Collette Calls: Workload Hangover Effect?

Collette Calls: Workload Hangover Effect?

This article is part of our Collette Calls series.

I wanted to get in one topical article before rolling up my sleeves and beginning the annual bold prediction series, so I went to my idea Notes file on my phone to look at thoughts I had jotted down during playoff baseball. One particular idea jumped out at me: workload hangover. I had jotted that down after thinking about how the deep push into the postseason was going to impact Zac Gallen as he finished the 2023 season throwing 243.2 innings between the regular and postseason of work. Gallen's workload increased 32.4 percent on the surface if we treat all innings as equal, but many a pitcher has admitted that the stress of postseason innings is a multiplier to pitching workloads. 

Before diving into this, I wanted to limit the work to recent seasons given the disruption of what the pandemic did to the 2020 and 2021 seasons. Therefore, the data below will focus on pitchers on the past five full seasons, with 2020 and 2021 thrown out the window. I don't know what the data will show us, as I'm typing this introduction up before digging into the data, so my hypothesis is that there is a workload hangover from one season to the next for most (not all) pitchers and that fantasy managers should be more cognizant of it than they typically are at the draft table. Let's find out if my hypothesis is on the right track or much ado about nothing. 

I would be remiss if

I wanted to get in one topical article before rolling up my sleeves and beginning the annual bold prediction series, so I went to my idea Notes file on my phone to look at thoughts I had jotted down during playoff baseball. One particular idea jumped out at me: workload hangover. I had jotted that down after thinking about how the deep push into the postseason was going to impact Zac Gallen as he finished the 2023 season throwing 243.2 innings between the regular and postseason of work. Gallen's workload increased 32.4 percent on the surface if we treat all innings as equal, but many a pitcher has admitted that the stress of postseason innings is a multiplier to pitching workloads. 

Before diving into this, I wanted to limit the work to recent seasons given the disruption of what the pandemic did to the 2020 and 2021 seasons. Therefore, the data below will focus on pitchers on the past five full seasons, with 2020 and 2021 thrown out the window. I don't know what the data will show us, as I'm typing this introduction up before digging into the data, so my hypothesis is that there is a workload hangover from one season to the next for most (not all) pitchers and that fantasy managers should be more cognizant of it than they typically are at the draft table. Let's find out if my hypothesis is on the right track or much ado about nothing. 

I would be remiss if I did not remind you that all innings are not created equal. Innings pitched is the quick and easy way to look at workloads, but total pitches thrown is readily available on the Fangraphs leaderboards. In fact, I went ahead and created a custom leaderboard you can use for your own edification and you would just need to toggle the season filter in the gray area on the menu. 

Logan Webb led all pitchers with 216 innings pitched during the regular season. Miles Mikolas led all pitchers with 860 batters faced, while Gerrit Cole threw the most pitches (3,286). However, Dylan Cease came in second with 3,263 pitches despite throwing 29 fewer regular season innings! Cease "led" all pitchers with 18.4 pitches thrown per inning as well. One might assume that Cease was the leader in pitches thrown per batter faced last year, but you would be wrong, as he was only fifth on that list. The leader...won the NL Cy Young, as Blake Snell needed an average of 4.3 pitches per batter faced. In short, you can see why simply focusing on innings for workload measurement is not an exact science. 

Knowing that, I would like to begin this exercise by looking at the 2017 season and who the categorical leaders were in those seasons. I am focusing only on pitchers who qualified for the ERA title that season (min. 162 IP) and then merging their postseason workload numbers onto their regular season numbers if that pitcher did any postseason work.

2017

Leaders by Innings Pitched

PITCHER

2017 TOTAL IP

2018 REG SEASON IP

Justin Verlander

242.2

214.0

Chris Sale

224.0

158.0

Ervin Santana

213.1

24.2

Zack Greinke

211.0

207.2

Corey Kluber

210.0

215.0

Leaders by Pitches Thrown

PITCHER

2017 TOTAL PITCHES

2018 REG SEASON PITCHES

Justin Verlander

4,065

3,427

Chris Sale

3,605

2,525

Rick Porcello

3,465

3,096

Jose Quintana

3,423

2,908

Jon Lester

3,375

3,121

Leaders by Total Batters Faced

PITCHER

2017 TOTAL BATTERS FACED

2018 REG SEASON TOTAL BATTERS FACED

Justin Verlander

985

833

Rick Porcello

905

808

Chris Sale

894

617

Ervin Santana

875

114

Luis Severino

851

780

Verlander clearly had no issues transferring his immense workload from 2017 over into the next season, nor did most other pitchers. Sale is the biggest takeaway here as he missed time with a shoulder injury, while Santana's significant time was related to a finger injury.

