I am not worried about Arnold and Bush because they are not young and do not have much mileage on their arms. McGowan is young, and needs to have his workload monitored carefully. With any luck, there will be a slew of pitchers coming to Syracuse in the next 2 years who will need to be watched, due to prior injury or youth. Rosario, Perkins, League, Maureau, Banks and Vermilyea are names that come to mind immediately.

It is hard to tell how much to ascribe the overuse of the Florida starters to Torborg or to Arnsberg. I have a confidence that Marty Pevey, the new Manager in Syracuse, will not allow the vulnerable to be overused.

I've always expressed reservation at the Arnsberg signing based on his history with Florida, and a couple of related stories I heard from his tenuure there. I assume JP knows what he's doing in hiring Arnsberg and trusts he won't pull another Burnett on us, but seeing how the past is the best way to predict the future, it doesn't look good.

Soon after his surgery, A.J. Burnett was supportive of his former manager and pitching coach.

"There's a rumor out there that our management had known there was a bone spur in my elbow upon arriving from the Montreal Expos to the Florida Marlins, and both Brad Arnsberg and Jeff Torborg were not told about this," Burnett said. "I'm sure if they were told about this, I would have been handled differently."

Not surprisingly, Loria, Samson and Beinfest deny everything, but anyone who has been paying attention knows how far they can be trusted. I believe the players.

Josh Beckett wanted to cry when he heard the news that Arnsberg was gone, so Jason Arnold and company should consider themselves lucky to be working with him. I have no idea what led to Tom Filer's dismissal, but it is inconceivable that J.P. would hire someone in such a key role who wasn't completely in accord with the organizational philosophy. If Ricciardi trusts Marty Pevey and Brad Arnsberg with the development of his prize pitching prospects, that's good enough for me.

Remember that of any three "can't miss" hurlers, chances are one lives up to expectations, one gets hurt and one simply disappoints, no matter who is the pitching coach. When the inevitable happens and a Syracuse pitcher goes on the DL, I'm sure there will be Chicken Little responses, calling for Arnsberg's head. It will be no more his fault than it was Gil Patterson's for not being able to read the minds of the injury-hiding members of his staff (Lidle, Politte, Walker) last year.

I posted on this over at my blog, but it's worth saying here: echoing Coach and JKCL, this is one where my trust in JP et al is going to be really tested. The public pronouncements of Burnett and Beckett struck me as both immature and a bit too public. With the arms coming through Syracuse, I'm hoping my worry is simply that ... worry.

As I mentioned earlier, I suspect that the organization has clear guidelines on how pitchers will be used. If each pitcher isn't given a specific maximum workload I would bet that there's a standard for pitchers given their age and previous workload that outlines how they are used. I would doubt that Arnsberg has control over that.

As Jimmy Key's Christmas Lights mentioned Arnsberg is more likely there to teach them how to pitch, not to decide how long or often they pitch.

IIRC they kept Vermiylea in the pen after drafting him because his workload was relatively high in college.

As JP said in his BB interview the coaches are in place to execute the teams plan, not to make the plan themselves. On the surface it seems like a questionable move, but I have a hard time picturing Arnsberg killing any arms in Syracuse.

This reminds me of a funny story...a year or 2 ago there was a survey of front office people and a question was 'What would you do if you found out a top pitching prospect threw 134 pitches in a game the night before'?

Some of the replies varied from they would call the team and ask why it happened and ok it if it was the right circumstances, to telling the coaches that it shouldn't happen, to saying just fudge the number on the stat sheet. Then when Paul Depodesta answered it he said something to the effect of 'that would never happen - we'd be listening to the game on the internet and would call the team as soon as they hit 90 pitches to take them out of the game'.

One newspaper article I read last year indicated that the Jays wanted Vermilyea to start, but he preferred to relieve.

One newspaper article I read last year indicated that the Jays wanted Vermilyea to start, but he preferred to relieve.

That doesn't sound accurate. Got a cite?

mike green - I think that was common knowledge around Da Box. I've heard it here many times.

