More UCL Tears Prompt Pointed Exchange, Few Answers to Baseball’s Thorny Mess
If last week’s news that Eury Pérez would need Tommy John surgery was bad, Saturday was a whole lot worse. Within a span of five hours, the baseball world learned that the Guardians’ Shane Bieber, the Yankees’ Jonathan Loáisiga, and the Braves’ Spencer Strider have all incurred significant damage to their ulnar collateral ligaments, with Bieber headed for Tommy John surgery, Loáisiga set to undergo season-ending surgery as well, and Strider headed to see Dr. Keith Meister, the orthopedic surgeon who will perform the surgeries of the other two.
The losses of those pitchers is a triple bummer, not just for them and their respective teams — each of which leads its division, incidentally — and fans, but for the sport in general. Underscoring the seriousness of the issue, by the end of Saturday both the players’ union and Major League Baseball traded volleys regarding the impact of the introduction of the pitch clock on pitcher injuries in general.
Bieber, a two-time All-Star, won the AL Cy Young award and the pitchers’ Triple Crown during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, but missed significant time in two out of the past three years due to injuries. In 2021 he was limited to 16 starts due to a strain of his subscapularis, the largest of the four muscles that make up the rotator cuff, and last year he made just 21 starts, missing 10 weeks due to elbow inflammation. He had pitched very well this season, with a pair of scoreless six-inning outings, each totaling just 83 pitches. He struck out 11 A’s in Oakland on Opening Day and then nine Mariners (without a single walk) in Seattle on April 2.
Bieber experienced more soreness than usual while recovering from the Opening Day start, but the 29-year-old righty and the team decided to proceed without extra rest, according to MLB.com’s Mandy Bell, who wrote, “Bieber wanted to see if he could push through this, considering he hadn’t felt any pain in Spring Training.”
The discomfort persisted during Bieber’s second start, after which the team ordered additional testing, “which revealed the injury to the same ligament he had problems with last year,” wrote Bell. If I’m not mistaken, that last bit of information is new, as previous reports of last year’s injury did not specify as to the inflammation’s cause. “He really put in a ton of work this winter and throughout spring training, and we all felt he was on a good path to stay healthy and contribute for the balance of the season,” said president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti on a Zoom call with reporters. Antonetti additionally lauded the pitcher’s “sheer toughness and grit” in maintaining a high level of performance, while manager Stephen Vogt sounded a similar note in saying, “The amount of work that this guy’s put in over the last few years, the things that he’s pitched through, that’s a testament to who he is.” But those supportive statements raise the question of whether this juncture could have been avoided had Bieber taken a longer time to heal from the damage found last summer, as teammate Triston McKenzie did. Missing from that comparison, however, is information regarding the severity of the two pitchers’ tears, details to which we’re not privy.
As a pending free agent, Bieber is in a tough spot, as he’ll enter the market under a cloud of uncertainty, likely cutting into a payday that’s ceiling has already been reduced by his previous outages. As for the Guardians, their remaining rotation looks so shaky that it ranks 27th in projected WAR via our Depth Charts, and their Playoff Odds have decreased since Opening Day (from 33.5% to 32%) despite the 7-2 start that has put them atop the AL Central.
The 26-year-old McKenzie, who was limited to four starts last season by a teres major strain as well as his UCL sprain, was rocked for five runs (four earned) in 3.1 innings in his first outing on Monday against the Mariners. His four-seam fastball averaged just 90.5 mph, down two miles per hour from 2022, when he was fully healthy. Carlos Carrasco, now 37, is coming off a 6.80 ERA in 20 starts with the Mets. Both Tanner Bibee, a 25-year-old righty, and Logan Allen, a 25-year-old lefty, are coming off strong rookie seasons and have pitched well in the early going, but Gavin Williams, a 24-year-old righty who posted a 3.29 ERA and 4.05 FIP in 16 starts as a rookie last year, began the year on the injured list due to elbow inflammation himself and has not yet been cleared to begin a rehab assignment. Out on rehab assignments are 25-year-old righty Xzavion Curry, and 32-year-old righty Ben Lively, both of whom were sidelined by a respiratory virus during spring training. Both split time between starting and relieving last year but turned in ERAs and FIPs over 5.00, the former with the Guardians, the latter with the Reds. Joey Cantillo, their top upper level pitching prospect, is out for 8-10 weeks with a left hamstring strain.
As for the 29-year-old Loáisiga, he’s been so beset by injuries throughout his career — including Tommy John surgery in 2016 — that he’s thrown 50 innings in a major league season just once (70.2 in 2021) and has totaled 50 innings between the majors and minors just two other times, in 2018 (80.2, mostly as a starter) and ’22 (50 exactly). He was limited to 17.2 innings last year due to in-season surgery to remove a bone spur in his elbow, then less than five weeks after returning was sidelined by inflammation in the joint. Three appearances into this season, he was diagnosed with a flexor strain and a partially torn UCL, though based upon the reporting, it sounds as though he’s a candidate for the internal brace procedure that requires less recovery time. Via MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch:
Meister’s initial reading of an MRI performed on Thursday in New York suggests that Loáisiga could avoid undergoing what would be his second career Tommy John surgery, with the estimated recovery for Meister’s preferred procedure spanning 10-12 months.
It was Dr. Jeffrey Dugas who invented the internal brace procedure, in which collagen-coated FiberTape suture is used to anchor the damaged UCL, speeding up recovery by eliminating the time needed for a tendon to transform into a ligament. Meister has pioneered the combining of traditional Tommy John surgery with the use of the internal brace; when it’s referred to at all as different from traditional Tommy John, it’s as a “hybrid” procedure. It’s what Jacob deGrom had last year (with Meister performing the procedure), and it sounds like what Shohei Ohtani (who was operated on by Dr. Neal ElAttrache) underwent last fall as well. In a March 7 piece in the Dallas Morning News, Meister said he’s done over 300 hybrid surgeries since 2018, which suggests the distinctions are being blurred when we track such surgeries.
Regardless of the type of surgery, Loáisiga’s absence has dealt a significant blow to a bullpen that already looked considerably less formidable than in years past. After ranking third in the majors with 7.2 WAR in 2021 and fifth with 5.9 in ’22, the unit slipped to 16th (4.2 WAR) last year, and ranked 19th in our preseason positional power rankings; Yankees relievers are now down to 22nd. Beyond closer Clay Holmes and setup man Ian Hamilton, it’s a largely unfamiliar if not untested cast, featuring a pair of ex-Dodger southpaws (Victor González and Caleb Ferguson), a trio of righties with career ERAs above 5.00 (Nick Burdi, Dennis Santana, and Luke Weaver). Moreover, the 31-year-old Burdi has never thrown more than 8.2 innings in a major league season, and another righty, Jake Cousins, has just 55.2 career innings, 30 of which came in 2021. Maybe pitching coach Matt Blake and company can find some diamonds in the rough, and maybe the likes of Tommy Kahnle, Lou Trivino, and Scott Effross can recover from their various injuries and surgeries to provide help later this season, but this is a clear weakness for a team off to an 8-2 start.
