Rangers' Max Scherzer's Stance Vs. Babying Pitchers Echoes Nolan Ryan

Texas Rangers right-hander Max Scherzer is at the full count of his Hall of Fame Major League Baseball career. He is 39 and will miss the start of the 2024 season next month after surgery last year to repair a herniated disc in his back.

But his opinion is he would not be healthier and would not have made it this far with as much success had an organization babied him as a young pitcher. That is all the rage in recent years in MLB with something called "openers" - pitchers who start a game only to pitch an inning or two or three before a long reliever - as well as limited pitch counts and the "quality start" of a mere six innings.  

"We're so scared now to let guys fail," said Scherzer, an eight-time All-Star, three-time Cy Young winner and two-time World Series champion with Washington in 2019 and Texas last year.

Max Scherzer leaves an American League Championship Series game against Houston 9last season in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Cole Burston/Getty Images)

"I was developed to throw 105, 110 pitches on a five-day rotation," Scherzer said at spring training in Surprise, Arizona. "We need to incentivize keeping the starter in the game longer. We're going to have to come up with rules to do this. It's not going to self-correct."

In 2023, MLB starters averaged 85.1 pitches a game and 15.4 outs. In 2000, they averaged 98.6 innings and 17.8 outs. Scherzer's sentiment is not new.

Nolan Ryan Said Decades Ago Pitchers Were ‘Babied’ Too Much

"There is too much babying of pitchers," Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan said in 2010 while he was the Texas Rangers president and CEO. The Rangers reached the World Series in 2010 and '11 during his tenure.

"And pitch counts are ridiculous," Ryan said.

Ryan, though, did have a bionic arm and threw 222 complete games in his career from 1966-93, averaging 10 complete games a season through most of his career. Scherzer has 12 complete games in his career that began in 2008. There were 34 complete games pitched in all of MLB last season.  

Former Texas Rangers pitcher Nolan Ryan throws out the ceremonial first pitch before a Rangers game on Sept. 29, 2019, in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)

Even at age 42 in 1989, Ryan threw 166 pitches for Texas in a loss to Kansas City. It was the second-highest total pitches by a non-knuckleballer since STATS LLC began tracking pitches in 1988. At age 27 in 1974, Ryan threw 235 pitches in a 13-inning loss to Boston. 

And it didn't appear to hurt his career long term. Ryan threw a MLB record seven no-hitters and 12 one-hitters, led MLB in strikeouts 11 times, was an eight-time All-Star and two-time earned run average champion.

"Pitchers have been pampered," Ryan said in a 2010 Sports Illustrated story. "I go to spring training now, and all they'd do is throw on the side. Now, how in the world do you learn how a hitter's going to react to your pitches without a hitter in there? I always thought that was crazy. Our expectations of them have been lowered. There's no reason why kids today can't pitch as many innings as people did in my era. Today a quality start is six innings. What's quality about that?"

Even the six-inning start is getting rare.

Max Scherzer Became Better By Pitching Deeper In Games

"I became a better pitcher once I went through three times in the lineup and was failing on that third time through the lineup," Scherzer says now. 

The sacred metrics say pitchers lose their effectiveness after facing the lineup twice. Sure, in the short run.

"That's every young pitcher's struggle - learning how to pitch three times through a lineup," Scherzer said.

Even the Lord of MLB metrics agreed with Scherzer and Ryan way back in 2004.

"Backing away from the pitcher's limits too far doesn't make a pitcher less vulnerable. It makes him more vulnerable," Bill James said. "And pushing the envelope, while it may lead to a catastrophic event, is more likely to enhance the pitcher's durability than to destroy it."

Ryan pitched until he was 46. Can Scherzer, who will be 40 on July 27, make it that long?

"It's the rest," Scherzer said. "The appropriate amount of the rest. I don't understand why we keep cutting that pitching count lower and lower."