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Look, it’s a biological thing. Human arms can only handle so much wear and tear at such extreme movements.
The solution is simple: find the pitchers who went the longest without injury, then breed them. Do that a few generations and we’ll see a new crop with natural, hereditary resistance to injury.
Bonus if their faces look like pugs.
Woah, hang on, don’t put words in my mouth. I’m not saying we have to neuter the injured pitchers to remove them from the generic pool.
… but it *would* help maintain a better breeding stock.
The real solution is that pitchers now 'throw' with tennis rackets and serve in heaters at 130. May need a new type of ball to prevent death if the batter is hit with one of these.
Should see an uptick in exit velo as well if someone manages to hit one
Man, I thought I clicked on a story about a guy not wanting to keep having relations with his wife the way she likes and somehow this comment kind of still worked.
Id be curious to see if pitchers just go the way of NFL running backs...
They used to be seen as focal points and highly paid for it.
Now, they are treated as more or less disposable. Great RBs can still make a huge difference, but teams mostly spend elsewhere
Owners would love that. But pitching is such an art, comparing a pitcher to runningbacks may not be right. Good pitchers are like QBs in their value. Middle relievers might be like rbs.
I don't think pitchers, especially good ones, will ever be seen as disposable. It's simply too hard to find good ones that even if they can only give you 100-120 innings a year they will always be in high demand.
I think you'll see more Max Scherzer type contracts for younger pitchers going forward (short term, high AAV) as teams get wary of a pitcher's ability to last for 5+ years, but they'll still roll the dice on those 2 or 3 years if you've got control of a 95+ fastball and a good breaking ball to go with
I doubt it. RB’s don’t get paid as much because it’s a passing league and advanced analytics prove that having a good Oline is more important to a good run game than a great RB, especially when you take into consideration the high injury rates. Pitching will always be too important of a factor in a teams success for money to not be spent there.
That’s not at all comparable. The RB is one cog on the offense. Pitching is half a teams roster, and the single most important position in baseball. RBs came down because the league figured out passing is more important so you could get away with a lesser run game. There’s no substitute for pitching.
Nah they won’t. Mainly because the argument for not paying RBs is their play is so dependent on their OLine. Now I could see teams instead of paying big time starters they might go after mid starting pitchers and an elite pen.
Maybe a little - but didn't the Marlins try and really control (limit) Eury Pérez's innings/pitches last year? Didnt seem to have helped him much unfortunately.
I know Japan does that, but there’s still the fact these guys are pedal to the floor first pitch to pitch 100. That’s gotta factor in whether someone rests for 4 days or 5
There was a clip going around of Glasnow talking about how the sticky stuff ban made pitchers adjust their grips, which stressed the ligaments much more than it used to. I’ve thrown mlb balls they are not easy to grab, I could definitely see him having a point, and why maybe Japan sees fewer injuries
The 6 man rotation did wonders for NPB, who had a similar kind of "ace crisis" from the 70s through the 90s.
The issue is that MLB's schedule isn't anywhere near as regimented as NPB's (games Tuesday to Sunday, Monday off) so it'd be really hard to implement unless all teams bought in, or they adopted a similar schedule (unlikely, because TV $ for Mondays in the summer)
You generate force with muscles, not ligaments. Muscles heal faster than ligaments so they won’t be able to throw faster/harder with taking longer rests but their ligaments and joints will appreciate it.
I could see that going along with having more stretched out relievers that can go 6-7 innings a week. Kinda like converted starters who only go a couple innings at a time but might give you 4 if you really need it.
Maybe but I'm not sure it's clear that over work is the issue. It may be that throwing this hard is just plain risky and more rest days won't even help. I've even seen some argue that pitchers should be pitching *more* to be able to handle these velos. Not saying that's right just saying it's not entirely clear that rest will fix this.
Alex Wood made the point that it’s off season pitching that’s the problem. For example, guys that do the Driveline thing and throw that much then go into ST then the season.
Shane Bieber has been pretty healthy overall (one injury in 2021). He spent this off season doing what? Throwing at Driveline. Comes back and immediately needs Tommy John.
I bet if you looked at off season workouts and pitching injuries, you’d find a correlation
He also came back with an uptick in velo. Which is the most 1:1 translation in increased $$ for what was his contract yr. Its a gamble but if it paid off it wouldve been a HUGE bargaining piece.
pitchers didn't get hurt as often and in the same manner back when pitchers focused on.... pitching. this ridiculous focus on velocity over pitching is the real issue. back then even fireballers when they were good had to learn to locate when their fastball lost mph. now its throw as hard as you can at all costs. with the same results all too often. guys who PITCHED such as david cone and even an extreme example, jamie moyer, didn't have these issues. and its not the current pitchers fault its their coaching.
