All-Time leader in pitches

[erictelevision]

Who holds this record? Did newspapers always track pc? That's the only way a reliable answer is possible.

[researcher]

Cy Young!

[Ytown_Tribe_fan]

...or Satchel Paige.

[qual101]

I'm sure pitch count has not been recorded for very long. But Cy Young has such a big lead in MLB innings pitched, who else could be close?
(1) Cy Young 7377
(2) Walter Johnson 5924

[cubbieinexile]

How about Nolan Ryan?
He threw 5386 innings. Plus he has walked the most players ever and struck out the most. So right there he is guaranteed to have thrown at least 28,322 pitches. Plus factor in that he allowed 3923 hits and 158 Hit batsmen and you are up 32,403.
Cy Young threw 7354.7 innings. His bare minimum walk and strike out total is 13,277. With hits and HB the minimum is 20,532.
I'm thinking maybe Nolan Ryan has thrown the most pitches ever in MLB history. Cy Young threw 2000 more innings but the way the game was played back then was different. There was not a lot of strikeouts as there is now and there were slightly less walks per game than now a days. A lot more balls were being put into play back then, plus when players did get on base they ran a lot more than they do nowadays. Consider this the 8 team AL playing a shorter schedule has almost the same amount (and in some cases more) of stolen bases as the newer 14 team AL playing 162 games. So while they were stealing more they were also probably getting caught more which probably decreased his amount of pitches.
Nolan Ryan has the lowest ratio of hits per nine innings in the history of the game, which helps and hurts him. But I think in this case it helps him. For starters he was allowing 4.5 walks per 9 innings which is very high for players plus he averaged plus he was averaging 9.5 strikeouts per nine. Two things that both require a high amount of pitches.

Bottomline is this. Cy Young might be the leader in this category but I would not be surprised at all to see Nolan Ryan at the top of this list.

[researcher]

undoubtly incorrect!

you can find no combination of "expected" number of pitches for ea
catagory that leads you to Ryan!...ie:

IP--5386 x3 = 16158 outs minus 5714 SO = 10444 other outs for Ryan;

.................ave #
outs..10,444 x 3.5 = 36,554
SO.....5,714 x 5.0 = 28,570
BB.....2,795 x 6.0 = 16,770
HBP......158 x 3.5 =....553
Hits...3,923 x 3.5 = 13,730

.......................total= 96,177 Ryan
using same formula.=114,102 Young

If we reduce the expected # of pitches by 0.5 for each catagory the
result is Young 100,847
..........Ryan...84,660

As amatter of fact if we use a formula of one more pitch than needed:
ie: SO = 4 total pitches; BB = 5 total pitches; hits/HBP = 2 pitches,
and all non strike-outs..outs = 2 pitches......

Young...70,337 pitches
Ryan....65,888 pitches

And we know that every out, other than SO, takes more than one pitch!

[cubbieinexile]

[updated:LAST EDITED ON Apr-09-02 AT 04:08 AM (EDT)]Your forgetting double plays and caught stealing from your equation so not every out requires a pitch.

Secondly I seriously doubt the ratios would stay the same throughout history. Considering that both walks and Strikeouts are more common nowadays then when Young played.

[researcher]

You are correct about that...however Young had a differance of app 4,429 total pitches using the low figure of + 1 pitch more than
needed, and if that low # was correct it would mean that one in 4.349
non strike-out, outs would have to be a DP or caught stealing. Which equals app 6.2 per 27 outs.

In one sample yr AL 1902 there were 809 DP's in 553 games, for both
teams = 0.73146 per team per game, which would mean there would
have to be app 5.468 caught stealing per game.

In the AL 1902 sample year there were 1315 SB's in the 553 games =
2.3779 per game for both teams = 1.1889692 for each ave team.

In order get the app 5.468 caught-stealings, it would mean that 6.6569
attempts would have to be made, and only 17.86% successful.

Young threw the most pitches.

In consideration of the fact about the pitcher inducing the most DP's
where my Morgan had more than your Glavin or who ever......

................................score... RESEARCHER.. 2
...............................................cub bie............ 0

Please correct me when I make this kind of mistake, I will, and I'll
be keeping score....Your format is what is appreciated the most, more
people should take the time to do it; I respect you for it...if you
could only look at what I do the same way, then review the thing
about History, you may see it a little differant.