Logan,

Here is an excerpt from my July 24/03 post in the "minor league discussions" thread on the official site:

Here is a little piece on Vermilyea from a Syracuse newspaper courtesy of syracuse.com:

Move to the bullpen suits rookie pitcher Auburn pitcher Jamie Vermilyea showed he still has a starting pitcher's touch in a game against Hudson Valley Monday. Given his preference, however, Vermilyea would rather learn how finish games than keep starting them. Vermilyea, a rookie out of the University of New Mexico, struck out 10 hitters in four innings in a spot start for the Doubledays. The performance recalled Vermilyea's workhorse career at New Mexico, where he started 18 games in 2002 and 16 in 2003.

But Vermilyea, taken by Toronto in the ninth round of the 2003 draft, wants to be a reliever and so far Holmberg has obliged him. Vermilyea snuck into the rotation only because Marcos Sandoval was called up to Single-A Charleston last week.

Vermilyea may get one or two more starts, but once Auburn's other pitchers have worked their way up to throwing more innings, Vermilyea likely will return to the pen.

"I'd much rather pitch out of the bullpen. Coming out of the bullpen is much more interesting to me," he said. "I definitely think it (starting in college) has helped my arm. I've thrown over 300 innings in school ball. Having thrown that many innings helps. I can recuperate better (between appearances)."

Vermilyea's arm sure seems fresh. He leads the NY-P with 35 strikeouts and has a 1.80 earned run average in 20 innings pitched. His fastball is routine - 88-91 mph - but he uses a fastball, slider, forkball and changeup to carve out strikes on both sides of the plate.

"You can't sit on any one pitch. That's what makes him so good," said Auburn pitching coach Tom Bradley. "He's been pretty much lights out every time out."

Vermilyea's good stuff automatically became a little more effective when he got to Auburn. He was used to pitching in the thinner air of New Mexico, where his pitches didn't move as much and routine fly balls grew wings.

First of all, let me say this was a good signing. This guy will not dictate when a pitcher is taken out of a game, this is the managers' job. The manager gets his orders (or at least guidelines) from the gm and management of the team.

Unless you want to be fired because of subordination (in which case your career is pretty much over ... so why do it), no one will disobey the team. I think burnett and becket were left in the game for long pitch counts because the gm wanted to, not because the manager wanted to do this. Their team had lots of problems with injuries and ditto the cubs who leave prior in for 130+ pitches in regular season games (and they have many minor leaguers who are injured because of this). Think about the cubs for a second, do you think dusty would leave prior for such a long time unless he had an ok from management ? of course not.

These teams disregard pitch counts because they don't believe in such things. They think that all you need is a constant and plentiful supply of prospects since injuries are random, can't be forseen and much less prevented.

In terms of credentials, this guy got becket and burnett to where they are now, and resurrected the carreers of penny and pavano. He will be a good influence on our high school pitching prospects once they get to syracuse ... and I guess this signing means league, perkins and mcgowan wont be traded since college pitching wont benefit as much from a guy like this. Good news all around.

http://me.woot.net
It seems that very few people would ever be fired for subordination. "How dare you follow my orders?" Insubordination would probably be the correct word there. :)

"In terms of credentials, this guy got becket and burnett to where they are now, and resurrected the carreers of penny and pavano."

On the other hand, Clement blossomed as soon as he left Florida and Dempster, despite his potential, never did anything for Florida. (I'm not sure about the overlap of Arnsberg's time in Florida with these guys' time in Florida, though.)

(I'm not sure about the overlap of Arnsberg's time in Florida with these guys' time in Florida, though.)
No offense but it only takes a minute to check (let's be fair with the mans reputation).

Arnsberg started at the start of the 2002 season.

Dempsters good year (he only had one better then average) was in 2000. The wheels were already coming off the bus in 2001 (I assume due to injury).

2000 (Age 23)
226.3 IP 3.66 ERA 122 ERA+

2001 (Age 24)
211.3 IP 4.94 ERA 86 ERA+

Clement was only in Florida for 2001.

The young B's (Beckett/Burnett) were very good and probably very overworked. The Manager should get the blame for this. If we want to look at the performance of the pitchers (B's + Willis, etc.), it looks like Arnsberg could be a pretty good coach (I don't know how you can distinguish the talent from the coaching). I'm in the trust-the-brain-trust camp on this one.

