Wells pitches per PA

Looking here, we find Wells at the top of the NL in pitches per PA. I'm looking Wednesday night too, so if you read this on Thursday and click on that link, the numbers might be updated a bit.

Right now Wells is listed as throwing 4.0 pitches per plate appearance. His company is not necessarily bad - Jason Schmidt throws 4.1 and Randy Johnson 3.9. The thing is, they are more effective than Kip; they get more outs per plate appearance. Schmidt averages 15.7 pitches per inning and Johnson 15.1 pitches per inning. Wells averages 18.1 pitches per inning. That's close to tops in the NL for starters. Only Montreal's Claudio Vargas throws more pitches per inning.

What does this mean? Give Wells 120 pitches and he won't get through the seventh if he has his usual 2004 stuff.

He can be better than that. In 2002 he averaged 15.5 pitches per inning and in 2003 he averaged 16.2 pitches per inning. He's never thrown more than 3200 pitches in a year.

At 18 per inning, 3200 pitches will get him only 177 2/3 innings. An "ace" will give you 200, 220. In 2003, only sixteen pitchers threw more than 3200 pitches and only Al Leiter averaged more than 16.8 pitches per inning. Leiter had a good year, winning fifteen. That's amazing considering he only made 30 starts. Typically starters can expect to win about 1/3 of their starts provided they play on a .500 team. Leiter won half his starts by holding batters to .260 / .351 / .396. No doubt some luck is involved. He gave up 15 home runs in 180 innings. Overall he was good enough for #2 pitcher on a 66-95 team. This year, Wells has been holding them to (not including tonight's start) .261 / .347 / .412. He's on course for about 20 home runs in 180 innings. He's not going to hit the 200 inning mark unless he brings down the number of pitches he throws per inning.

Reader Dan said all this much more concisely - he's been too cute around the corners this season. The solution is easy. He needs to, in the words of Craig Wilson, throw strikes.

Still no word on the trouble with his hand. Let's hope he's not seriously injured. Since pitchers tend to get hurt by throwing when they are fatigued, Wells will remain an injury candidate, even if he's A-OK for his next start, because he's laboring too hard to get to the seventh inning. It's not fair but the Bucs count on Wells more than anyone to go out there and give the bullpen a rest.