Little mistakes can cost you the ballgame!

[cubbieinexile]

Here is a formula for you. Take the amount of batters faced by Nolan Ryan and multiply by 4 and see what you get. Then multiply Cy Youngs battter faced by 3 and see what you get.

Why 3 and 4? Because I checked some modern players that have there pitch count tracked and I found that Greg Maddux as average 3.3 pitchs per batter and Bobby Witt has averaged 3.8. Greg Maddux is probably the closest to similarity I could find to Cy Young in the middle of the night and without being paid for it while Bobby Witt is similar to Nolan Ryan in terms of Ratios.

By making this post am I saying Nolan Ryan is the winner and the whole world should believe me? No, I am simply offering a possibility which can be discussed amongst baseball people.

[Rube]

"we know that every out, other than SO, takes more than one pitch"

Actually, we know the opposite of this statement. Among outs, every SO always takes more than one pitch. Inclusively, all other types of out can take from zero to a theoretically unlimited number of pitches (tho' generally 31/32 is the accepted outer limit achieved). First pitch outs are not in any way uncommon, alongwith first pitch homers, we have all seen plenty.

[researcher]

That was my mis-statement, what I mean is that all senerios in the
long run take more than one pitch on average...every hit isn't on
the first pitch, nor is every pop-up etc.

[researcher]

[updated:LAST EDITED ON Apr-10-02 AT 06:39 PM (EDT)]I'll go one better, I'll give Ryan 5 pitches for every SO & BB, and
your 4 pitches for every other out, AND HIT

While giving Young 5 pitches for SO & BB (he not being a power pitcher
undoubtly needed more pitches to get a SO), and you 3.3 for every HB,
other outs and HITS; and after deducting app DP's for young and having
no adjustment against Ryan for DP's...................................
...............................end result Young still + 4994 pitches
with an unsientific adjustment for Ryan's DP's Young + 7210 pitches

This is giving Ryan all the benefit of the doubt!

.........Young...............Ryan

.........7356......IP........5386
........22068.....outs......16158
........-2803......SO........5714
.........-598....app.DP......-554
........18667...other outs...9890
.........1217......BB........2795
..........163......HB.........158
........ 7092.....HITS.......3923

The hits is what beats your theory, Young pitched to a total of
29,942 batters.....Ryan 22,480 batters (using the app DP's for both)

Using your 3.3 for Young = 29942 x 3.3 = 98,809 pitches
Using your 4.0 for Ryan = 22480 x 4.0 = 89,920 pitches

Your origional thought was good, but Youngs overwhelming # of batters
he faced added the #'s up. The added 6.996 hits that Young gave up
per game over Ryan = 5718 hits x 3.3 = 18870 pitches by your #'s!

...........................SCORE 2-0.....................

[cubbieinexile]

It doesn't need to be that complex. Just take the batters faced and multiply by what you think each other average pitches per batter. I used 4 and 3 becuase of similar players who do have pitch counts.
Using Nolan Ryan averaging 4 pitches per batter and Cy Young using 3 I get Nolan Ryan slight ahead of Cy Young. In fact according to your batters faced info Nolan comes out with 94 extra pitches thrown. Does that mean I think Nolan threw more? No, but I think we will find if we ever find the whole truth that Nolan is probably comparable to Cy Young in pitches thrown.

[researcher]

[updated:LAST EDITED ON Apr-11-02 AT 02:09 AM (EDT)]But we exercised our brains, and further developed our advanced way
to come to various conclusions; we are fortunate to be able to give
the time too it!

Now if I will only devote the time, to break down the Lajoie era,
to finally convince myself of the differance if any between Lajoie
and Hornsby.

[researcher]

Your correct it didn't need to be that complex; using your #'s =

Young 29942 x 3.3 (not 3.0) = 98,086
Ryan. 22480 x 3.8 (not 4.0) = 85,424

It would be nice if we could drop or add decimal points as needed.