Strider is coming off a stellar season — his first full one in the rotation — in which he led the NL in strikeouts (281), strikeout rate (36.5%), FIP (2.85), and wins (20) while making his first All-Star team and placing fourth in the Cy Young voting. After throwing five innings of two-run ball while striking out eight on Opening Day against the Phillies, he surrendered five runs in four innings against the Diamondbacks on Friday, then complained about elbow discomfort afterwards. The Braves sent the 25-year-old righty for an MRI, after which the team’s official Twitter account shared the bad news:
Spencer Strider today underwent an MRI that revealed damage to the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow. He will be further evaluated by Dr. Keith Meister in Arlington, TX, at a date yet to be determined.
— Atlanta Braves (@Braves) April 6, 2024
Strider already underwent his first Tommy John surgery as a sophomore at Clemson in 2019. While it’s not a guarantee yet that he’ll need a second one, the Braves sound resigned to it, with manager Brian Snitker telling reporters, “The good news is he’s going to get whatever it is fixed and come back and continue to have a really good career.” Strider at least has security even if he’s never the same, having already signed a six-year, $75 million extension in October 2022, the largest pre-arbitration extension ever for a pitcher.
The Braves will certainly feel his loss. Of their remaining starters, 40-year-old righty Charlie Morton has been reliable and durable, taking the ball at least 30 times in each of the past three seasons, but 30-year-old lefty Max Fried was limited to 14 starts last year by hamstring and forearm strains as well as a blister on his index finger. Lefty Chris Sale, 35, missed 10 weeks last year due to a stress fracture in his scapula, which limited him to just 20 starts — nine more than he totaled over the three prior seasons combined while missing time due to Tommy John surgery and a stress fracture in his rib. Thirty-year-old righty Reynaldo López is starting again after spending nearly all of the past two seasons as a reliever. Twenty-four-year-old righty Bryce Elder was an All-Star last season but was optioned to Triple-A Gwinnett to start the year after a second-half fade and a rough spring. Prospects AJ Smith-Shawver, a 21-year-old righty, and Dylan Dodd, a 25-year-old lefty, are also at Gwinnett; the former was no. 63 on our Top 100 Prospects list. Ian Anderson and Huascar Ynoa are both recovering from Tommy John, the former from April 2023 and the latter from September ’22. One way or another, the Braves will cobble things together, but they can’t afford too much else to go wrong.
Saturday’s flood of UCL-related headlines followed a week that featured the bad news about Pérez as well as Tommy John surgery for A’s reliever Trevor Gott. On Saturday evening, Major League Baseball Players Association executive director Tony Clark released a statement that targeted the pitch clock as the culprit for so many arm injuries:
Despite unanimous player opposition and significant concerns regarding health and safety, the Commissioner’s Office reduced the length of the pitch clock last December, just one season removed from imposing the most significant rule change in decades.
Since then, our concerns about the health impacts of reduced recovery time have only intensified.
The league’s unwillingness thus far to acknowledge or study the effects of these profound changes is an unprecedented threat to our game and its most valuable asset – the players.
The league quickly countered:
This statement ignores the empirical evidence and much more significant long-term trend, over multiple decades, of velocity and spin increases that are highly correlated with arm injuries. Nobody wants to see pitchers get hurt in this game, which is why MLB is currently undergoing a significant comprehensive research study into the causes of this long-term increase, interviewing prominent medical experts across baseball which to date has been consistent with an independent analysis by Johns Hopkins University that found no evidence to support that the introduction of the pitch clock has increased injuries. In fact, JHU found no evidence that pitchers who worked quickly in 2023 were more likely to sustain an injury than those who worked less quickly on average. JHU also found no evidence that pitchers who sped up their pace were more likely to sustain an injury than those who did not.
Particularly in the wake of the recent in-house drama that resulted in a challenge to his leadership of the union, Clark’s statement is probably better understood as a political one than a scientific one. The majority of the players he represents are pitchers, and they may be looking for a target for their anger and fears regarding increased injury rates. It’s worth noting that those players — or at least the major leaguers who were part of the union when the most recent Collective Bargaining Agreement was hammered out in March 2022 — agreed to the structure of the Joint Competition Committee, which contains six owners, four players, and one umpire; “unanimous” is more likely referring to those four players rather than the 6,000-plus the MLBPA now represents.
As the league’s statement notes, and as The Ringer’s Ben Lindbergh reported last week, MLB has been conducting a comprehensive study of pitcher injuries since October, and once it’s done (perhaps later this year) “intends to form a task force that will make recommendations for protecting pitchers.” The group will “try to come up with some solutions and implement some solutions,” according to Dr. Glenn Fleisig, who as the biomechanics research director at the American Sports Medicine Institute and as an injury research adviser for MLB is one of the experts being consulted.
To varying degrees, Fleisig, Meister, ElAttrache and the now-retired Dr. James Andrews have all publicly pointed to the extra stress on arms induced by the quest for increased velocity, increased spin, and maximum effort as the primary causes of increased pitcher injury rates, a quest that starts in youth baseball, while players’ bodies are still developing. Leaguewide data from the pitch-tracking era particularly points to the way major league players and teams have chased velocity:
| Season | FF% | FF Avg Velo | FF Avg Spin | FF% ≥ 97 | BB% | BB avg velo | BB Spin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | 33.8% | 91.9 | — | 3.8% | 22.7% | 80.5 | — |
| 2009 | 35.1% | 92.1 | — | 4.2% | 23.7% | 80.7 | — |
| 2010 | 32.9% | 92.2 | — | 4.8% | 23.6% | 80.8 | — |
| 2011 | 33.2% | 92.4 | — | 4.6% | 24.8% | 81.2 | — |
| 2012 | 33.6% | 92.5 | — | 5.0% | 25.3% | 81.1 | — |
| 2013 | 34.7% | 92.7 | — | 5.5% | 25.2% | 81.5 | — |
| 2014 | 34.2% | 92.8 | — | 6.1% | 24.6% | 81.7 | — |
| 2015 | 35.5% | 93.1 | 2239 | 8.2% | 24.8% | 82.2 | 2193 |
| 2016 | 35.9% | 93.2 | 2266 | 8.5% | 26.3% | 82.1 | 2368 |
| 2017 | 34.5% | 93.2 | 2260 | 8.2% | 27.2% | 82.0 | 2417 |
| 2018 | 35.0% | 93.2 | 2267 | 7.7% | 27.5% | 82.2 | 2436 |
| 2019 | 35.8% | 93.4 | 2289 | 8.0% | 28.5% | 82.4 | 2465 |
| 2020 | 34.7% | 93.4 | 2305 | 8.5% | 29.1% | 82.2 | 2479 |
| 2021 | 35.4% | 93.7 | 2274 | 9.1% | 29.3% | 82.6 | 2452 |
| 2022 | 33.2% | 93.9 | 2274 | 11.2% | 31.1% | 82.8 | 2459 |
| 2023 | 32.2% | 94.2 | 2283 | 12.3% | 31.2% | 83.0 | 2460 |
| 2024 | 31.2% | 94.0 | 2282 | 11.6% | 30.9% | 83.0 | 2458 |
The average four-seam fastball velocity has consistently crept up by 0.1–0.2 mph per year, with a couple jumps of 0.3 mph; while it’s down thus far this year, velocities tend to increase once the weather warms up. The percentage of four-seamers 97 mph or higher more than tripled from 2008–23, and shot up 54% from 2019–23. The average spin rate for four-seamers increased by only about 2% from 2015 — the first year of Statcast — to ’23, and while the average spin rate for all breaking pitches combined increased by about 12% in that span, most of that jump was in the first two seasons. Those spin rates have been pretty consistent since then, but the total volume of breaking balls has increased.