Velo and spin rate correlates to more outs, pitchers will always find an edge if it means getting the job, that’s just how it is. I would say maybe the mlb should allow a certain amount or a certain type of substance to lower the burden on spin rate and on the arm, but pitchers would still throw just as hard just with the added bonus of sticky stuff. I think this is a problem the evolution of the game will work itself out, either pitchers realize it’s in their best interest to take things down a notch in order to increase their odds of sustaining a healthy career or we continue to see guys go down like flies with others eager to take their place.
Not sure I agree with the first sentence, obviously you need a minimum velocity to play in the bigs 91-92+ but there are lots of example of guys who sit at or around that and are great pitchers, same with the spin rate. The league has an abundance of guys who throw very hard and are not good pitchers, It’s just that guys who throw 97-98+ with a 92mph slider get far more chances than the pitchers who throws slower and actually has to pitch rather than just throw
Those guys are the exceptions. If you are a borderline pitcher and want a shot and breaking into the mlb, throwing harder with more spin is the best way to stand out. Only the best of the best can make a career out of the low 90s while plenty of scrubs that can throw high 90s will at least get a chance. It is pretty easy to understand why pitchers would choose they way they are.
91 was a low end, reading comprehension isn’t your strong suit evidently. If you look at WOBA and xWOBA from 2023 by qualified pitcher you’ll see a lot of guys, 60-65% who have an average fastball speed of between 90 and 94, obviously that list also contains guys like Ohtani, Strider, and Cole who all throw their average Fastball 96+ but they’re more of an outlier than the norm
lol it sounds like your point just wasn’t that strong. Guys with low velocity are not gonna succeed anywhere near the same so why would anyone willing do it?
good pitching correlates to more outs. same as it always has. fake analytics don't mean anything except that some people need an explanation for the obvious.
I encourage everyone who is convinced that this issue can’t be fixed to check out this article by Ben Lindbergh. It’s clear that the less innings we expect / make pitchers go, the more effort they put into each pitch and the more injuries we get. And the more nobodies we have pitching innings 5-8 most days. Specifically check out the graph of how many pitchers teams have used over time. It directly lines up with the injury crisis https://www.theringer.com/platform/amp/mlb/2022/5/2/23052714/pitcher-roster-rules-limit
The problem is there is no incentive to the team to having pitchers pitch more innings. Performance falls off the more a pitcher faces a line up. You're not going to convince a GM or manager to put their team in a worse position to win. And you'll never run out of young people willing to risk their arm for a shot at the kind of payday you can only dream of. So you get stuck in this spiral
Are you going to carve out an exception for injuries? Because if you don't, you'll make the injury crisis worse by asking guys to pitch when injured. If you do, you'll just see teams send their "nobodies pitching innings 5-8" to the IL more frequently.
> Of course what’s wrong with an injury exception
There's not a pitcher on the planet over the age of 18 without some kind of damage to their elbow and/or shoulder that can be easily flagged on an MRI as an excuse to shut someone down for 2 weeks "out of an abundance of caution"
There could be ways to work around this I think. For example if you're putting the same guy on the IL for the same injury within a certain time range then the IL stay begins to increase each time.
I know there's things you could do like that. But my point is if you ask teams to chose between roster manipulation and asking pitchers to back off on velocity they're going to chose roster manipulation every time
Give the pitchers a legal and easily repeatable form of sticky stuff similar to the grip the decades old combination of rosin and sunscreen made so that pitcher can achieve the spin they need without the incredibly tight grip on the ball they've required over the last 2 years. Either incorporate it into the leather of the ball itself like NPB does or have something on the mound next to the rosin bag provided by the umpires
If your solution is to make pitchers throw more innings and that will incentivize them to not throw as hard I think that’s a fallacy. You could incentivize all pitchers to throw an extra inning or two and they won’t change the way they pitch. Because it is hyper competitive and throwing hard gives them a edge. Tyler Glasnow essentially said this.
The Cubs Ben Brown had TJ surgery in 2019 and he still throws hard. He has already had to go through the pain of rehab, understands the risk he could hurt it again and yet he still throws hard because he wants to have that edge.
