John’s post here Monday, discussing Roy Halladay’s chances of reaching 300 wins, had me thinking about Doc’s well-known ability to pitch deep into games, racking up a lot of innings pitched in the process.  Here’s one example.  Most games of at least 9 innings pitched, 2005-2011: Halladay 49, Cliff Lee 27, Sabathia 22, Chris Carpenter 20.

Perhaps having pitched so many innings affects Halladay’s chances to continue to pitch at a high level at the later stages of his career?  Of course, being able to pitch so many innings in a game has helped Halladay win so many games in the first place, as the deeper a starter goes into the game the more likely he is to get the decision.  But set that aside, as  I was focused not on the past benefits of his innings numbers but on the possible future effect of his high number of innings pitched.    With that in mind I wanted to check how many innings Doc had actually racked up, compared to his contemporaries.   But thinking about  that I realized  I should also, and perhaps even more importantly, check how many pitches he had thrown, as that seemed as if it might be more relevant than his innings pitched.  My findings are after the jump.

Over the period 2000 through 2011, Halladay has pitched almost exactly the same number of regular season innings (2,368) as C.C. Sabathia (2,364).  But over that same period Doc has thrown 34,375 compared to 37,026 thrown by Sabathia.  That’s almost a full season’s worth of pitches that C.C. has tossed that Doc has not needed to toss to get the same number outs over the same period of time.   Might that make some difference in the relative probability of success of these two pitchers in the late stages of their careers?  Does each pitcher, with his own unique style of windup, delivery and release, have a maximum career number of pitches to throw before his arm falls off, or at least begins a steady decline in its ability to master batters?  I don’t know, but it’s something to consider.   In any event,  I can give you some facts about innings pitched and pitches thrown that might be useful or interesting:

Roy Halladay has thrown the fourth-most innings of any pitcher since 2000, but over the same period has thrown the eighth-most pitches.

Since 2000, 124 pitchers have pitched at least 1,000 regular season innings.  Of those 124 guys, here are the five men who threw the fewest pitches per inning over that period:

Greg Maddux 13.37
Jon Lieber 14.41
Roy Halladay 14.52
David Wells 14.61
Carlos Silva 14.78

Of the 124 guys with 1,000+ IP since 2000, the five highest pitches-per-inning guys:

Scott Kazmir 17.77
Oliver Perez 17.63
Al Leiter 17.57
Glendon Rusch 17.29
Gil Meche 17.25

The average pitches per inning over the period 2000-2011, among the 124 guys with 1,000 IP over that period, was 15.88 pitches per inning.  C.C. Sabathia was close to, though a bit better than, that average, at 15.66.