/IP; 5.59 runs average, 5.80 IP/GS
I
find this progression to be worrisome for several reasons: (1) Is this
simply a case of wild Manny Parra that we saw early in the season?; (2)
Is Parra's incredibly inefficient workload wearing on his arm,
especially repeating the delivery throughout long IP with many
baserunners?; (3) Will this trend continue for approximately 10 starts,
until the end of the season?
This bothers me the most,
and I don't have an answer: is keeping Parra in the rotation any longer
detrimental to both his future health, his current health, and most
importantly, the Brewers' playoff chances?
Just a note: Parra is
approximately 6 IP beyond his workload from 2007, which isn't bad at
the moment; but if the organization simply lets him go until the end of
the season, if he continues to pitch into the 6th inning, he could
easily add another 40-48 IP+ onto that workload. Now add in the fact
that he has been terribly inefficient all season, and think about what
adding more inefficient IP onto Parra's arm entails for both Parra's
future, the Brewers' 2009 rotation, and the Brewers' pennant race.