The idea that the pitch clock could be contributing by making pitchers dial up to maximum intensity with less time to recover between pitches has intuitive appeal, but injury rates had already risen before the clock’s introduction last year. As Baseball Prospectus’ Derek Rhoads and Rob Mains noted, the total of 233 pitchers who landed on the injured list last year was about the same as in 2022 (226) and ’21 (243), up from ’19 (192). Likewise for the number of Tommy Johns as measured by year, starting with the day that pitchers and catchers report (as opposed to a calendar year): 28 for last season, compared to 26 for 2022, 31 for ’21, 27 for ’20, and 16 for ’19. In a study published last June, my colleague Dan Szymborski found no meaningful relationship in injury rates with regards to the pitchers whose pace increased the most from 2022 to ’23, at least to that point. The Hopkins study that MLB cited has yet to be published, though it’s hard to believe that the league hasn’t shared its preliminary findings with the union. Notably, Clark did not point to any study that produced a result that reflected his constituency’s concerns.
On the subject of velocity, the link between Strider’s high velo and the propensity for such pitchers to require Tommy John is hard to miss. Of the top 15 starting pitchers in terms of average four-seam fastball velocity from 2021–23, 10 have undergone at least one surgery to repair their UCLs, and Strider is in danger of becoming the fourth to need a second:
| Pitcher | Pitches | Avg Velo (mph) | TJ/UCL repair |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jacob deGrom | 1385 | 99.0 | 6/12/23 (2nd) |
| Hunter Greene | 2317 | 98.6 | 4/9/19 |
| Sandy Alcantara | 2063 | 98.0 | 10/6/23 |
| Spencer Strider | 3381 | 97.7 | 2/1/19 |
| Grayson Rodriguez | 1043 | 97.4 | |
| Gerrit Cole | 4836 | 97.3 | |
| Tyler Glasnow | 1575 | 97.4 | 8/4/21 |
| Luis Castillo | 3150 | 97.3 | |
| Shane McClanahan | 2439 | 96.7 | 8/21/23 (2nd) |
| Shohei Ohtani | 2296 | 96.7 | 9/19/23 (2nd) |
| Luis Severino | 1515 | 96.6 | 2/27/20 |
| Jésus Luzardo | 2337 | 96.5 | 3/22/16 |
| Zack Wheeler | 3727 | 96.4 | 3/25/15 |
| Frankie Montas | 1554 | 96.4 | |
| Brandon Woodruff | 2352 | 96.3 |
Some of those pitchers have had little trouble recovering and maintaining their elite velocities after their first such surgery, but as the sagas of deGrom and Ohtani illustrate, that hardly makes them immune from needing a second procedure. As the big contracts of so many of the pitchers above remind us, velocity gets pitchers paid, and so discouraging them from throwing at maximum effort with such frequency may be a tough sell, particularly when the next guy is willing to do so, damn the consequences.
This is all one big, thorny mess that won’t be solved overnight. The sad fact is that dozens or even hundreds more pitchers will be injured before we see if MLB can introduce meaningful steps to curb injury rates. In the meantime, teams will just turn to the next man up — and if he gets hurt, the next man up after him — to get by.
Brooklyn-based Jay Jaffe is a senior writer for FanGraphs, the author of The Cooperstown Casebook (Thomas Dunne Books, 2017) and the creator of the JAWS (Jaffe WAR Score) metric for Hall of Fame analysis. He founded the Futility Infielder website (2001), was a columnist for Baseball Prospectus (2005-2012) and a contributing writer for Sports Illustrated (2012-2018). He has been a recurring guest on MLB Network and a member of the BBWAA since 2011, and a Hall of Fame voter since 2021. Follow him on BlueSky @jayjaffe.bsky.social.
It’s not just FG commenters who get all worked up over SSS data.
Did you read the piece? I don’t think that’s what this article is either? Jay basically just explains the hubbub and shows that you probably can’t blame the pitch clock – or, at least not more than you can blame velo and spin. The vibe I got here was “gee this sucks,” not “something must be done”.
What gets more money in the owners pockets? Thats how this is going to get resolved.
The explosion of TJS hasn’t had much impact so far. There are a lot more impactful issues like expansion and stadium subsidies. Neither fan nor owner behaviour changes based on injury incidence
I keep waiting for Manfred to suggest they just eliminate pitching altogether. Robots to cut labour costs in half! More dingers!!!
I could definitely imagine Major League Tee-Ball (Batting Cage Fighting?) as an arena football-like novelty sport.
This would benefit Jo Adell. All the EV with none of the strikeouts
If there’s one thing I trust the Yankee brass with, it’s turning some randos into bullpen stars.
Sucks for Johnny though. He’s so fun when he’s healthy and on.
I think I would agree that most of this is that most pitchers are throwing far, far beyond what the human body can tolerate. Velocity is the obvious thing but also some of the stuff these pitching labs are getting pitchers to do in the quest to get more movement probably combines with the velocity to heighten risk.
The counter-argument is that it would probably be a good idea for MLB to stop changing what pitchers can do, because it’s possible that having the pitchers try new things is making things even worse. The baseline for “normal” probably goes back to 2018 or 2019, depending on what you think of the new ball in 2019. In 2020 pitchers barely pitched, in 2021 we had MLB suddenly enforce the sticky stuff policy in the middle of the season, in 2023 we have the pitch clock, in 2024 they’re messing with the time on the pitch clock.
Personally, I like the pitch clock, but the benefit of shortening the pitch clock is minimal compared to having it at all. It seems rather unnecessary.
I don’t see any convincing evidence that this is related to the pitch clock, so I guess I’m with MLB in this case.
Somehow pitchers need to be incented to not throw max effort 100mph fastballs. I have no idea how to do that, since you’re basically telling them to pitch less effectively.
They could deaden the ball and reduce roster size such that durability is rewarded over strikeouts, strikeouts, strikeouts. Pitching to contact for 8 innings at 80% effort used to be the norm.
I don’t know that limiting rosters is going to accomplish much other than putting more miles on the AAA shuttle. A team’s best arms will pitch exactly as much as the FO thinks they can, and a mass of fungible relievers will fill in the rest.