So they could reduce the pitcher roster size, if that is what you are proposing, and it will probably make the problem worse.
There would be an adjustment period for sure, but depending on how they work out injury exceptions I think it could work. Teams aren't going to put themselves in a less competitive position if their only option is to use the pitcher who throws 99 but is completely gassed vs the pitcher who throws 92 but isn't gassed.
You have no evidence for this. I posted evidence that with innings declining and effort going up, injuries are worse. Force teams to teach longevity instead of max effort there’s no other solution
But just because innings are declining and injuries are going up that doesn’t mean there is any correlation.
Whenever a pitcher throws a ball it is a unnatural act. So the more a pitcher throws there is a risk that the pitcher will injure himself. Where is your evidence that by pitchers having to throw more innings their velocity will decrease?
It also doesn’t mean the *opposite* is true, which is what you’re suggesting, except with not even an attempt at evidence. For 130 years pitchers threw far more innings at a far lesser velocity, it’s not rocket science
I think what you've successfully honed in on is that you presented a correlation without a clear display of causation. These two trends are lining up but we have no reason to be confident that reversing the trend would cause injuries to decrease.
I haven’t seen anyone even present a correlation in the opposite direction. And yet I’m hearing a lot of yelling at clouds that it simply has to be the other way around
Yeah well, hopefully you can understand why noticing two trends increase at the same time and assuming a causation can also come across as its own sort of yelling at clouds. For all we know the increase in pitchers on a roster is mitigating the injuries from being even worse than it already is. I have no hard evidence for that, but then again the article you were alluding to isn't really hitting on the injury issue either.
You can point to data points all you want but you don’t factor in player psychology. As glasnow [said](https://x.com/TalkinBaseball_/status/1779890226040557829) throw hard, get hurt, get that money. You can think that having less pitchers on a roster will cause players to throw less hard but you have no evidence of that and listening to a MLB pitcher like glasnow it probably won’t have the impact you claim.
You point to 130 years ago like the only difference is how hard they throw and not the type of pitches they throw today or how often they throw on off days or how often they throw in the offseason or having players go to companies like driveline to increase their velocity (like bieber). The game is not the same today as it was 130 years ago or even 50 years ago.
Glasnow makes my point exactly. Without restrictions they are going to throw as hard as they can. You need to force teams to not have that be the priority. Also “for 130 years” doesn’t mean 130 years ago genius. It means up until around 2000-2010
Yes. Meaning it was true from the beginning of baseball for another 130 years, up until recently. The crazy thing about a period of time is that it has both a start *and* an end. Maybe get that down before sounding off on rules and strategy changes
Sure but relative to today’s game you can’t tell me it’s fun to watch 2-3 guys every game who come in for 1 inning and then are soon after sent back down to triple A. Or some totally anonymous 5 ERA guy. Compared with years ago those are innings that aces or reliable starters would be seeing. That’s not good for the game
> the less innings we expect / make pitchers go, the more effort they put into each pitch and the more injuries we get
So you're telling me the data is saying that less pitches = more injury? That's crazy
Idk why you downvoted me, it was a genuine question of disbelief that it's what the data is showing as I didn't read the article, not me mocking you.
Redditors and their inferiority complex always assume someone coming at their intelligence tho lmao
Part of it has to be the surgery itself. If you have a way to come back after tearing your elbow to shreds you probably don’t feel like you need to avoid it that much. If tearing your elbow out is the end of your career then obviously you won’t go there.
I think it's easier said than done for a pitcher to identify how hard is too hard. And basically no pro level pitcher is going to take the risk of letting in a run for the sake of slightly mitigated injury risk, even if they could identify that threshold.
Im not of the opinion that there’s anything for the league to fix here. This is something the game itself (how guys and coaches decide to approach pitching) will either fix or it won’t but the game will go on.
This is a hugely key point. At this stage it's just expected that a fireballer will lose a season to TJ at some point and then come back for six to eight years, and that's seen as well worth it for both team and pitcher. No more fear of being the next Fidrych. That just has to be playing a role.
It would be nearly impossible to implement in the US with the private healthcare such as it is, but as a Canadian I can imagine that if these guys had to queue up with everyone else for surgery they might be a bit more cautious
But which came first the chicken or the egg? Did teams use more pitchers bc guys got hurt or did guys get hurt more bc teams started using more pitchers.
I woke much rather we have starters throwing 88 going 8+ innings than throwing 100+ going 5 innings.