[cubbieinexile]

[updated:LAST EDITED ON Apr-13-02 AT 00:19 AM (EDT)]I raised and lower because like I said earlier the two numbers I came up with were rough numbers based on two players who were somewhat similar to the two players in question. I raised Nolan Ryan average pitches by .2 because Ryans stike out ratio is almost double Witts but every thing else is close. I used maddux for Young because there hits allowed are close and walks are close but Maddux had a better strike out ratio. That is why I lowered it by .3. Could I have lowered it by .2 to make it even? Yeah but who wants to multiply by 3.1? We are not trying to send a man to the moon, I am simply trying to show the possibility that somebody else besides Cy Young could have thrown more pitches. Do I think somebody else did? No, not really. And here is why. Cy Young in his career gave up over 1000 unearned runs. Which meant that a lot of batters he faced are not listed on his stat line. After all if an error happens no hit is issued on his stat line. So in all probability there is probably another 1000 to 2000 batters we have not counted yet.

[ciamele]

There's one point that I'm wondering if you're taking into account: For several years walks were counted as hits (hence Cap Anson's debate over 3000 hit club membership). Were the pitchers credited with having given up a hit when the walked someone those years, or was it still a Base on Balls? I believe Young pitched in that era... it might be worth checking out.

Having done no statistical referencing, I put my money on Young having thrown the most pitches just by sheer number of innings pitched.

Also, have you accounted for foul balls?

[researcher]

You showed both of us up! At least, I didn't think of foul balls
after two strikes.

Only 1887 counted bb's as hits, Young started pitching in 1890.

[cubbieinexile]

[updated:LAST EDITED ON Apr-13-02 AT 00:19 AM (EDT)]By using the two modern players pitches totals we have accounted for foul balls which get counted in there totals.

Though one problem is that for Cy Youngs first 3 seasons a foul bunt wasn't charged a strike, and it wasn't until 1901 that a foul ball was called a stike. Though a foul tip was called a strike since 1895.

[ciamele]

And another thing occured to me... It wasn't always 4 balls for a walk, and Young may have pitched when it was more than 4 balls for a walk (I'm fuzzy on all the dates and specifics).

I'm not trying to show anyone up, just trying to help. But thanks for the compliment!

[Freakshow]

>Your correct it didn't need to be that complex; using your
>#'s =
>
>Young 29942 x 3.3 (not 3.0) = 98,086
>Ryan. 22480 x 3.8 (not 4.0) = 85,424
>

Not that it affects things much, but here are the actual number of batters faced by Young and Ryan from STATS All-Time Major League Handbook:

Young 30,058
Ryan 22,575

A couple others, just for fun:

Galvin 25,234
Niekro 22,677
Johnson 23,749

Dan

[researcher]

Stats had 95 more for Ryan, and 116 more for Young...all I did was
est app dp's...and stats likely has caught steals and pickoffs, that
we didn't.

[cubbieinexile]

Baseball Prospectus ran a story today about pitches thrown and a estimator they came up with.

Here is the formula:
Implied pitch count (IPC) = (3.17 * BFP) + (3.44 * BB) + (1.53 * K)


Based on this Formula here are Cy Youngs and Nolan Ryans numbers:
Nolan Ryan total pitch count: 89,920
CY Young total pitch count: 103,789
Well over 10,000 pitch lead. Interesting enough they ran the numbers for Cy Young and came up with a number around 99,000. The reason for the difference is they are using Batters Faced numbers that are lower than Retrosheets. Also while they didn't include it in the formula they said that groundball pictures have lower pitch totals than flyball pitchers. So the formula probably overestimates Cy Youngs numbers by a good deal. If we lower Cy's totals by 10% to try and figure out a more accurate number we come up with 93,383 total pitches or if we use Baseball Prospectus numbers we get 88,987 total pitches or a little under 1000 less pitches than Nolan.

The IPC gives Ryan 3.98 pitches per batter and Cy Young 3.45. If we adjust Cy's pitches per by 10% we get 3.1. Kind of spooky for me that my rough estimates on pitches per were pretty accurate. Earlier I had estimated that Nolan threw 4 pitches per batter and Cy Young had thrown 3 pitches per.

Something I should note I originally used Greg Maddux for comparison to find total pitches per. Well I found Greg's real total and it is 3.32 pitches per batter not 3.4 that I had earlier used. Also if we assume that the two pitches are similar in terms of walks and hits allowed than I should point out that IPC routinely overestimates MAddux total pitches thrown. For his career it has overestimated by 8% and his last two years number are off by 9 and 10%.