If you want to disincentivize strikeouts, figure out how to disincentivize strikeouts.
It’s not about the amount of pitching as much as the effort per pitch. Having fewer pitchers on the roster means each one has to pace himself. As for the AAA shuttle one could make a minimum stay of 15 days on an option assignment without the loophole that the pitcher can be recalled if someone gets hurt. The team would have to call up a worse pitcher and have him pitch a significant amount because there aren’t 13 pitchers on the team
How about a minimum stay of 30 days, no exceptions? Make it at MLB minimum pay rate for optioned pitchers who would otherwise get MiLB pay – the union should like that.
Without addressing the AAA shuttle issue, I don’t think reducing the number of pitchers on the roster is going to do much.
I think something like this is the answer
Possibly with a slightly deadened ball
I just don’t see how that’s going to play out with pitchers pacing themselves. Try telling the guy who’s trying to establish himself in the majors to be worse on purpose so that it works out for everyone in the long run. If a guy can throw 98, strike out 28% of the batters and be an all star now, he’s not gonna start throwing 93 striking out 20% of the batters and being a marginal starter for the possibility that he may avoid TJ sometime down the line, which is far from guaranteed. Hey, you might risk your roster spot entirely, but maybe 4 years from now, you won’t need TJ and you can sign a Michael Lorenzen contract!
It’s not like pitchers are not aware of the connection between velocity and injury. But it’s like how people have not stopped playing football for a living despite the far more serious long term injury implications. People are willing to make the conscious trade off of additional risk for the money now.
stop paying the big strikeout guys who get hurt
This. 1000% this.
Mess around all you want with roster limits, strike zone sizes, deadened balls, whatever you want.. as long as there is a gain.. any gain at all… to be realized with increased velocity and/or more spin, pitchera will endeavor to achieve that gain
Exactly..I’ve been starting to think of pitchers like football players/boxers.
Obviously, arm injuries are different than head injuries, but, still they’re putting there health at risk, have to deal with pain, rehab, etc..but, the $$ earned if you make it are just so great that it seems like a good deal to a lot of young men.
Even guys that barely make it (for example, Adam Cimber has made $7.5M in MLB salary in his career) or are up & down pitchers can make millions of $$$. Heck, the MLB minimum is $750K? Even if you’re up & down, in MLB half the year, that’s $375K. Where else is a guy in his 20’s making that type of $$?
Yeah and it’s not like an elbow ligament injury is going to seriously affect you later in life like CTE or something
Players aren’t going to risk falling behind by throwing slower. Follow the money, players make 62,000 in AAA and 740,000 minimum on the big league IL. As long as pitcher salaries are injury guaranteed they will make more throwing high effort pitches and getting the better results up front.
But I don’t think you’re going to get a pacing effect because for the marginal arms there is still a huge incentive for max effort. And the union will never agree to smaller rosters (nor should they).
you’re not going to do that. but you can make durability more important. make bullpens smaller and shrink the strike zone so that they have to learn to pitch to contact
This is the comment I made in response to the news that Eury Perez was joining the lengthening list of pitchers whose arm is falling off. Let us see what the latest catastrophic news is on the arms falling off situation. Just Thursday I commented on the sad situation surrounding Daniel Espino. OMG!!! Little did I know that the dam was about to break. In the less than 48 hours since then two of the games top of the top pitching aces have broken down. Shane Bieber was great in his 2 starts. Sorry Shane, see you again in 2026, maybe, then I watched Spencer Strider get hammered in uncharacteristic fashion and was not shocked to hear today that he is in deep doodoo. These aren’t the only ones. Miami’s potential young ace Eury Perez is done for a while and the Yankees bullpen stalwart, that is if he could ever stay healthy, Johnathan Loaisiga is also done for the season, and as I said before that is only the last 2 days. Many more broke down in spring training. I have been a believer that the mound needs to be moved back to 62 feet and in a strange way I see all these injuries as a possible way to get the discussion moving. I think it is clear that it is too difficult to hit 95+ heat when thrown from 60’6″ and, in actuality, much less because so many of today’s pitchers are towering men who release the ball several feet closer to the plate than that. Listen to what I am about to say and think about it before tossing it into the circular file. One of the arguments against this is that the pitchers would be more susceptible to injury. This argument might be true if it weren’t for the fact that the pitchers are already dropping like flies. If the value of extreme velocity was reduced and hitters could again catch up with fastballs then the incentive to go all out would disappear and arms might be more able to withstand the forces that are wrecking so many arms as it now stands. In just the last week there has been an actual 9 inning no-hitter thrown by an obscure journeyman and several more games where the first hit came late. The overall batting average is now at .242 (already down to .240) and that is with no pitchers hitting (except Scott McGough). It is time to accept the fact that, at the very least, the issue of too many strikeouts, too few singles and doubles and what now appears to be affecting more and more pitchers needs to be faced squarely.
It seems to me moving the mound back more is going to make guys with low velocity even less effective
I’ve got my own dumb suggestion for encouraging pitchers to pitch to contact. Just make it 4 strikes for a strikeout, and 3 for a walk. This would encourage pitchers to lean more towards control and command than velocity. Racking up strikeouts would rack up your pitch count and get you out of there quicker, incentivizing the old pitch-to-contact philosophy. There would also be the advantage of increasing offense which everyone seems to like.
Sure, your relievers (also known as failed starters) will still be incentivized to go max effort sometimes, but relievers are pretty fungible for the most part. Your valuable starters might last longer. Or maybe they’ll just all pitch max effort anyway and burn out quicker. I did say this was a dumb idea, but I’ll bet MLB finds an even dumber way to “address” this problem.
I think it would increase injuries, because pitchers would use their offspeed pitches even more. iirc, some smart dudes researched the effects of the mound being further away and it would benefit breaking balls, because the break would be bigger.
This is wild. Hadn’t really thought about this approach before. With the caveat that this would never happen because it would totally change the sport, and because History:
I mean, I love the hypothetical game where a single ball draws a walk.
Final score: 78-67. Game time: 14 hours 22 minutes.
you could just restrict that. it’s really not that difficult. clark is a dope for thinking max effort pitching helps his side long term.
Pitchers who throw harder also get better contact quality and are selected for when pitching to contact. It’s always been the case that the hardest throwing pitchers were generally the most dominant.
Betwen MiLB, AFL, and NCAA , there have had pitch clocks in one form or another since 2010. That should be enough data to determine if they are the problem.
Change workloads. 1IP relievers and the 100 pitch max both incentivize a single way of pitching – max velocity. There are plenty of alternatives which were the way pitching workloads were managed before the 00’s. There’s no reason to believe that one size fits all pitchers and pitching styles.
Before LaRussa turned the A’s bullpen into a 1IP max in the early 90’s, many bullpens had a huge variety of different pitching. I don’t recall when the 100 pitch max became a routine but it was around the same time (maybe because Gooden was overworked as a young pitcher?).
