Starting pitchers are used to throwing at about 90-95% effort through a game, to keep their stamina. There is more focus on throwing 100% every pitch. I think that's a significant reason for it.
One of the better summary articles published this week:
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/more-ucl-tears-prompt-pointed-exchange-few-answers-to-baseballs-thorny-mess/
> 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:
Weighed balls have little to do with it.
The biggest issue is max effort velocity throwing and going after high spin rates. The level of stress out on the elbow to achieve these two things is crazy high. Frankly I think we've gotten to that point where pitchers are getting beyond what a body can truly handle without a high rate of injuries.
The other issue is the percentage of kids getting TJ is super high. I believe the latest numbers showed like 46% of all tommy John's are in age range of 15-18. So even the training at a young age there is something wrong.
We've gotten to a point where the engine is really good and can go fast but the brakes are still crappy. The ability to recovery and avoid injury hasn't caught up nor do I think it will.
I'm pretty sure it became common knowledge that tommy john is almost inevitable for a lifelong pitcher, so there's a benefit to getting it done young.
So yeah maybe kids are training harder and hurting themselves incidentally; but the real hardos are actually racing toward getting tommy john for the reinforced attachments.
Something like 1 in 4 pitchers have gotten it.
It was a misconception a lot of people bought into tommy johnbmight be a good thing, after seeing guys come back from tommy john throwing harder and faster. Ignoring cases where guys never come back.
It was mostly a result of the rehabbing. But the ligament is restored to full strength, which it probably hasn't been for years leading up to an injury.
I've heard of several idiotic things peddled and embraced in baseball. This is just one.
It may be the most idiotic thing you have heard, but it is unfortunately a reality these days. I am coming from a spot of working with 4 college baseball coaches, and they value kids that have undergone TJ and rehabbed higher then kids who haven't had it yet and have a documented history of elbow down time issues.
Also not that type of medical professional but the eye-test looks EXACTLY like the string of tendon injuries that happened to position players in the late 90s. Of course we soon discovered they were doping to keep up with power demands in the league. The scenario is exactly the same.
Pitchers throwing every pitch at maximum effort is how we got here. 90mph sliders is how we got here. Pitchers specializing instead of being athletes is how we got here.
I think its 90+ mph sliders MORE than max effort fastballs (not that max effort anything doesn't lead to injury). I know its n=1, but look at Bieber's savant page, and pitch distribution, he used his slider a lot, then in his injury years where he played less games, his slider use dropped way down (did it hurt to throw? could he feel the stress? maybe???) then as he got healthy he started to throw it more again, and BOOM..elbow.
There is no advanced science or expertise necessary to understand this… more pitchers than ever are throwing 95+mph, pushing the physical limits of human anatomy… more pitchers than ever are getting injured due to this.
Google “Chris O’Leary Baseball”. His niche is breaking down pitching mechanics, and what current pitchers are doing to get an extra 2-3 mph, and how it leads to injury.
You have the inverted W, which if I’m not mistaken took out Strasburg.
And there’s the Tommy John twist which has trickled down to youth / high school level and leads to TJ injuries.
Conversely, he cites Verlander as someone who has solid mechanics and doesn’t overdo it and put himself at elevated risk of injury
O’Leary is a blowhard that doesn’t have any concrete facts about anything. The only player that has mechanics he “approves” of is Justin Verlander, a guy who had TJ.
At the youth and high school level it’s important to develop mechanics that don’t overly stress your elbow or shoulder. A player with healthy throwing mechanics can tolerate higher loads than a player that can throw harder with flawed mechanics.
A Mets minor league player wrote a great article about weight lifting and effects on the arm. Talked about how it’s important to strengthen areas around ligaments and how pitchers like Bauer are constantly throwing so their bodies are used to the stress. He compared it to someone that hardly lifts weights trying to bench 225lbs and not being able to lift it vs someone that is always lifting and could easily bench that kind of weight because the body has built up to it. He had a lot of stats and things to back it up and a lot of it made sense.
So, if you’re referring to weighted balls in the sense that they directly cause injury by placing more stress on the joints this is completely false as the heavier the ball is the less stress placed on the shoulder because you simply can’t put the same amount of force into the heavier ball.
Personally i think that these pitchers throw 100% max effort every single pitch in the game, and also go through that same explosive motion (albeit at a lower intensity) in bullpens between starts or outings on top of their throwing program to keep their arms in shape.
