Does Distance Running Negatively Impact Pitchers?

This is a study from 2008 on conditioning style and the effects on power output for a collegiate pitching staff.      The researchers divided the pitching staff into 2 groups of 8 over the course of a season. They had both groups do everything the same, except for conditioning (running portion of their strength and conditioning workouts).  One group was a sprint group while the other was an endurance group.  The sprint group ran 3 days per week and did 10-30 sprints at 15-60 meters with 10-60 second rest between sets.  The endurance group jogged or cycled (stationary bike riding) 3 or 4 days per week from anywhere between 20-60 minutes.      The results of this study may be very surprising to a quite a few people.  The results found that over the course of the season, the endurance group's peak power output dropped  by an average of 39.5 watts. The sprint group's peak power output increased  by an average of 210.6 watts.  *I'm not sure exactly what they measured for peak power output**      Pitching is all about power so why would we want to lose power by running distance?  If you enjoy running distance then by all means go for it.  But if you do it because you think it's best or because  someone is telling you to, it may be in your best interest to stop running distance primarily.  It will be much more beneficial for you to run sprints and gain power.      There are a lot of people out there that think the way to build up your endurance to pitch is by distance running.  We never move continuously for 30 minutes at a time while pitching so why we would train that way?  At most it will take a couple of seconds from start to finish during a pitch and then you will have at least 10 seconds of rest before your next pitch.  So sprinting, or really acceleration starts (10 yards or so) is much closer to emulating the energy system used while pitching.  So if you're spending your time  running long distances (unless you enjoy it), you may actually be decreasing performance.