Pitching is always tough on arms but the only reason imo that it gets turned into year long injuries is because there is no alternative to those two workloads and there is no switching between those two either. Throw until it breaks and then pull in the next one until they break.
this is exactly my problem ^^^, and it’s one I have no solution to. It’s easy to say “just don’t throw as hard”, but I’d guess that hitters that have seen nothing but mid-90s+ heat since they were drafted are probably going to obliterate 91 mph.
I also think it’s impossible to tell a pitcher on the back-end of a 26 man roster (which is the majority of pitchers) that they need to deliberately make their pitches more hittable
So many players are getting injured when they are amateurs. It goes beyond just what they do in the pros. I do not see a way to reduce the incentive to throw hard.
I wonder if there is any statistical correlation in rest periods and injuries beyond just the relationship inherent in innings pitched? Would we see less injuries overall if there was a requirement for a set amount of time between starts, or appearances? Some deliveries are more stressful than others but how comparable are deliveries from pitcher to pitcher biometricly and is there a trade off in terms of where an injury will most likely occur. I think most pitchers would prefer the tried and true TJ over a significant shoulder injury.
Is there a good way to enforce a pitch “speed limit”, and avoid turning the sport into the analog of motorsport races with restrictor plates?
Or, what’s a good way of incentivizing players to stay healthy, and teams to keep their players healthy in a way that avoids the service time/performance bonus manipulation that front offices will inevitably employ?
Only partially in jest: Maybe it’s time to start reconsidering performance enhancing drugs.
A good way of Incentivizing players or owners for staying healthy? Money. However, right now you get paid even if you have been injured (Chris Sale)
Maddux and Glavine were pretty good not throwing 100. Also, I think the specialization of a kid from an early age is part of the problem.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s both, and the Max Effort/Max Spin guys are harder hit by the lack of recovery time…and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the plan, either.
They can’t very well ban throwing at max effort on every pitch, but they certainly do want to disincentivize it.
Or they could make it less dangerous either through some prophylactic medical advancement or making pitchers throw underhanded
I wonder if high-level softball pitchers (such as college women’s softball) suffer fewer such injuries. There may be no comparison, though, as I recall men’s and women’s arms have different proportions between upper arm and forearm.
Well the low release point guys like Brad Ziegler seem healthier FWIW
Humans are built to throw balls underhand.
Pitching in softball doesn’t put the type of stress on the elbow or shoulder as pitching in baseball does. Just looking at pitcher usage I think puts this in perspective:
Arkansas, the #1 college baseball team, has played 30 games. They have used 17 different pitchers and their best pitcher, Hagen Smith, has thrown 41 innings.
Oklahoma, the #1 college softball team, has played 38 games. They have used 6 different pitchers and their best, Kelly Maxwell, has thrown 73.1 innings.
Softball pitchers pitch far more and have far fewer catastrophic injuries. It’s not uncommon for high level college softball pitchers to start 3+ games a week.
Maybe deadening the balls and lowering the strike zone? It would not happen because MLB loves the home runs being almost comical and the owners are doing their part to shrink the outfields to a smaller size than they have ever been before, but most high velocity fastballs are effective at the top or above the strike zone, correct? Maybe if the strike zone was lowered a fairly significant amount, that pitch loses some effectiveness, forcing them to use other weapons to get guys out and/or rely more on location and keeping it down, which is a bit harder to do when you are going at 100%
If you’re not doing this gradually, it’d be a good way to break the game overnight. Players and umpires spend years honing their vision to judge minute differences and categorize them at a practically inhuman rate.
It’d also punish taller hitters and reward shorter hitters even without account for a player’s batting eye.
But I’m sure that’d prevent pitchers from chasing more MPH on their sinkers and more spin on their breakers…
This has been a pretty savage year so far for injuries in general, not just for UCL tears. Royce Lewis and Luis Robert Jr. both got badly hurt simply running the bases. As did Junior Caminero in the minors. Justin Steele had a bad leg injury. A ton of guys have oblique issues. The thing these guys all have in common is that they’re soft tissue issues. The only major “bone” issue that’s occurred so far is Josh Jung breaking his hand. Trevor Story dislocated his shoulder, which I guess we can call a push but is really more a soft tissue issue as well.
There may be something to be said that players are just too big and strong these days, and their bodies can’t keep up. It doesn’t look great that Bieber goes to Driveline in the offseason, gains a few mph and starts off the year crazy effective, but then immediately sustains a season-ending UCL tear.
The overall strength theory may explain how even position players like Bryce Harper hurt elbow ligaments
This is entirely anecdotal and I haven’t figured out any way to disentangle selection effects, but it sure *seems* like guys who have a big uptick in “stuff” suddenly see part of their arm fall off. Like they figured out how to do something much more aggressive with their bodies but they don’t have the durability to sustain it.
yeah i wouldn’t wanna be associated with the driveline ppl at this point
Getting hurt running to first base is a core organizational philosophy for the White Sox.
It’s like they all skip warming up before the game
When you ask your body to do something that it’s not used to, you’re bound to get hurt.
“Run to first?! I’m used to striking out up here…how does this work… OW”
I also don’t know what you’re supposed to tell Bieber in his situation though. He was a pitcher that looked very much in decline over the last two years, and then looked like an absolute monster in his first two starts in a contract year I don’t know how you’re going to tell the next guy in a similar situation not to go to Driveline to pitch meaningfully better the year before free agency
Young men are usually not particularly good at avoiding the risks of overtraining. Athletes are usually not particularly good at determining the risks of over repetition of their chosen sport rather than cross-training a different set of muscles. The highly paid are usually not particularly good at taking advice from those who earn less.
A few thoughts:
Suggesting that 2 seconds less recovery time with men on base doesn’t lead to more injuries is dumb? Or are we talking about the pitch clock as a whole?
Pitching arm injuries were already spiraling out of control before the pitch clock was implemented. Maybe it’s a small contributing factor. I definitely don’t think suggesting the null hypothesis in the absence of any real evidence is dumb.
it’s the fact that these guys believe they are the first ppl to throw this hard that gets me. like, adam ottovino when he was like “oh, id strike out babe ruth” …yeah, and you’d also blow your arm out by june and your career would be over.
pitchers have thrown hard since the beginning of baseball. but they used to manage it better. so many relievers now have made it easier to say “sure, just give us 4 at max effort” and then they don’t care when they blow out their elbow
it’s on the teams, ultimately. and the union
Lots of people struck out Babe Ruth. Try striking out Luis Arraez
Pitchers used to be considered a fireballer if they threw in the upper 80s
but…they are the first people to throw this hard.
With the huge money invested in players who, at most, might contribute 30-sh starts or 60-ish relief appearances, you’d think both MLB and MLBPA would want to get answers. I’m not convinced they are interested in those answers if that might mean more conservative usage.
Well the huge money is only given to the top pitchers so all pitchers have an incentive to aim for that status, even if it means injury risk
Agree completely. So pitchers make max efforts, hope to score big contract. Management signs someone for big money, then wants them to be a horse. Sometimes, you end up with a Strasburg, which serves no one.
