Ishaan Balaji

How does the management of pitch count and workload affect the performance metrics and career longevity of starting pitchers in Major League Baseball?

Started May 9, 2024

Abstract or project description

Through this research project, we are looking at the workload of pitchers. This includes many different factors like how many pitches they average per start, how many days break on average they have between their starts, how often they throw different pitches (some curveballs can hurt a pitcher's elbow more), and also how much time they have been forced to spend away based on injuries. We will also be looking at the different statistics that indicate performance. This includes the big stats like ERA, WHIP, and strikeout rates. However, we will also look at pitchers whose careers have finished to see how important the workload is on overall career. Our data will come from pitchers from 2015-2024. To get the data from so many different players, we will use R, the programming language, to scrape the info and to put it into data tables. Once we have the data, we will create models to find what makes sense throughout the years of a career to do with a players workload. This can provide teams with strong insight into the future about keeping a successful pitching staff for longer periods of time. This data will be presented in the form of a research paper and will most likely also be put into a presentation.