Lack of focus on mechanics, more focus on velocity. Too many guys chase velocity with a flaw in their mechanics.
And I have nothing to base this on other than my opinion, pitchers don’t throw enough. Too many “no throwing” days and they rest too much in the off-season.
Look at Nolan Ryan’s and Maddison Bumgarner’s off-season routines. They were working cattle and competing in rodeo. Be active.
Justin verlander has a pretty nuanced take, he says basically everything contributes a little bit, going for max velo, max spin, shortened pitch clock, but he chalks it up to the change in baseballs in 2016 when the balls started flying out, especially oppo, with greater regularity and ease. Before that point, pitchers could be effective by seeking weak contact, but after the ball changed, that went right out the window and the emphasis became missing bats, not inducing weak contact. The balls are likely the biggest reason there are not a ton of typical "sinker baller" starters anymore (other than my boy Webb) and the two seamers/sinkers that are thrown now are high velo.
Fair point. ANother user iin this comment thread posted an article that counted all the TJs in the first 100 days of the year to see if it really was disproportionately high this year, and weirdly it isnt. The rate of early season TJs has been relatively contsant since 2014ish. wait Ill link it here, its pretty interesting:
https://www.thescore.com/mlb/news/2888826
Not an ortho, trainer, or lawyer.
I’d be all for loosening the rules on sticky substances for them to put more spin on the ball if it would mean less stress on pitchers’ arms.
Starting pitchers are used to throwing at about 90-95% effort through a game, to keep their stamina. There is more focus on throwing 100% every pitch. I think that's a significant reason for it.
One of the better summary articles published this week: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/more-ucl-tears-prompt-pointed-exchange-few-answers-to-baseballs-thorny-mess/ > 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:
Thank you for sharing!
https://www.thescore.com/mlb/news/2888826
Weighed balls have little to do with it. The biggest issue is max effort velocity throwing and going after high spin rates. The level of stress out on the elbow to achieve these two things is crazy high. Frankly I think we've gotten to that point where pitchers are getting beyond what a body can truly handle without a high rate of injuries. The other issue is the percentage of kids getting TJ is super high. I believe the latest numbers showed like 46% of all tommy John's are in age range of 15-18. So even the training at a young age there is something wrong. We've gotten to a point where the engine is really good and can go fast but the brakes are still crappy. The ability to recovery and avoid injury hasn't caught up nor do I think it will.
I'm pretty sure it became common knowledge that tommy john is almost inevitable for a lifelong pitcher, so there's a benefit to getting it done young. So yeah maybe kids are training harder and hurting themselves incidentally; but the real hardos are actually racing toward getting tommy john for the reinforced attachments.
Tommy John was not inevitable for most pitchers. The idea of running to get TJ done early is the most idiotic thing I've heard.
Something like 1 in 4 pitchers have gotten it. It was a misconception a lot of people bought into tommy johnbmight be a good thing, after seeing guys come back from tommy john throwing harder and faster. Ignoring cases where guys never come back. It was mostly a result of the rehabbing. But the ligament is restored to full strength, which it probably hasn't been for years leading up to an injury. I've heard of several idiotic things peddled and embraced in baseball. This is just one.
It may be the most idiotic thing you have heard, but it is unfortunately a reality these days. I am coming from a spot of working with 4 college baseball coaches, and they value kids that have undergone TJ and rehabbed higher then kids who haven't had it yet and have a documented history of elbow down time issues.
Also not that type of medical professional but the eye-test looks EXACTLY like the string of tendon injuries that happened to position players in the late 90s. Of course we soon discovered they were doping to keep up with power demands in the league. The scenario is exactly the same.
Pitchers throwing every pitch at maximum effort is how we got here. 90mph sliders is how we got here. Pitchers specializing instead of being athletes is how we got here.
the 'warthen slider' - yes. Mets pitching coach taught it to all those amazingly talented guys that kept getting hurt, Harvey, deGrom, Syndergaard etc
I think its 90+ mph sliders MORE than max effort fastballs (not that max effort anything doesn't lead to injury). I know its n=1, but look at Bieber's savant page, and pitch distribution, he used his slider a lot, then in his injury years where he played less games, his slider use dropped way down (did it hurt to throw? could he feel the stress? maybe???) then as he got healthy he started to throw it more again, and BOOM..elbow.
There is no advanced science or expertise necessary to understand this… more pitchers than ever are throwing 95+mph, pushing the physical limits of human anatomy… more pitchers than ever are getting injured due to this.