2018

Leaders by Innings Pitched

PITCHER

2018 TOTAL IP

2019 REG SEASON IP

Justin Verlander

231.1

223.0

Max Scherzer

220.2

172.1

Corey Kluber

219.2

35.2

Jacob deGrom

217.0

204.0

Dallas Keuchel

214.2

112.2

Leaders by Pitches Thrown

PITCHER

2018 TOTAL PITCHES

2019 REG SEASON PITCHES

Justin Verlander

3,716

3,448

Max Scherzer

3,493

2,770

Dallas Keuchel

3,472

1,864

Gerrit Cole

3,445

3,362

Mike Clevinger

3,364

2,090

Leaders by Total Batters Faced

PITCHER

2019 TOTAL BATTERS FACED

2019 REG SEASON TOTAL BATTERS FACED

Dallas Keuchel

915

487

Justin Verlander

904

847

Rick Porcello

872

768

James Shields

871

0

Kyle Freeland

868

473

The Klubot broke down after two consecutive seasons of heavy lifting, while Keuchel fell victim to the compensation pick troubles when no club would sign the free agent under the old rules until that pick penalty cleared. Keuchel ended up missing the first two and a half months of 2019. Shields retired, while Freeland went into a tailspin that saw him back in Triple-A for a chunk of the 2019 season. 

Now comes time for the COVID-19 curveball as we will skip the 2019-2020 seasons and fast forward to look at what happened from 2021 to 2022 and then finally 2022 to this past season.

2021

Leaders by Innings Pitched

PITCHER

2021 TOTAL IP

2022 REG SEASON IP

Walker Buehler

226.0

65.0

Zack Wheeler

213.1

153.0

Adam Wainwright

211.2

191.2

Sandy Alcantara

205.2

228.2

Nathan Eovaldi

203.0

109.1

Leaders by Pitches Thrown

PITCHER

2021 TOTAL PITCHES

2022 REG SEASON PITCHES

Walker Buehler

3,475

1,046

Charlie Morton

3,281

2,903

Nathan Eovaldi

3,251

1,739

Zack Wheeler

3,205

2,358

Tyler Mahle

3,196

2,101

Leaders by Total Batters Faced

PITCHER

2021 TOTAL BATTERS FACED

2022 REG SEASON TOTAL BATTERS FACED

Walker Buehler

898

274

Nathan Eovaldi

851

460

Zack Wheeler

849

607

Adam Wainwright

849

803

Sandy Alcantara

837

886

Uh, whose idea was it to allow a 25-26 year old pitcher to lead the league in all three of these metrics? Especially one who had thrown 61.2 innings the season before? The list of pitchers of a similar age and workload has many notable names and many notable injuries related to those names. Wheeler missed time with forearm tendonitis while Eovaldi also missed time with arm-related issues. Mahle also missed tim with shoulder inflammation, which cut into his ability to repeat his 2021 workload. 

2022

Leaders by Innings Pitched

PITCHER

2022 TOTAL IP

2023 REG SEASON IP

Aaron Nola

230.2

193.2

Sandy Alcantara

228.2

184.2

Framber Valdez

226.1

198.0

Yu Darvish

219.2

136.1

Gerrit Cole

219.0

209.0

Leaders by Pitches Thrown

PITCHER

2022 TOTAL PITCHES

2023 REG SEASON PITCHES

Gerrit Cole

3,581

3,286

Aaron Nola

3,459

3,094

Framber Valdez

3,408

2,962

Yu Darvish

3,357

2,219

Corbin Burnes

3,274

3,081

Leaders by Total Batters Faced

PITCHER

2022 TOTAL BATTERS FACED

2023 REG SEASON TOTAL BATTERS FACED

Framber Valdez

923

808

Aaron Nola

919

793

Sandy Alcantara

886

762

Yu Darvish

872

574

Gerrit Cole

870

821

Darvish struggled with back and hip soreness in 2022 and his issues have lingered, leading to elbow surgery to remove a bone spur this past season. Alcantara, after appearing on the leaderboard in back-to-back seasons, was not the same pitcher in 2023 and ended up having Tommy John surgery in October, taking him out for the 2024 season. 