This, I think, is the only thing mentioned in this discussion that suggests a genuine, however unlikely, route to changing the incentives. We probably would need to massively lower the Gini coefficient of the pitcher population to make a real difference in the incentives — and I mean the pitcher population across all levels of baseball, probably even back to the pre-draft candidate pool. (And yes, we can all probably guess exactly how likely this is to occur.) The pool of people who’d need to be better taken care of in order to stop gambling their arm ligaments on the theory “max effort now, $$$ by age 27” is everyone who throws baseballs for a living.
But they’re already rich? What happened to decreasing marginal utility? If they get injured badly enough they’re out of baseball entirely and not only not making big money but off to loserdom, in many cases.
it’s not conservative usage, as in less innings. ..
.it’s just saying “hey, we’ve gotta get through 162… let’s not throw 100 every pitch and maybe we’ll make it to August
honestly, i think you could add innings and just dial back the velo
Yes, but conventional wisdom has sticking power–at the decision-making levels there needs to be enough of a consensus to try this.
Will Carroll who popularised “Pitcher Abuse Points” at Baseball Prospectus a couple of decades ago, found that 33% of pitchers on MLB rosters had had TJS. He wrote an article in Bleacher Report on it
How pitchers are being abused has also changed over time. Before it was Dusty Baker sending you back out for the 8th having thrown 140 pitches already. Now it’s more self-abuse from trying to throw every pitch 700 mph at 5000 RPM
Of all the ways this sport has advanced in metrics and analysis the past 20 years it’s astounding how some of the game is still dictated by traditional thinking. The concept of the starting pitcher going 6+ innings is what needs to die here and the sport needs to implement measures to support it. Expand the bullpen, remove the 3 batters faced requirements and create awards for pitchers similar to silver sluggers.
The thing is, though, that supposedly pitchers in past decades used to be able to throw complete games and 30+ games a year without injury. Baseball is a sport for human beings, and if you have to wreck your body to compete how much sense does that make? The NFL (eventually) changed rules and improved equipment to lower concussion rates–are there equivalents that MLB could implement?
Your suggestion for awards to incentivize more reasonable pitching intrigues me. Perhaps a league pool to pay pitchers, regardless of performance, for pitching a number of innings/pitches?
I wonder if tightening the strike zone would help persuade pitchers to pitch to contact instead of chasing strikeouts?
Do that and baseball dies. You cant kill the starting pitcher and not expect the sport of baseball to suffer massively as a result.
They’re already killing them slowly
that sounds awful. you’d have like, 4 balls in play all day. great fielding is more fun than great pitching anyway. i don’t like watching strikeout fests. it’s boring
Yeah there have been a couple of suggestions for tightening the strike zone – please God no. I don’t want to go back to 3.5-hour games
One problem with this is relievers get hurt all the time too.
1. Make all the fences 30 feet deeper and/or 30 feet taller.
2. Limit teams to 10 active pitchers and 15 total for the season.
Pitchers will just have to throw less hard to stay healthy, and hitters will have a harder time putting slower pitches over the deeper/higher walls.
It’ll be like the deadball era, but with less racism and more free agency.
I too would like to see Dee P Gordon pitch the final 37 games in a season after enough pitcher injuries.
Darn you, Bernie. Now I’m going to have to find that article and read it again. #bringbacknotgraphs
15 total pitchers for the season? So what happens when everyone gets hurt? Position players pitch?
One unintended consequence: deeper outfields would result in less seating, leading to decreased attendance and probably higher ticket/concession prices to compensate.
Another would be a change in how much ground each outfielder needs to cover. At least they would probably run into each other less often though.
This is too extreme, but something along these lines could be effective
The trouble with bigger outfields is it means removing expensive seats
At least for Target Field the LF and RF bleachers aren’t all that expensive. What was the effect of seating at Camden Yards? They moved the LF fences back, 20 or 30 feet
It doesn’t have to matter that much . Most of the current era stadiums were designed with larger outfields. It’s just that the majority have already made band-aid renovations — many multiple times — to add seats, further reduce the field size, opportunities for triples and ITP homeruns (as if they aren’t exciting), and placate free agents who want a park that doesn’t rob any of their HR’s they felt should be HR’s.
I have been a huge fan of #1 for a long time. The goal should be for as many stadiums as possible to have park factors like Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City. More triples, fewer home runs. I don’t know that it would really solve the other problems but it would be a lot of fun along the way.
It’s funny what people consider fun, vs others. Personally I love home runs
Not everyone shares the same aesthetic preferences as you.
Would they though? Some, perhaps, but the causal chain between effort and injury is tenuous. It’s there in aggregate, for sure, but it’s not there for every individual pitcher. And half of the league is a few bad starts away from being sent down. Convincing Johnny SP#4 to take a little off so he’ll still be pitching in 5 years is a hard sell when he’s worried about still pitching in 5 weeks.
Including the Green Monster?
Change the name to the Green Kaiju
Bad mechanics lead to increased injury. Pitchers are being taught poor mechanics to boost velocity and it’s making them break. Chris O’Leary has been taking about this for years.
Bad mechanics related to what end? You get no points for staying healthy if you can’t get anyone out.
That’s the dilemma.
The Pain Guy? Dude’s a clown.
When it comes to pitching mechanics he’s absolutely correct. Al Leiter talked about the exact same things on MLB Network years ago. Dr. Mike Marshall also talked about bad mechanic leading to increased injury.
Maybe if we could get an mlb approved tacky substance for the baseball pitchers could get the spin rates they want with less arm stress
Then again, maybe they would just keep pushing the envelope because that’s just how competition works 🤷♂️
Well they could redesign the ball such that throwing it too hard or too much spin makes it harder to throw strikes but then HBP would probably increase.
The thing is, if you aren’t throwing at max effort/max spin every pitch there is a dozen guys in the minors who don’t have that contract yet that are willing to, even if it means blowing out their arm. And especially when you are a backend starter (not talking about Bieber) or a relief pitcher, a lot of those guys aren’t a ton better than alternatives in the milb.
Even if you’re in that Bieber/Strider/Perez tier and don’t necessarily have to worry about losing your job to a random AAA guy, you’re pitching for that big contract to set your family up over the next 100+ years. If you want that Gerrit Cole money, you’ll do anything to pitch like Gerrit Cole even if it means blowing out your body in the process.
They’re also ultra competitive people who are likely incapable of trying less hard. The Cole contracts already go to more durable pitchers except for DeGrom who’s ridiculously good
A weird throw at the wall from me: 5 pitches for a walk until college. So they can use people who can’t really pitch and not just the same 2-4 pitchers all the time. And they want to put balls in play anyway. And I say this as a lifetime .200/.450/.225 IRL adult hardball batter
I think the amount of over specialization and year round baseball for youth players is probably the biggest problem here but not sure how that little issue gets solved
Yeah. If they’ve acted to change this since the mid 2010s we should see results in a few years.