Like I said earlier I think the two pitches have thrown a similar amount of pitches but I think in the end that Cy Young probably threw more. But I am not 100% sure.

[bluezebra]

Originally posted by cubbieinexile
[updated:LAST EDITED ON Apr-09-02 AT 04:08 AM (EDT)]Your forgetting double plays and caught stealing from your equation so not every out requires a pitch.

Secondly I seriously doubt the ratios would stay the same throughout history. Considering that both walks and Strikeouts are more common nowadays then when Young played.

How can you get a double play without at least ONE pitch being thrown? How can a runner be caught stealing without at least ONE pitch being thrown? It ain't possible.

Bob

[cubbieinexile]

You're missing the point. I'm not saying that it is possible to get all three outs w/o throwing a pitch. But that once on base outs can be committed without throwing a pitch across the plate. In the original formula all the positive offensive formulas had not negatives besides the general out. For instance if we used that formula and in a inning a team had three hits and three outs. The pitcher would have thrown 21 pitches. But what if the first hit was then accompanied by a CS and then after the second hit the final batter hit into a DP? So instead of facing 6 batters the pitcher only faced 4 batters. In effect by not accounting for other negative offensive events you have the possibility of estimating more batters faced than they really did. Even worse is the uncommon triple play which would mean the pitcher only faced 4 batters in that situation or 3 CS which meant the pitcher only faced 3 batters.

For DP I'm not saying that we need not throw a pitch to get 2 outs but that it is possible to get 2 outs on one pitch to one batter. Yes the previous batter had to pitched to but again by not accounting for DP you allow the possibility of overcounting.

[cubbieinexile]

Another example. First batter gets a hit. If we use the formula the pitcher threw 3.5 pitches. Next batter up hits into a double play. Now then for the hitters out we add 3.5 pitches to his total. For the second out we add another 3.5 pitches to his total, bringing to 10.5 pitches thrown. Despite the fact that he should have only really thrown 7 pitches if formula had DP's in it. In effect by counting DP the formula treats DP like two batters instead of one batter.

The other example: A batters gets a hit (3.5) then gets picked off of first for the CS. Now then for this event the formula would say 7 pitches had been thrown even though if we adjust for CS it would only be 3.5 pitches thrown.

[bly11]

I'm still guessing that Ol' Satch, pitching 150-200 games many years, threw more than either Cy or Nolan. But there's no way to document it ... sigh. :(

[sopclod]

Originally posted by bly11
I'm still guessing that Ol' Satch, pitching 150-200 games many years, threw more than either Cy or Nolan. But there's no way to document it ... sigh. :(

*sigh* Once again I should point out that this implied to be restricted to the major leagues.

[Clay Dreslough]

I haven't seen the idea mentioned yet that the MULTIPLIERS THEMSELVES vary by era.

You only GET a lot of strikeouts and walks if batters go deep in the count.

Ryan pitched when there were more of both.

So it follows that even when someone put the ball in play against Ryan, it was after he threw more pitches, on average, than Cy Young.

BTW, this topic was just brought up on the Baseball Mogul boards so I'm in the process of doing a simulation of each era and will be posting my results here:

http://www.sportsmogul.com/vbulletin2/showthread.php?t=96016

Clay

[csh19792001]

From an August 2004 Hardball Times article: What Pitch Counts Hath Wrought.

Let's compare these totals to those of some past greats:
Nolan Ryan 90,211
Steve Carlton 83,355
Gaylord Perry 82,147
Don Sutton 80,526
Warren Spahn 79,613
Bert Blyleven 77,310
Tom Seaver 73,560
Tommy John 72,708
Early Wynn 72,607
Robin Roberts 70,037
Jim Kaat 69,743
Red Ruffing 68,599
Ferguson Jenkins 68,494
Frank Tanana 65,931
Ted Lyons 63,783
Bobo Newsom 62,303
Bob Feller 62,255
Dennis Martinez 62,091
Lefty Grove 61,642
Bob Gibson 61,301
Jack Morris 60,991
Jim Palmer 60,666
Jerry Koosman 60,425
Jim Bunning 58,338
Mickey Lolich 57,420

Special knuckleballer category:
Phil Niekro 85,110
Charlie Hough 61,166

Just for the hell of it, some deadballers:
Cy Young 107,114
Walter Johnson 87,528
Pete Alexander 75,973
Christy Mathewson 69,644

My question is...do these estimates even factor in the lack of a foul strike rule for the first 13 seasons (4800 innings) of his career? I doubt it does.

