Only seven pitchers threw more than 220 innings during the 2015 season. Two of them are still playing – Chicago's Jake Arrieta and Toronto's David Price.
Price, 30, is only seven months older than Arrieta, 29. But in terms of arm life, he has years on him. Price has thrown nearly twice as many major-league innings as Arrieta (roughly 1,500 versus 800).
Pitchers as talented as Price can ease through the minor-league level. There isn't any easing through a lineup in the big leagues. Also consider, Price has spent the bulk of his career in the AL East, the hardest-hitting division in baseball.
Arrieta became a true ace this year. Price has been doing it since 2010. The Blue Jays star has been leaned on a lot harder for a lot longer. The wear is starting to show.
Thus far, Arrieta is the pitching star of these playoffs. He shut out the Pirates in the National League wild-card game. He put a foot on St. Louis's throat in the NLDS. He's 2-0 with a 2.45 ERA.
Going into their grapple with the New York Mets, Chicago has a lot of reasons to feel confident. Arrieta is prime among them.
Meanwhile, as he's been constantly reminded for years now, Price is having a little playoff trouble. Given a chance to work past his jitters in an extended relief appearance, Price instead deepened them, giving up three runs in three innings.
He's been effectively supplanted as Toronto's No. 1 pitcher by 24-year-old Marcus Stroman.
Price is scheduled to start Games 2 and 6 of the ALCS against the Kansas City Royals. How he'll do remains an open question. But a question that would have been laughed at a month ago – "Is he all right?" – has become reasonable.
"I don't worry about him at all," manager John Gibbons said before Friday's series opener. Then he explained why he's worried about him.
"I know he's had his struggles in the postseason, but to accomplish what he does every year, you're good. You're really good. I think what happens to those guys – your workhorses – you get to the end of the year, they're gassed. They throw a lot of innings … and so that takes its toll on them."
After offering a sensible explanation for Price's playoff problems, Gibbons said, "He'll get it up for the next few games."
Maybe he will. It hardly matters from Gibbons's perspective. Toronto has no choice but to roll him out there.
A throwing arm is a precision instrument. You can't gut out a pitching performance. Trying to make up in effort what you're lacking in stuff is a little like asking a surgeon to do better heart transplants by pressing down harder on the scalpel.
On the night, you either have it or you don't. From the evidence of the past three weeks, Price doesn't have it.
Or, at the least, he doesn't have the "it" a player of his calibre is known for. Toronto can still beat teams when Price is average. That's his goal now – be average.
Though the focus is on the playoffs, it's hard to not to start thinking about how this wobble is affecting Price's future in Toronto.
First things first – Price is worth whatever amount of money and/or effort it will take to keep him.
It's been suggested that his playoff fade will affect his asking price. It won't. Not in the least.
It's also been suggested that the same letdown will make teams less anxious to sign him. That's also wrong.
A pure and predictable talent such as Price is the golden mean of baseball – it allows you to balance out the strengths and weaknesses on the offensive side of the ball, knowing this one man has your rotation taken care of.
That Price is also a bright, charismatic and easily marketable presence – in and out of the clubhouse – does not affect his salary. But it does make it easier for baseball people to convince non-baseball people that his paycheque is worth it. Price essentially sells himself.
But you're starting to suspect that as another postseason goes sideways on him, Price is already consoling himself with the thought of another fresh start.
After his disappointing relief appearance in Game 4 of the ALDS, Price was interviewed on the field by Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal. Though the Jays had won easily, Price seemed flummoxed.
"I did all right," he said. "It's just … uh … it happens."
But it was Price's choice of pronouns that put your Toronto-based spidey senses tingling.
"Whatever they need, I'm here to help these guys win. That's why they got me. Whatever role I have to play on this team, that's what I'm ready for."
Not "our team" or "us" – "they."
Rosenthal sensed the hesitation – "Are you enjoying this role?"
"Sure, yeah, I enjoy pitching. I enjoy being on the field. Whatever I can do to help these guys win, I'm for."
Not "our guys" … "these guys."
It's a little thing, but someone as sharp Price isn't usually loose with his words. By the time he hit the podium – after a half-hour to gather himself – he's corrected his language. It was back to "us."
On Friday, he'd slipped back into us versus them.
Asked again if he would have preferred to pitch in the first game in Kansas City, Price said, "It doesn't matter. I mean, whatever this team wants me to do to try and help them win, I'm all about it."
You don't doubt he means it. You do doubt that feeling will last past the next two weeks.
For Toronto's sake as well as his own, it'd go easier if Price can find two or three more solid outings in his flagging arm.
Price may never be this organization's leading man. But he can be its Clint Eastwood – rolling into town when there's trouble and rolling back out again once he's helped fix it.