Sabathia's being abused, sort of

For those of you with a real head for the stats and love data, this one's for you.

CC Sabathia has been on a tear since joining the Brewers just before the All-Star break. Okay, you knew that already. Brewers manager Ned Yost has worked Sabathia hard with a 130-pitch game, two other games over 120 pitches and all but two games over 100 pitches in a Brewers uniform. This has shot Sabathia up the list of most abused pitchers and he recently overtook Tim Lincecum(!) for the top spot.

For the rest of you, here is the simple conclusion:

In 2007, CC Sabathia threw many more innings than he had previously and didn't appear to suffer down the stretch. So far in 2008, Sabathia not only has thrown a good many innings but has had several high pitch counts as a member of
the Brewers. While there might be a hint at a short-term drop in velocity after a very high-pitch-count game, Sabathia has quickly recovered after that.

The Brewers have been playing rather poorly lately and probably will be leaning on Sabathia hard to make the playoffs. While I am not saying that Yost should let Sabathia throw 130 pitches every time out, there it does appear that
Sabathia's stuff doesn't take too big a hit when he does. If I am a GM trying to woo Sabathia in the of season, these large pitch counts would not bother me much. Sabathia has had no arm injuries and it appears that if used reasonably he can be a horse who carries a team on the days he pitches.

So there's a full dissertation that Sabathia has been overworked, but the conclusion is that he's a horse and should be able to withstand the beating. Got it? Good.