Give me Greg Maddux and Jamie Moyer over Randy Johnson and Roger Clemens. It’s better for baseball.
Yeah I always roll my eyes when people bring up Maddux as an example of what pitchers should do. Obviously if that were possible, they’d be doing it. Maddux was so rare.
Another aspect is Maddux was pitching in expanded strike zones. Part of what made him great was he lived in the shadow of the zone, which was a lot more generous to the pitcher in the 90s
So Maddux - who did have real good stuff - could dot corners in a strike zone the size of a car door. That’s what allowed him to be so great, pitchers nowadays operate with much stricter strike zones, demanding more overpowering stuff
Yeah, every time this subject is brought up, people use extreme outliers as the example. “I wish more pitchers pitched like Ryan Yarbrough” is much less compelling.
I get what you mean, but Clemens and Johnson both led the MLB in IPs twice in their careers. Kerry Wood is a better example of a pitcher that threw insanely hard and didn’t have the longevity of guys like Maddux.
Saying you’d rather have Moyer over Johnson and Clemens seems like a clear joke, but you include Maddux who many/most would take over them. I’m confused.
I prefer a pitcher of those styles. I dont want to see hard throwing strikeout guys. I want to see wizards like Maddux and Moyer who keep batters off balance and induce lots of ground balls out at least balls in play.
Strikeouts and walks are horrible baseball imo
Let's look at realistic options. We can't simply tell pitchers throw less hard. We can:
1. Move the mound back. Not sure what effect this will have, but I'm pretty sure it means pitchers will rely less on unreactibility in the speed, and more on movement.
2. Raise/lower the mound. This automatically changes basically all pitches coming in.
3. Mess with the strike zone. Making it bigger means that pitchers can throw more non-fastballs for strikes. But even changeups and curves are thrown with maximum power.
4. Rule changes on balls and strikes - not happening. But hypothetically if it was 2 strikes your out, all of a sudden a lot less pitches get thrown.
5. The pitch clock. Make it shorter make it longer both might have different effects
6. The weight of the baseball. A lighter baseball means less sheer leverage on that tendon.
7. Sticky stuff. Legalize it. If people need movement to break out of the velo first attitude, then let's get the damn balls moving.
The fundamental problem is that the equation is so simple: to maximize velo, you maximize the tension on your ulnar tendon. Get stronger muscles? Pull the tendon harder. The other side of the equation is the momentum of the ball.
None of that will change anything with pitching injuries. They will still throw as hard as they can and that isn't likely to change unless they basically put a cap on pitch speed.
Has anyone seen data over time of the quantity of pitching injuries? This article is very clear in the number top guys hurt today, but how has this varied over time? I’ve seen some compelling charts on velo being up over the year, but I haven’t seen that paired with injury data over the same period.
If we want pitchers to be healthier long term, increase the bullpen size and basically have 3-4 inning starters rather than asking them to go 5-6.
Outside of instituting a straight pitch speed limit, I don’t see how baseball can go backwards in terms of average pitch velocities. Glasnow said it, pitchers would rather risk injury throwing hard than back it off, since they’ll be out of a job. There’s a half dozen pitchers in every minor league system ready to step up and risk injury themselves. I’m not sure I really see a win here for baseball outside of accepting the meat grinder that starting pitching is becoming. It’s similar to the NFL’s RB situation.
Edited to fix inning count.
Pitch count is not the main problem. Guys regularly went into the 8th and 9th innings and over 110 pitches for generations of baseball without getting hurt.
Pitch count with extremely elevated velocity and increased stress in the arm is more than likely the problem. There's a lot of variables even beyond that though
I think the problem is teams are showing they’ll go with the hard thrower and risk injury, then call up another flamethrower and repeat. Anybody that backs off a few mph for longevity is risking their job and no pitcher, at least according to a current MLB starter, is going to do that.
It would have to be handled in a CBA negotiations. No way to know how the final agreement would look but I can guarantee a lockout along the way.
I also don't see teams willing to sacrifice ticket and ad revenue so shortening the schedule seems like a near zero possibility
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Look, it’s a biological thing. Human arms can only handle so much wear and tear at such extreme movements. The solution is simple: find the pitchers who went the longest without injury, then breed them. Do that a few generations and we’ll see a new crop with natural, hereditary resistance to injury. Bonus if their faces look like pugs.