What happened in 2023?

Leaders by Innings Pitched

PITCHER

2023 TOTAL IP

Zac Gallen

243.2

Zack Wheeler

219.2

Jordan Montgomery

219.2

Aaron Nola

216.2

Logan Webb

216.0

Leaders by Pitches Thrown

PITCHER

2023  TOTAL PITCHES

Zac Gallen

3,799

Zack Wheeler

3,560

Aaron Nola

3,438

Jordan Montgomery

3,383

Spencer Strider

3,290

Leaders by Total Batters Faced

PITCHER

2023 TOTAL BATTERS FACED

Zac Gallen

987

Jordan Montgomery

912

Zack Wheeler

890

Aaron Nola

882

Framber Valdez

869

Gallen ascends the throne recently held by Buehler two seasons ago, albeit accomplishing the feat a year older as he pulled off the workload triple crown in his age-27 season. Nola has now been on the innings pitched leaderboard in consecutive seasons and appeared on all three leaderboards just as Verlander did in the 2018 and 2019 seasons. Yes, Verlander went down with Tommy John surgery in 2020 early on, but the conditions of that season make it tough to draw any correlation. Note that Alcantara avoided the pitches thrown leaderboard in both of his seasons prior to injury and yet still struggled this past season, eventually succumbing to injury.

In conclusion, I don't see enough here to make any type of definitive statement on the effects of extreme workload hangovers. However, between Gallen's heavy lifting and Montgomery likely signing a big new contract somewhere other than Texas because of the budgetary uncertainty regarding the team's broadcast rights (they're a Bally Sports-affiliated club), I can absolutely see myself fading the entirety of the 2023 leaderboards, especially given my gut feeling on Strider with his 48.7 percent workload increase year over year and the 41.2 percent increase in his pitch count. The starting pitching market is already thin on options given the carryover from last year's notable injuries, so I will likely be looking for the next ace rather than turning to last year's aces that are not named Gerrit Cole

I've signed up for my first NFBC draft in a $150 Draft Champions League on January 2nd at 8pm. It's an express, so 55 seconds between picks! If you would like to join the league, all the other spots remain open.

Want to Read More?
Subscribe to RotoWire to see the full article.

We reserve some of our best content for our paid subscribers. Plus, if you choose to subscribe you can discuss this article with the author and the rest of the RotoWire community.

Get Instant Access To This Article Get Access To This Article
RotoWire Community
Join Our Subscriber-Only MLB Chat
Chat with our writers and other RotoWire MLB fans for all the pre-game info and in-game banter.
Join The Discussion
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jason Collette
Jason has been helping fantasy owners since 1999, and here at Rotowire since 2011. You can hear Jason weekly on many of the Sirius/XM Fantasy channel offerings throughout the season as well as on the Sleeper and the Bust podcast every Sunday. A ten-time FSWA finalist, Jason won the FSWA's Fantasy Baseball Writer of the Year award in 2013 and the Baseball Series of the Year award in 2018 for Collette Calls,and was the 2023 AL LABR champion. Jason manages his social media presence at https://linktr.ee/jasoncollette
Collette Calls: Thinking About Pitchers Returning From Injuries
Collette Calls: Thinking About Pitchers Returning From Injuries
MLB DFS Picks: DraftKings Plays and Strategy for Wednesday, October 30
MLB DFS Picks: DraftKings Plays and Strategy for Wednesday, October 30
MLB DFS Picks: FanDuel Plays and Strategy for World Series Game 5 on Wednesday, October 30
MLB DFS Picks: FanDuel Plays and Strategy for World Series Game 5 on Wednesday, October 30
MLB World Series Game 5 Best Bets: Expert MLB Picks for Wednesday, October 30
MLB World Series Game 5 Best Bets: Expert MLB Picks for Wednesday, October 30