THe M's will beat the Blue Jays into Clay Game Thread 8/25

[DavidGee24]

The variance in durability in pro athletes is pretty amazing.

Cal Ripken vs. Troy Tulo

RW vs. Luck

Marshawn vs. CJ

Greg Oden vs. KD

Keith Richards vs. Len Bias

[Petert]

I think back in the day, it was more survival of the fittest. Some guys have bodies that can pitch thousands of innings without breaking down, some don't. Back then, if you didn't have that type of body, you didn't make it. Now they have TJ surgery, they understand biomechanics better, and they try to preserve arms. If not for modern advances in medicine and trying to preserve arms, a good percentage of mlb pitchers wouldn't be able to pitch

It’s physical conditioning, but more to the point, the relationship between a pitcher and his breaking pitch, and the amount of strain it puts on the forearm and elbow. My understanding of Carlton is that he could throw his slider, nasty as it was, without much pronation, being able to shape the pitch and release angle to an acceptable tolerance on his arm. Plus the guy was a conditioning maniac, being heavily into martial arts, and shoving his elbow into buckets of rice (uncooked ) or ball bearings, stuff like that.

[Juliooooo]

The variance in durability in pro athletes is pretty amazing.

Cal Ripken vs. Troy Tulo

RW vs. Luck

Marshawn vs. CJ

Greg Oden vs. KD

And sometimes it's just bad luck. One bad knee injury, and it can ruin a whole career.

[D-train]

The variance in durability in pro athletes is pretty amazing.

Cal Ripken vs. Troy Tulo

RW vs. Luck

Marshawn vs. CJ

Greg Oden vs. KD

And sometimes it's just bad luck.

Some are just unlucky with genetics as well.

[Juliooooo]

The variance in durability in pro athletes is pretty amazing.

Cal Ripken vs. Troy Tulo

RW vs. Luck

Marshawn vs. CJ

Greg Oden vs. KD

And sometimes it's just bad luck.

Some are just unlucky with genetics as well.

Right. Was Oden genetic, or did he just have one bad injury that he could never fully recover from?

[D-train]

Never forget arguing with Jerry Brewer that the Blazers were crazy to take Oden over KD and that history would repeat after the Bowie over Jordan debacle. He said they HAD to take the dominant big man. I think I won that one.

[DavidGee24]

The thing that should have raised the biggest flag about Oden was that he looked like he was 40. The two biggest draft whiffs in NBA history and the Blazers did both of them.

[ice99]

So he could reasonably win 16-17 on a team with no hitting, no defense, no bullpen, and lousy baserunning!

A Year for The Ages?

In 1972 Steve Carlton won 27 games for a Phillies team that won 59. Imagine how many he would have won if they were actually good.

Surprisingly a cursory look at the game logs tells me that he probably would have only won a few more if the Phillies were decent. Most of the ten he lost were deserved and the NDs he didn't pitch particularly well in either. Pitched great in nearly every win.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/play ... &year=1972

That 10 inning no run, no decision has to hurt.