Manfreds problem is he’s listening to theo epstein….guys been fired everywhere hes been.
Don’t remember what happened with the Red Sox, but he definitely wasn’t fired by the Cubs.
Short of modifying a potato cannon to shoot baseballs (also getting the league and PA to allow that), pitchers will continue to battle all kinds of injuries to their throwing arms.
This would be awesome
I propose a mandate that at least 50% of pitches thrown by each team must be knuckleballs.
Submarine knuckleballs count double.
Has the baseball itself been altered, in the past 20 years, made lighter, seams changed etc, to promote offense, because that’s thought to be more exciting? Do pitchers have to over compensate to get movement on it? Or is that actually not true? I would like a real investigation about this. But I will not hold my breath for Manfred to do it
My kid is 18, touching 90 in starts. CB at 80. Barely get a look in from college scouts, not that we really make an effort to get noticed.
I look around some of the PBR and Perfect Game sites and see kids by the bucket load chucking 90-95mph at 16 yr old+
I spoken to kids who pitched in college who’ve said they wished they’d just focused on velo more growing up.
When the colleges chase velo, the HS kids will chase velo and so on. It’s an ugly cycle.
Colleges are incentivised to win first and keep pitchers healthy second. They won’t stop chasing Velo until there’s some penalty for pitching injuries
College programs are grievous offenders
Everyone is incentived to win. It’s the easiest thing to point at some other group at some other point in the development cycle and say that they are the ones who should be responsible.
It’s not just in baseball. When I played HS basketball, two guys in our league could dunk. Now HS players are throwing down in-game dunks that would have won the NBA dunk contest up through around 2005 or so. Kids start weight training at 13 or 14, if not younger, and become incredibly explosive. The difference is that being able to dunk like Vince Carter when you’re 15 doesn’t portend a lifetime of future injury the same way that pitching like Nolan Ryan does when you’re 18.
Dunks and threes, dunks and threes. If they can’t throw it down then you can damn sure bet they are just chucking up shot after shot from beyond the arc.
(Kind of hard to believe it took til the mid-2010s before someone rigorously structured their offensive approach around the notion that 3>2)
I have always felt that pitchers who hit their spots can be successful. Yet this is not considered near as advantageous as throwing 100 or having the highest spin rates. If batters have to hit the pitches pitchers want them to hit, then they probably will struggle. If pitchers cannot make them hit the pitches they want them to hit because they cannot hit their spots it seems advantage batter.
I don’t know the answer here, but hitting is really hard. Hitting well placed pitches is even harder. Is an extra mph worth losing a few inches control over where the pitch goes? I mean I know that on average it is beneficial, but for every pitcher is this still true. Is there some trade-off to be considered.
Except that high strikeout guys with an acceptable amount of walks are valued more than pitch to contact guys. It’s very hard to get a low FIP without a high K%-BB%. The other option is a Clay Holmes GB% but ridiculous movement on a sinker can’t be stress free for most pitchers either
The issue is that it’s very hard to hit a 100 mph fastball when when it’s misplaced. If a 90 mph fastball is misplaced over the heart of the plate, it’s usually demolished. The harder ones are sometimes, but not nearly as often.
Didn’t someone look into this and find that batters did better against painted 90 mph fastballs than middle-middle 100 mph ones? Or something down those lines?
I’ve been saying this for awhile now but I seem to be very much in the minority, however, I think the best solution to the problem is prevention. If I were a major league owner, I would be offering and highly encouraging (possibly mandating) my pitchers to get an MRI prior to reporting to spring training, once per month is season and one at the end of the season. Yes it’s inconvenient and surely it’s not going to catch everything but I have to imagine it would catch a decent amount of these cases before they progress to full blown torn UCLs.
My thought here is what happens when a new pitch or tweak to pitch shape is suggested to the player and they implement it? If it significantly improves the performance of said pitcher but the next month’s MRI shows that the UCL is now looking funky, what do you do next?
The doctors/trainers/players/teams figured out a way to make a ball spin and go fast like never before. They didn’t know the huge cost associated with it though…elbows are consistently getting sprained by using these wicked throwing motions too often.
If made commissioner, along with implementing automated balls and strikes, I would make any pitch over 99mph an automatic ball. I would determine which of these individual pitches are doing the most damage to elbows and limit how much they can be thrown, with the teams paying hefty fines and coaches being suspended if players go over a certain percentage. But…but…I would also now allow pitchers to use sticky stuff (and whatnot, up to a point) to help offset the certainly-upcoming decrease of strikeouts. A little give and take. Should still lead to a little more scoring (much-needed in MLB in my opinion) and more balls in play (also needed) while still allowing the best pitchers to be great over the long term and get paid properly.
But…knowing MLB…they will probably either A) do nothing or next to nothing; or B) implement a couple questionable changes that somehow backfire and cause even more injuries.
Limiting pitcher velocity will only add to the amount of high RPM breaking balls being thrown which isn’t any healthier.
It’s like Enrico Palazzo is back there, trying to prevent the third out before the seventh inning stretch!
It bothers me that I feel like everyone is missing what trend specifically leads to the TJ surgery “cycle” — the availability and success of the surgery itself.
Blowing out your elbow is no longer a career death sentence — it sucks for everyone for 18 months, but you as a pitcher can still have significant success after TJ . The teams and pitchers are (often) acting in their own rational best interest, and while it sucks for the fans, it doesn’t suck enough to stop them watching/coming to games, so it doesn’t change anyone’s behavior.
One of the things to remember here is that there were thousands of pitchers who came of age before TJ surgery who had MLB talent but had one or more joints implode in HS, college, or the low minors — but since there wasn’t the same level of visibility at the lower levels in those eras, it feels like a “new” problem.
Without radical, almost certainly game-breaking changes, it won’t go away. The smarter thing to do is to (continue to) investigate and discuss how to mitigate injuries and avoid unnecessary risk.
Also guys like Mario Soto, Fidrych, and others who fell off due to injuries that people didn’t really understand so they just thought these guys suddenly starting sucking.
Another point: MLB’s become international attracting talent from a bigger pool, training’s become more standardized across teams and leagues and w/ little kids even. Variance in talent has decreased and there’s a much higher standard of competence than there was in the past. Teams have better methods for assessing player quality, giving out contracts and signing players, etc.
Considering all this I wonder if a lot of the uptick in injuries has to do w/ top players previously having been able to play through injuries and still maintain strong performance. If Mike Trout was playing against HS’ers he could still play through a severe hamstring strain and be a dominant player. Pitchers could pitch through pitch through rotator cuff strains and still be good.
Scanning Mickey Mantle’s wiki for “injur” you can see that he played through a knee injury that eventually required surgery 2 years afterwards, playing his career w/ a torn ACL, a torn shoulder tendon in 1957 affecting his swing for the rest of his career, recurring injuries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Mantle#Rookie_season:_1951
Babe Ruth’s wiki page mentions multiple Yankees teams “plagued by injuries”, him pitching after injuring his hand in a fight, injuries reducing his effectiveness in 1932.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babe_Ruth
Probably also just don’t remember players whose careers were wrecked by injury which biases people’s perceptions of relative injury rates.