'The Manager should get the blame for this.'

If Brian Price gets the credit for it when pitch counts are kept downs in Seattle, I think Arnsberg should get at least some blame when they're up in Florida.

If Brian Price gets the credit for it when pitch counts are kept downs in Seattle, I think Arnsberg should get at least some blame when they're up in Florida.

You do of course have the right to assign credit and blame as you see fit. The coaches don't make the in game decisions, that is the realm of the manager. We have no idea if Arnsberg was suggesting to the manager that pitcher X should only throw X pitches that night or "hey skip, maybe we should pull him now" or whatever. As people on the outside, we should judge him by the criteria of his position IMHO.

If people (Blue Jays management) who have established that they are astute judges of coaching (I don't hear any complaints on Barnett, Patterson, Gibons, Butterfield) say that Arnsberg is a good pitching coach, that's enough for me. I'm assuming that he is a good teacher, motivator, etc. and that he is capable of operating in the current Blue Jay instructional culture. I.E. This is the plan, implement the plan.

"The coaches don't make the in game decisions, that is the realm of the manager."

A pitching coach's job description is to make the pitchers under his guidance better pitchers. If the manager is overworking the pitchers and thereby making them worser pitchers, I think it's within the job description of the pitching coach to speak up. I think it's pretty widely considered to be true that Price convinced Pinella to go easier on the pitchers than he had.

However, I don't think we disagree on the wisdom of hiring Arnsberg. It doesn't follow that if I assign blame to person x that I assume person x will perform y action in the future. If Arnsberg as the pitching coach didn't speak up when Beckett and Burnett were being overworked he should be blamed for some kind of neglect. However, that doesn't mean that I necessarily think that he's for overworking pitchers. Like you, I'm putting faith in the Jays' braintrust that they know enough about Arnsberg to know that they're not hiring someone who will shred arms.

Damn...it sounds like we agree. There's just not enough disagreement around here :-)

If the manager is overworking the pitchers and thereby making them worser pitchers, I think it's within the job description of the pitching coach to speak up.

Sure but how do we know he didn't speak up? Let's say he did speak up but his advise wasn't taken. I don't think he'd show up his manager in the press (particularly since coaches are usually reliant upon managers to get work).

I think that the example of Bryan Price & Lou Piniella suggests a pitching coach can exert significant influence on how a manager uses his pitchers. Heck, if Price can tell Lou Piniella he's been using his pitchers wrong and keep his job, he must be doing something right.

So the questions are: Did Arnsberg feel that Torborg was overworking the young pitchers? Did he express concerns to Torborg? And lastly, does it matter?

Obviously, it matters if Arnsberg feels that there's nothing wrong with a young pitcher routinely throwing 120 pitches per game. But if he does lean towards overworking pitchers, that can be tempered by Marty Pevey, who has thus far shown he can be trusted with some of the most prized arms in the organization.

In other words, let Arnsberg do what he's good at -- teaching pitches, working on strategies to batters -- and let Pevey worry about pitch counts and workloads, which are likely organizationally mandated anyway.

I just got the Mariners book "Out of Left Field" for Christmas. When Price was hired, Piniella told Price the pitching staff was his; he admitted candidly that he wasn't the best judge of pitchers - especially young prospects. Giving the pitching coach the reins is a rarity in the MLB, so I can't judge how much leeway Arnsberg will have. Hopefully you all are right the the pitching count will be decided by someone other than Arnsberg - or for all we know, Arnsberg fought for pitching counts and was overruled by a higher authority.

I've read that both the Padres and Athletics have strict rules and systems for the handling of pitching prospects that dictate how many pitches they throw, how often they can warm up in the bullpen, and so forth. It wouldn't surprise me if the Jays have something similar going.

Pistol, re post 16, you might be interested to know that Midland, the A's double A franchise, does not broadcast over the internet (although most of the other teams in the league do). DePodesta's comments might be a tad overstated.

Mike,

You mean post 6 ... why oh why can't Greymatter put a space between the thread number and the comment number ;)