And if it doesn't, it's scary to think what Young's total would be had it factored in all of those extra pitches thrown simply due to the rule difference.

[Ubiquitous]

Bringing back an old researcher thread. Ah, the classics. Some things never change.

[csh19792001]

Bringing back an old researcher thread. Ah, the classics. Some things never change.

What eponym did you work under prior to August of 2005, Ubi, and why'd you create a new account, if so?

You oft speak as if you've been here since the beginning.

[RuthMayBond]

From an August 2004 Hardball Times article: What Pitch Counts Hath Wrought.

Let's compare these totals to those of some past greats:
Nolan Ryan 90,211
Steve Carlton 83,355
Gaylord Perry 82,147
Don Sutton 80,526
Warren Spahn 79,613
Bert Blyleven 77,310
Tom Seaver 73,560
Tommy John 72,708
Early Wynn 72,607
Robin Roberts 70,037
Jim Kaat 69,743
Red Ruffing 68,599
Ferguson Jenkins 68,494
Frank Tanana 65,931
Ted Lyons 63,783
Bobo Newsom 62,303
Bob Feller 62,255
Dennis Martinez 62,091
Lefty Grove 61,642
Bob Gibson 61,301
Jack Morris 60,991
Jim Palmer 60,666
Jerry Koosman 60,425
Jim Bunning 58,338
Mickey Lolich 57,420

Special knuckleballer category:
Phil Niekro 85,110
Charlie Hough 61,166

Just for the hell of it, some deadballers:
Cy Young 107,114
Walter Johnson 87,528
Pete Alexander 75,973
Christy Mathewson 69,644

My question is...do these estimates even factor in the lack of a foul strike rule for the first 13 seasons (4800 innings) of his career? I doubt it does.

And if it doesn't, it's scary to think what Young's total would be had it factored in all of those extra pitches thrown simply due to the rule difference.You're telling me we have the pitch count of Cy Young, but we do NOT have caught stealing for the NL in 1950?

[csh19792001]

You're telling me we have the pitch count of Cy Young, but we do NOT have caught stealing for the NL in 1950?

We don't have the actual pitch counts from game logs (those records were only kept en masse from 1987-present, from what I can find). The lists above are the results of mathematical estimates based mainly on the flux of PA's, BB's, and K's thoughout history. They've been checked against the actual counts and have been proven to be pretty precise.

But still, how many foul balls are hit, on average, during the course of a season against a pitcher? That estimate of 107,000 career pitches thrown for Cy Young is certainly tens of thousands of pitches too low, if it doesn't factor the lack of a foul strike rule into the equation (which, to my knowledge, it does not).

I can send you the links to other related articles, if you're interested, RMB.

[538280]

What eponym did you work under prior to August of 2005, Ubi, and why'd you create a new account, if so?

You oft speak as if you've been here since the beginning.

An educated guess would seem to tell me he was cubbieinexile? Am I right, Ubi?

[csh19792001]

An educated guess would seem to tell me he was cubbieinexile? Am I right, Ubi?

Yeah, I'd always figured so also, but we get no response from him. More curious is why he'd have to create a new anonymous account.

Originally I thought he was "therealnod", but then he and the person posting under "therealnod" got into a vicious exchange/name calling contest, so that hypothesis died. :p

[Ubiquitous]

Its odd what people will label vicious or how they view a discussion. I guess people see what they want to see.

[Brian McKenna]

i might be wrong but wasn't paul richards the first to give serious consideration to pitch count?

was it harder for young to strike out a batter back in the day when men choked up and slapped at the ball? or was his speed/stuff that much greater than the norm that he had a relatively easy time doing so?

i think it is interesting to note that rube waddell's strikeouts per game ratio is the best in baseball prior to World War II - he pitched in the same slap hitting era - he had johnson-esk speed but he was lefthanded - perhaps an oddity making him more difficult to handle