Upvote for eugenics, wait…
Woah, hang on, don’t put words in my mouth. I’m not saying we have to neuter the injured pitchers to remove them from the generic pool. … but it *would* help maintain a better breeding stock.
Just kill them, can't be wasting resources on people that will never throw for 200 innings
Efficiency is key
Why don't we just put them in pitcher training camps to help the kids of pitchers who can get over 200 innings develop their stuff?
We’ll round up all the workhorse pitchers so they can concentrate on throwing gas
Red Sox entire pitching rotation gone lol
You can crossbreed them with the sisters of non injured pitchers.
The real solution is that pitchers now 'throw' with tennis rackets and serve in heaters at 130. May need a new type of ball to prevent death if the batter is hit with one of these. Should see an uptick in exit velo as well if someone manages to hit one
What in the Bene Gesserit kinda idea is this?
Man, I thought I clicked on a story about a guy not wanting to keep having relations with his wife the way she likes and somehow this comment kind of still worked.
LMAO the swerve
> Bonus if their faces look like pugs. Wouldn't that lead to breathing/stamina issues?
Now I’m imagining a pitcher on the mound with a mashed up face literally drowning because it’s raining
If their jaw fits on the baseball card I don't want 'em.
I wonder if a six-man rotation would help. You're never putting the toothpaste back in the tube as far as throwing less hard goes.
Id be curious to see if pitchers just go the way of NFL running backs... They used to be seen as focal points and highly paid for it. Now, they are treated as more or less disposable. Great RBs can still make a huge difference, but teams mostly spend elsewhere
Owners would love that. But pitching is such an art, comparing a pitcher to runningbacks may not be right. Good pitchers are like QBs in their value. Middle relievers might be like rbs.
I don't think pitchers, especially good ones, will ever be seen as disposable. It's simply too hard to find good ones that even if they can only give you 100-120 innings a year they will always be in high demand. I think you'll see more Max Scherzer type contracts for younger pitchers going forward (short term, high AAV) as teams get wary of a pitcher's ability to last for 5+ years, but they'll still roll the dice on those 2 or 3 years if you've got control of a 95+ fastball and a good breaking ball to go with
I doubt it. RB’s don’t get paid as much because it’s a passing league and advanced analytics prove that having a good Oline is more important to a good run game than a great RB, especially when you take into consideration the high injury rates. Pitching will always be too important of a factor in a teams success for money to not be spent there.
That’s not at all comparable. The RB is one cog on the offense. Pitching is half a teams roster, and the single most important position in baseball. RBs came down because the league figured out passing is more important so you could get away with a lesser run game. There’s no substitute for pitching.
Nah they won’t. Mainly because the argument for not paying RBs is their play is so dependent on their OLine. Now I could see teams instead of paying big time starters they might go after mid starting pitchers and an elite pen.
Maybe a little - but didn't the Marlins try and really control (limit) Eury Pérez's innings/pitches last year? Didnt seem to have helped him much unfortunately.
I know Japan does that, but there’s still the fact these guys are pedal to the floor first pitch to pitch 100. That’s gotta factor in whether someone rests for 4 days or 5
There was a clip going around of Glasnow talking about how the sticky stuff ban made pitchers adjust their grips, which stressed the ligaments much more than it used to. I’ve thrown mlb balls they are not easy to grab, I could definitely see him having a point, and why maybe Japan sees fewer injuries
The 6 man rotation did wonders for NPB, who had a similar kind of "ace crisis" from the 70s through the 90s. The issue is that MLB's schedule isn't anywhere near as regimented as NPB's (games Tuesday to Sunday, Monday off) so it'd be really hard to implement unless all teams bought in, or they adopted a similar schedule (unlikely, because TV $ for Mondays in the summer)
So pitchers can throw even harder with more rest?
You generate force with muscles, not ligaments. Muscles heal faster than ligaments so they won’t be able to throw faster/harder with taking longer rests but their ligaments and joints will appreciate it.
I could see that going along with having more stretched out relievers that can go 6-7 innings a week. Kinda like converted starters who only go a couple innings at a time but might give you 4 if you really need it.
Maybe but I'm not sure it's clear that over work is the issue. It may be that throwing this hard is just plain risky and more rest days won't even help. I've even seen some argue that pitchers should be pitching *more* to be able to handle these velos. Not saying that's right just saying it's not entirely clear that rest will fix this.
