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I understand that this now qualifies as a human rights violation and perhaps even torture (in amendments drafted by Baseball Prospectus). But I can find zero evidence that having relievers toss 100 or more innings has ever significantly harmed them. Those positing such theories have a burden of reasonable proof. But the sabermetric community has exerted too little scientific rigor in testing whether pitch counts or innings limits for even starters, let alone relievers, have even the remote consequences implied by such definitions such as Pitcher Abuse Points.

Ironically, this is one tenet of the sabermetric movement that has been embraced completely by Major League management because it feels like it should be true. Pitchers were suffering a rash of arm injuries that seemed unprecedented (but were much more likely the product of better diagnostic measures). So big league managers and GMs "erred on the side of caution." (Why err at all?) A decade or more later and still no evidence of any decline whatsoever in arm injuries.

It's human nature to want to exert control over possible negative outcomes. And it would be wonderful if diligence in limiting appearances or innings or pitches could even significantly lessen the risk of potentially career-ending arm injuries. But where's the proof?

For starting pitchers, it's become a self-fulfilling prophecy because they're now trained to gradually build up to a maximum of about 200 innings and no more than 110 pitches every five days. So the idea of going to a four-man rotation and having starters throw 250-to-300 innings like they did 30 years ago is a no-go. Thus, we must forget about doing away with such absurdity as Cy Young winner Jake Peavy registering only one out after the seventh inning all of last year.

But relievers are different. They weren't trained to throw 130 or more innings back in the day (we won't even suggest a Mike Marshall-like 208 relief innings). Most relievers weren't even trained to be relievers; they were failed starters. So if they could do it then with no career-long easing, why can't they do it now?

Only one reliever has tossed over 100 innings since 2004 -- Scott Proctor for the Yankees in 2006. Did that destroy his 2007? Well, he did start slowly, to the delight of the Pitcher Abuse crowd. But he finished with about the same bottom line as in 2006: an ERA 24 percent better than league average compared to 28 percent in 2006. Yes, the peripherals were better in 2006. But that could reasonably be explained as just random variance.

It wasn't just horses like Goose Gossage who piled up the innings a generation ago. Ichabod Crane-look-alike Kent Tekulve was rail thin and had the pallor of a shut-in. He went over 100 inning seven times and had an ERA 38 percent better than league average at age 40 (105 innings).

Dan Quisenberry had five years out of six over 128 innings as a closer back in the 1980s, and the one season he didn't was strike-shortened. His performance appears unaffected from such shocking abuse.

There are many examples like this before the process ended pretty much with Mike Jackson and Duane Ward back in the late 1980s, early 1990s. Jackson had no problem. Ward ended up getting hurt after multiple years over 100 innings. But who can say that he and others like him wouldn't have gotten hurt anyway?

You know what hasn't gone down at all the past 30 or 40 years? Appearances. Why don't warm-up pitches count as pitches? Aren't they throwing sliders in the pen? What about throws over to first base to hold runners or tosses back to the umpire to change balls? Count 'em so the poor darlings don't unduly suffer.

The job of a manager and GM is to win games. Protecting assets such as Chamberlain is an obvious responsibility, too. But the latter must yield to the former in the absence of any proof. I think a 10-year experiment is grounds for saying we have none. Now let's go back to winning games. But first some GM is going to suck it up and risk being second-guessed when a pitcher he's "abusing" gets hurt. That will surely happen because those same pitchers are getting hurt now with all the babying.

Playing to win means relievers like Chamberlain should pitch up to once around the order about 60 times a year when the game appears to hang in the balance after the fifth inning into extra innings. If you give him a bunch of one-inning, 13-pitch deals you're needlessly putting the game in the hands of Kyle Farnsworth or LaTroy Hawkins in virtually all those games.

Here's my Pitcher Abuse Theory (for relievers, or "Salfino's Joba Rules"): appearances are abusive but innings are fine. Do I have proof? No. But it feels right to me. I've provided a Tommy John, torn-labrum Satan. And I force no one to admit that injuries are a natural product of the wholly unnatural act of throwing sliders and fastballs 95-plus mph.

I will not object to hooking up Joba up to the video-game electrodes to make certain he doesn't lead with his elbow or open his shoulder too quick or do whatever the injury gurus say is the culprit this week.

Or you could just lower the mound. There's some scientific basis for that. William Raasch, associate professor of orthopedic surgery at the Medical College of Wisconsin and team physician for the Brewers says a study of 20 elite-level professional and amateur pitchers offers some substantive proof that the 10-inch mound is too high and causes pitchers to exert undo stress on their arms. It would be funny if such a simple measure proves able to undo the injuries that have been unabated despite fundamentally altering the very nature of Major League pitching.