Denny McClain Needs To Shut Up!

[ThatRogue]

McClain gives Nathan a hard time for complaining of a dead arm...but McClain himself suffered a significant decline in performance, followed by arm injuries, after he pitched 661 combined innings in 1968 & 1969. His troubled life should serve as an example of his lack of wisdom, but he seemingly has learned little from his own hardships.

http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/eye-on-baseball/24522837/denny-mclain-has-strong-words-for-tigers-closer-joe-nathan

http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/eye-on-baseball/24524023/the-week-in-overreactions-reds-are-in-serious-trouble

[Moonlight J]

The other day Jack Morris said pitchers with dead arms have dead brains

[Judge Jude]

McClain gives Nathan a hard time for complaining of a dead arm...but McClain himself suffered a significant decline in performance, followed by arm injuries, after he pitched 661 combined innings in 1968 & 1969. His troubled life should serve as an example of his lack of wisdom, but he seemingly has learned little from his own hardships.

[/url]

that's misleading in a lot of ways, as I noted over on BBTF:

from age 21, McLain pitched 220, 264, 235, 336, and 325 innings in five seasons, winning 108 games and two Cy Young Awards plus an MVP.
then only 91 ineffective innings in 1970 - but he was suspended for the first three months of the season for gambling, and then had two other suspensions later in the season.

in 1971, he managed to go 10-22 with a 77 ERA+ in 217 IP with the Senators - he missed the last three weeks of July with a sore arm. It's worth noting that McLain griped long and hard about MGR Ted Williams using 5 starters in the rotation, not 4. Hence his "paltry" IP total, lol.

then McLain's MLB career ends at age 28 in 1972 with a crappy 20 games with Oakland and Atlanta. His arm is shot.

I can't say that I agree with him, but I wouldn't be surprised if he talked himself into the idea that everything was fine until they wouldn't let him pitch in the first half of 1970. then he got "babied" in 1971, and that was it.

can't believe Denny made it to age 70, btw

[ThatRogue]

Doesn't that further emphasize that McClain pitched a number amount of innings at a young age, and, that his promising career ended rather abruptly due to arm troubles? Can we really subscribe to the thinking that the reduced IP in 1970 & 1971 contributed to his arm troubles, and not the significant wear-and-tear of his first five seasons (especially 1968 & 1969) in the majors?

[Judge Jude]

Doesn't that further emphasize that McClain pitched a number amount of innings at a young age, and, that his promising career ended rather abruptly due to arm troubles? Can we really subscribe to the thinking that the reduced IP in 1970 & 1971 contributed to his arm troubles, and not the significant wear-and-tear of his first five seasons (especially 1968 & 1969) in the majors?

I noted that I wouldn't agree with that alternative explanation, but people confuse correlation with cause-and-effect all the time. He kept pitching huge innings, and was a superstar. He missed most of the next season due to suspensions, then struggled "only" pitching every 5 days the following year (this is the start of the 5-man rotation, btw, with the Dodgers just ahead of them iirc).

If I was him, I might think the same way, is how I'd put it.

[Don Quixote]

If I'm Joe Nathan and/or a Tigers fan, I refer back to Jim Bouton's "Ball Four", written during McLain's time in the big leagues, and say, "consider the source".