I have always been critical of the "
Verducci Effect" or "Year After Effect" as I have yet to see the study that proves its existence. Now that it's February again, Tom Verducci has released his
top ten high-risk pitchers based on the "Verducci Eeffect". As I was reading the article I became a bit upset by his defensive nature and use of circumstantial evidence to prove his point. I am a scientist in drug discovery and if I ever used his "evidence" to prove the efficacy of a compound I would be laughed out of a job or selling Homeopathic medicine.
So, what actually is the Verducci Effect? The general idea is a pitcher under the age of 25 who increases his number of innings by more than 30 from his highest total is at risk of injury in following years. On the surfacem the theory seems plausible; with proper evidence and data we could formulate a study to allow the theory to be critized and able to stand behind on its own merits.
My first criticism is that Verducci allows the evidence to not just be injuries, which are already very common among pitchers under 25, but also uses decreased performance as a proof of the theory. It's even more maddening that he uses ERA to prove this decrease in skills. Being a reader of Fire Brand I'm sure you know ERA season by season is not a very accurate measure of a pitchers skill, as the eventual ERA value assigned per year isn't solely dependent upon the pitcher's performance. Numerous factors outside the pitcher's control have a great affect on ERA.
February 18, 2010
Troy Patterson
