John Fay

jfay@enquirer.com

NEW YORK -- Reds manager Bryan Price admits he doesn't have all the answers about pitch counts and innings pitched. But Price, in his first season as manager, has shown a willingness to push his starters on both counts.

All four Reds starters who have been in the rotation all year are in the top 25 in the National League in innings pitched: 1. Johnny Cueto, 143 2/3; 5. Mike Leake, 134; 22. Homer Bailey, 117 2/3; 25. Alfredo Simon, 116 2/3.

To get to that number of innings, you've got to throw a lot of pitches. Reds pitchers have. Cueto, for instance, has thrown more than 100 pitches in 16 of his 20 starts. Ten times, he's gone over 110. That's a lot in today's baseball. In the 1970s, Cueto would be considered underused.

"We're also talking about a high pitch count being 110 or 115 pitches," Price said. "That's only a high pitch count because we've made it a high pitch count. We treat our young pitchers as such a commodity and we're so protective of them that they rarely get to the point where they throw 125 pitches to throw a complete game.

"People start getting sweaty palms at 100 pitches with their starters. I don't."

Price was a big-league pitching coach for 14 years before becoming the Reds manager. The final call on how long a pitcher goes is always a manager's. Price has been willing to push it.

"If I learned anything, it's that the teams that are successful are the ones that have very good starting pitching," Price said. "I have a lot of faith in these guys. I don't like to pull them out early. Sometimes in a National League game, it necessitates pinch-hitting. Maybe if a guy gives you six good innings and is down to 2-1, you have to hit for him because you're running out of outs to use. That's tough. I really enjoy letting these guys go."

To throw a lot of innings, you have to be effective. Cueto is a prime example of that.

"He's thrown a lot of innings, a lot of pitches," Price said. "He's thrown that many innings because he's been successful and he's kept his pitch count competitive. I believe in our starters. I believe that winning teams get productivity out of their starting rotation."

When Price was hired as pitching coach, he was at least nominally placed in charge of pitching for the entire organization. He hasn't put a mandate on the minor leagues to go with higher pitch counts.

"It's a Catch-22 situation because we're having these high rates of kids going through the Tommy John ligament issues," Price said. "We have the Tom Verducci stuff about these 30-inning increments in elevating your starters more cautiously. You have the college pitchers coming in that are throwing once a week going into a five-man rotation. It's hard to have it both ways.

"Michael Lorenzen is a great example. He was an outfielder/closer in college. We're trying to find a way to build up his innings," Price said. "Robert Stephenson. (Tony) Cingrani. He was a closer in college. How do we incrementally build these guys up?"

The Reds have changed the way they do that. Ty Howington, the Reds' first-round pick in 1999 and fourth overall, signed late, so his first year as a professional was 2000.

He threw 141 2/3 innings that year. Howington's career was ended by injuries before he got close to the majors.

Stephenson, the first-round pick in 2011, threw 65 innings his first year as a pro. The Reds used a tandem system under then-GM Dan O'Brien, where young pitchers were limited to 80 pitches. Price thinks there's a happy medium between being reckless and being too conservative.

"All of a sudden, they're ready to pitch in the big leagues but they've never thrown more than 115 or 80 innings in a season," he said.

"These are all the challenges we have. I personally believe – and did as a pitching coordinator – that starting pitchers have to throw the innings and the pitches. That's how they learn how to pitch. You don't learn to pitch in player development if you're a six-inning pitcher.

"When you get here, we're not going to expect five to six innings and 85 pitches. We're going to expect you to throw seven to nine innings and 105 to 125 pitches, 130 pitches."

But with all the pitchers undergoing Tommy John surgery, more innings for minor leaguers is a hard sell. And, again, Price admits he doesn't have the answer.

""I don't know if it's in the training programs, the kids playing year-round baseball from 8 to 18 before the draft," he said. "I have no idea. But I do know that this was not a common injury years ago and it is now. . . Why would it change over these last 25 to 30 years so significantly."