Shoulders used to be the main problem in the 20th century
Baseball history is filled with legends of players who were the greatest pitchers anyone ever saw, until they got a “sore arm”, went back to the family farm, and were never heard from again. In retrospect it’s obvious that they all had torn UCLs, torn labrums, torn rotator cuffs, etc., but no one had any idea what was going on or any way to fix it.
I will note that while we’ve “solved” the repair of elbows (and knees) to some degree, i.e. the simpler hinge joints, we’re still not great with shoulders (or hips). You’d much rather a guy needs elbow surgery than has a labrum or rotator cuff issue.
Elbows do seem to get hurt much more often than shoulders these days, but it (anecdotally) feels like it used to be the reverse. Maybe with increased velocity your elbow simply gives out before your rotator cuff starts to fray. Whereas throwing 280 innings a year at 86 mph slowly eats away at your shoulder.
Realistically this is a problem that’s only getting resolved through medical/surgical advancements and not regulations.
This probably isn’t because of the pitch clock. High TJ rates preceded pitch clocks and we can’t say whether they’re higher afterwards.
The likely culprits are the following:
-Higher workloads from a young age, including kids playing year round: Not getting resolved because playing more is how kids improve and get noticed. You can have minor regulations like collaborating with little leagues/HS’s/colleges to cap innings and pitches but can’t stop kids from working with independent trainers which is what probably does most of the damage.
People who say that pitchers now are “throwers not pitchers” or whatever bullshit are full of shit. Pitchers today are vastly better than pitchers from the 60s 70s or whenever else. They throw faster and harder but also with more command because of the improvements to training. Even the best pitchers had like 3 BB/9 vs 7 K/9. Now the best pitchers are at like 10+ K/9 vs 2 BB/9, or they’re like Strider at 13-14 K/9 3 BB/9.
-Throwing max effort all the time + harder w/ driveline stuff: Not changing b/c it makes pitchers so much better. Teams who don’t use this stuff will just lose and be bad. Teams can also afford to lose pitchers to an extent b/c every team has higher injury attrition and mixing higher injury rate/better stuff/ higher performance guys still probably puts them ahead of just running the best guys at lesser performance for most players.
Maybe it’s best to tell Degrom to sit at 96 avg FB v lower injury risk vs 99 avg FB v higher injury risk but for most decent players not going max probably effort places them in replacement lvl territory.
Point being is this we’re just gonna have to live w/ high pitcher attrition until elbow and shoulder surgery advances to where this stuff isn’t a big deal. Elbow stuff might happen sooner than we expect, w/in the next decade or two.
Football’s dealt w/ much worse attrition and injury risk w/ head injuries and outside of bandaid and sometimes arguably counterproductive solutions like improved helmets are just putting up with it. It sucks but barring massive rule changes is just the cost of having a sport like that or boxing or whatever.
The higher BB/9 were because they were throwing an incredibly higher number of pitches per appearance.
How so? B/c they wore down as the game progressed and their command declined? B/c Steve Carlton for example had 3.3 BB/9 in the 1st vs 3.2 BB/9 overall for his career.
League BB/9 rates from 2001 to 2023 sat in a narrow band from 2.89 to 3.54, with no real long term increase.
Going back to 1980 leaves them all in the same range. Go back to 1950 and you’ll see that walk rates were actually higher than they are now.
Framber Valdez is the latest elbow to hurt
I don’t know if the pitch clock contributes to more injuries (although the case is intuitive). It definitely doesn’t decrease injuries – if there is an effect, it’s obvious which direction it goes. The optimal amount and frequency and velocity of pitching a baseball for the human arm is zero.
It has to be accepted that no pitcher is going to willingly lessen the arsenal he uses to get hitters out. The answer is that this arsenal can be made less effective if the parameters that the pitcher is forced to perform in are changed. The split second extra that an additional 1 1/2 foot between the rubber and the plate could be all the hitters need to be able to catch up to the ever-increasing average velocity of today’s pitchers. Batting approaches have changed but Walter Johnson and Bob Feller averaged less than 6K’s/9. The injury question, once of preeminent importance, is now moot with so many top pitchers breaking down. I don’t think limiting velocity is possible, but lessening its dominance might be. If contact could return to previous eras then adjustments to maintain a proper balance might be achievable.
I think most of the injuries are due to velocity. Set a league speed of a pitch (say 93 mph) that turns into a ball if it goes over. This won’t stop injuries for slower pitches like sliders with huge spin rates which are at least as problematic. It
Yeah, that’s a great idea. Lets also set a speed limit on exit velocity. (Got to protect those pitchers and corner infielders that can take hotshots off the bat) Anything over 102 is an automatic out.
Nerf bats! Nerf balls! NERF EVERYTHING
This level of TJ seems unprecedented. What is the real difference? I believe it’s the covid vaccine because, you know, we’re all in this together.
I hope this was merely an ATTEMPT at humor?
Sadly, people will go all out to compete with others. At the extremes of athletic performance, of course there’s a lot of stress on the body.
Decrease the number of pitchers allowed on the 26-man roster, implement the loss of the DH when a starter comes out, and see if that helps.
What these studies will always miss is the massive omitted variable problem of year-round youth baseball culture. It is, however, probably impossible to measure meaningfully.
I can never fault MLB players for seeking increase velo or spin on their pitches. The financial incentive is too great, and too close to actually being realized by that point. Nothing meaningful at the MLB level will ever be accomplished for this reason.
I am willing to bet a lot of money if the youth baseball infrastructure was gutted the injuries would be significantly reduced over time. How do you accomplish this? I dunno. There is probably no way to do it without MLB absolutely nuking Perfect Game’s business model by imposing eligibility restrictions on players who participate in more than [X] months of competitive baseball regardless of venue (PG, HS, NCAA, etc) in a calendar year. This also will probably never happen though. Alas
How much of this is survivor bias? Back in the day a busted shoulder or elbow meant a busted shoulder or elbow and you’d move on. Only the healthy ones would make it to the show.
This trend has continued upward long before the pitch clock, and it seems to me that the ligaments and tendons are the weakest link in the human body. You can bulk up and throw harder, but you can’t do anything to strengthen ligaments and tendons, so they are simply not holding up under the increased stress due to the increased strength of the surrounding muscles. You can increase the strength and thickness of the frame of a fishing net all you want, but at the end of the day, if you are using the same net, then trying to catch a huge fish in it may allow the frame to handle it, but maybe not so much the net itself.
Develop and fine tune a sleeve that fits over the elbow. If a study period shows that is is effective in preventing injury even at the cost of some spin or velocity, mandate it’s use. It may suck to get used to, but if it prevents injury and everyone has to use it, you have the simplest way to keep everything the same and reduce injuries.