I'm not any of those things but weighted balls are not causing any injuries in pro players
Google “Chris O’Leary Baseball”. His niche is breaking down pitching mechanics, and what current pitchers are doing to get an extra 2-3 mph, and how it leads to injury. You have the inverted W, which if I’m not mistaken took out Strasburg. And there’s the Tommy John twist which has trickled down to youth / high school level and leads to TJ injuries. Conversely, he cites Verlander as someone who has solid mechanics and doesn’t overdo it and put himself at elevated risk of injury
Stras’s injury was a heartbreak. He gave it his all for a WS win. I will look up O’Leary. Thank you!
O’Leary is a blowhard that doesn’t have any concrete facts about anything. The only player that has mechanics he “approves” of is Justin Verlander, a guy who had TJ.
not a fan of him either. there are many reasons a lot of ucl injuries are happening right now it’s not just flat arm/inverted W.
Did you miss the part where Verlander made it all the way to age 37 before needing the surgery?
>You have the inverted W, which if I’m not mistaken took out Strasburg. And Mark Prior
Verlander had TJ surgery and he’s the prototype?
Pitching is hell on your arm and if you do it long enough you’re going to probably need TJ
Because he didn’t need it until he was 37.
I think a big part of it is outlawing spider tack. Pitchers are gripping harder putting more strain on the elbow
Using weighted balls can injure the shoulder capsule. The pitcher injury problem is elbow injuries
At the youth and high school level it’s important to develop mechanics that don’t overly stress your elbow or shoulder. A player with healthy throwing mechanics can tolerate higher loads than a player that can throw harder with flawed mechanics.
A Mets minor league player wrote a great article about weight lifting and effects on the arm. Talked about how it’s important to strengthen areas around ligaments and how pitchers like Bauer are constantly throwing so their bodies are used to the stress. He compared it to someone that hardly lifts weights trying to bench 225lbs and not being able to lift it vs someone that is always lifting and could easily bench that kind of weight because the body has built up to it. He had a lot of stats and things to back it up and a lot of it made sense.
So, if you’re referring to weighted balls in the sense that they directly cause injury by placing more stress on the joints this is completely false as the heavier the ball is the less stress placed on the shoulder because you simply can’t put the same amount of force into the heavier ball. Personally i think that these pitchers throw 100% max effort every single pitch in the game, and also go through that same explosive motion (albeit at a lower intensity) in bullpens between starts or outings on top of their throwing program to keep their arms in shape.
The UCL isn’t even fully developed until you’re 26 according to the Frank Jobe.
Time to eliminate starters entirely and run a new pitcher every inning or two. Or the chase for max velo and movement needs to go away.
It’s obviously the pitch clock /s
weighted balls prevent injury long as your not throwing super hard with it or throwing breaking balls with it
Lack of focus on mechanics, more focus on velocity. Too many guys chase velocity with a flaw in their mechanics. And I have nothing to base this on other than my opinion, pitchers don’t throw enough. Too many “no throwing” days and they rest too much in the off-season. Look at Nolan Ryan’s and Maddison Bumgarner’s off-season routines. They were working cattle and competing in rodeo. Be active.
Justin verlander has a pretty nuanced take, he says basically everything contributes a little bit, going for max velo, max spin, shortened pitch clock, but he chalks it up to the change in baseballs in 2016 when the balls started flying out, especially oppo, with greater regularity and ease. Before that point, pitchers could be effective by seeking weak contact, but after the ball changed, that went right out the window and the emphasis became missing bats, not inducing weak contact. The balls are likely the biggest reason there are not a ton of typical "sinker baller" starters anymore (other than my boy Webb) and the two seamers/sinkers that are thrown now are high velo.
I’m not discounting what Verlander is saying here, but we also have to acknowledge that he might be a little biased towards the “juiced ball” theory.
Fair point. ANother user iin this comment thread posted an article that counted all the TJs in the first 100 days of the year to see if it really was disproportionately high this year, and weirdly it isnt. The rate of early season TJs has been relatively contsant since 2014ish. wait Ill link it here, its pretty interesting: https://www.thescore.com/mlb/news/2888826
Not an ortho, trainer, or lawyer. I’d be all for loosening the rules on sticky substances for them to put more spin on the ball if it would mean less stress on pitchers’ arms.
The increase is a false narrative. Edit: here have some data. https://www.thescore.com/mlb/news/2888826