Message #1845817

[imref]

Another version of "blame the coaches".

http://wtop.com/mlb/2017/03/numbers-crunch-world-baseball-classic-hurt-pitchers-seasons/

In the season after the World Baseball Classic, the 44 pitchers who played in the tournament averaged 2.5 fewer starts and 17 fewer innings than the year before. And the average pitcher’s WAR (which measures how many wins a player accounts for above a replacement-level player) fell by half a win (2.96 to 2.47) between seasons, a decline of 16.5 percent.

In this test, it was found that pitchers who skipped the tournament experienced less of a drop. They averaged 0.7 fewer starts in the season after the WBC, and 3.2 fewer innings. Their WAR declined a tenth of a win between seasons (1.78 to 1.7), a drop of 4.9 percent.

Not a huge impact but there's still lots of debate over the WBC and impact on pitchers.