I've been frequenting the BYB commenting boards again and I've seen a lot of talk about pitch counts and the ever lasting debate are they necessary and when should workloads increase?  Well, since I have a fascination with pitching I thought I'd educate myself and share.

The best and most descriptive article on the subject I found at the Hardball Times.

What Pitch Counts Hath Wrought.

For those with out time to read through the article I'll go for a cliffnotes version.

• doing some quick averages in my head modern era greats (Maddux, Schilling, Martinez, Clemens) probably averaged around 45-50,000 pitches for their careers.  Past greats (Ryan, Perry, Lolich, Gibson) threw about 60-70,000 pitches for their careers.  That's a 15-20,000 pitch difference.
• Human Physiology doesn't change enough within a few years to make workload changes necessary.  Pitchers today are just conditioned more to throw fewer pitches.
• Because the very best pitchers no longer apply their trade for as long of a period of time, inferior pitchers take over and can be a partial explanation of the offensive boom that has occurred in the modern era.
• Pitchers get hurt.  They did back then and they still do now.  The rate of injury hasn't changed that much despite the application of pitch counts and five man rotations.

I can say that I honestly agree with the points made.  Pitchers today aren't weaker or physiologically different from their predecessors, they are just conditioned differently.  While todays system won't likely change, I will say that it's a unnecessary system accept at a youth age where the ASMI has concluded that it will reduce arm and shoulder injury amongst youth.