On Friday night, Mark Appel had a dreadful fourth inning, leading to a 17-1 loss by Stanford against Florida State. Tonight, Florida State had another huge victory, winning 18-7 against Stanford, this time getting to Brett Mooneyham, who was selected by Washington in the third round of the 2012 draft. The loss eliminates Stanford, ending Appel’s 2012 college season.
The good news is that Appel won’t be subjected to the high pitch counts at Stanford now. He threw 48 pitches in the fourth inning on Friday, and threw 122 pitches in his complete game victory last week. The bad news is that this won’t speed up the Appel negotiations. It’s still unlikely that he will sign before the July 13th deadline, although at least he won’t be facing any more ridiculous pitch counts between now and then.
June 10, 2012 at 11:34 pm
Does he know if he gets in the system a month sooner, he can start pulling down those $800 monthly paychecks, plus the per diems!
June 11, 2012 at 9:08 am
At least we don’t have to wait until mid Aug any more.
.
June 11, 2012 at 12:03 am
Both BA and Biertempel are reporting that Mathisen signed for exactly slot.
Twitter: sdzielinski
June 11, 2012 at 3:23 am
I don’t know why a prep pitching prospect like Giolito would go to college given the abuse they will endure. A college education could cost them millions of dollars.
June 11, 2012 at 4:40 am
I’m just waiting for another Appel/Boras statement now along the lines “Even though the season is now over for me, there’s still the exams I have to worry about. Also I have to clean my room and go to the supermarket to buy milk and cornflakes. And I was thinking about maybe buying a cat. So unfortunately I have no time at all to think about things like the MLB draft or negotiating with the Pirates. by the way: Where again do they play ?
Philadelphia ? Pittsburgh ? Or was it Phoenix ?”
June 11, 2012 at 8:12 am
Dear Scottie and Mark:
They play in the only place where a bonus check is waiting for you. See if you can find it. Try Google Maps.
June 11, 2012 at 7:04 pm
But, they want $7 million! Or 10! Scott won’t let him play for a penny less!
June 11, 2012 at 9:07 am
Nothing wrong with getting a cat…………….:)
June 11, 2012 at 2:36 pm
Frankly I love the high pitch counts, and I poo poo all the people who live by 100 pitch counts. I think it builds strength for the pitcher just like repetitions of other workouts – Do you cry about marathon runners, or Lance Armstrong pedeling up a mountain? Better yet do you think you get tired or should be rated on the same scale as Lance as far as how far up the mountain you should be allowed to go before we tell you to get off the bike? Get a wake up call people – a pitcher should be pulled when he no longer controls the ball in the strike zone – due to inability or fatigue which varies greatly. A pitcher usually injures himself when his mechanics are poor not because of 20 additional throws over 100.
Twitter: timwilliamsp2
June 11, 2012 at 2:50 pm
I’m not totally against going over 100 pitches. But I think it depends on the situation.
For example, Appel’s 122 pitches on June 1st wasn’t horrible. That was stretched out over 9 innings. That’s not a huge workload. My issue with that game was that Stanford was up 9-1, so there’s no reason to keep Appel in that long.
In his last start, Appel threw 95 pitches in four innings. That’s not good.
I don’t think you can compare pitching to marathon running or bike riding. When you ride a bike or run a marathon, it’s a steady flow. When you’re pitching, you don’t see consistency with your workload. You can have a stretch of easy innings to reduce the load. Or you can have a few high stress innings. It’s not just “get to the point where you can go over 100 pitches”. The focus should be on the workload that got you to 100 pitches.