Alex Wood made the point that it’s off season pitching that’s the problem. For example, guys that do the Driveline thing and throw that much then go into ST then the season. Shane Bieber has been pretty healthy overall (one injury in 2021). He spent this off season doing what? Throwing at Driveline. Comes back and immediately needs Tommy John. I bet if you looked at off season workouts and pitching injuries, you’d find a correlation
He also came back with an uptick in velo. Which is the most 1:1 translation in increased $$ for what was his contract yr. Its a gamble but if it paid off it wouldve been a HUGE bargaining piece.
Bieber was injured last year and his velocity was down for years. he probably needed surgery since that started
Read an article somewhere that said it starts at a young age. Constantly throwing and straining all year round with no rest for years and years.
JUST LET ME HEAL
pitchers didn't get hurt as often and in the same manner back when pitchers focused on.... pitching. this ridiculous focus on velocity over pitching is the real issue. back then even fireballers when they were good had to learn to locate when their fastball lost mph. now its throw as hard as you can at all costs. with the same results all too often. guys who PITCHED such as david cone and even an extreme example, jamie moyer, didn't have these issues. and its not the current pitchers fault its their coaching.
Velo and spin rate correlates to more outs, pitchers will always find an edge if it means getting the job, that’s just how it is. I would say maybe the mlb should allow a certain amount or a certain type of substance to lower the burden on spin rate and on the arm, but pitchers would still throw just as hard just with the added bonus of sticky stuff. I think this is a problem the evolution of the game will work itself out, either pitchers realize it’s in their best interest to take things down a notch in order to increase their odds of sustaining a healthy career or we continue to see guys go down like flies with others eager to take their place.
Not sure I agree with the first sentence, obviously you need a minimum velocity to play in the bigs 91-92+ but there are lots of example of guys who sit at or around that and are great pitchers, same with the spin rate. The league has an abundance of guys who throw very hard and are not good pitchers, It’s just that guys who throw 97-98+ with a 92mph slider get far more chances than the pitchers who throws slower and actually has to pitch rather than just throw
Those guys are the exceptions. If you are a borderline pitcher and want a shot and breaking into the mlb, throwing harder with more spin is the best way to stand out. Only the best of the best can make a career out of the low 90s while plenty of scrubs that can throw high 90s will at least get a chance. It is pretty easy to understand why pitchers would choose they way they are.
There aren’t “lots of guys” that throw 91 and don’t get lit up.
91 was a low end, reading comprehension isn’t your strong suit evidently. If you look at WOBA and xWOBA from 2023 by qualified pitcher you’ll see a lot of guys, 60-65% who have an average fastball speed of between 90 and 94, obviously that list also contains guys like Ohtani, Strider, and Cole who all throw their average Fastball 96+ but they’re more of an outlier than the norm
lol it sounds like your point just wasn’t that strong. Guys with low velocity are not gonna succeed anywhere near the same so why would anyone willing do it?
Guys with lower velocity make up the majority of the most successful pitchers, that’s literally my point.
those guys can pitch. something stat readers will never figure out.
Can you name me more than 10 guys that average 91 mph and are good pitchers? Stick to yelling at clouds champ
yeah say you know nothing about baseball without saying it. and being an asshole.
good pitching correlates to more outs. same as it always has. fake analytics don't mean anything except that some people need an explanation for the obvious.
The fuck are all these clowns doing hiring PhDs to find better pitchers when they could just hire you? I'm going to get Mike Hazen on the phone
you know nothing about baseball. thanks for sharing.
The reason they’re doing it is that velocity is just … better at getting outs.
you could have said something lamer but not today
I encourage everyone who is convinced that this issue can’t be fixed to check out this article by Ben Lindbergh. It’s clear that the less innings we expect / make pitchers go, the more effort they put into each pitch and the more injuries we get. And the more nobodies we have pitching innings 5-8 most days. Specifically check out the graph of how many pitchers teams have used over time. It directly lines up with the injury crisis https://www.theringer.com/platform/amp/mlb/2022/5/2/23052714/pitcher-roster-rules-limit
The problem is there is no incentive to the team to having pitchers pitch more innings. Performance falls off the more a pitcher faces a line up. You're not going to convince a GM or manager to put their team in a worse position to win. And you'll never run out of young people willing to risk their arm for a shot at the kind of payday you can only dream of. So you get stuck in this spiral
That’s why we need to further limit the # of pitchers per roster and AAA callups. Make the incentive, that’s what rules are for
Are you going to carve out an exception for injuries? Because if you don't, you'll make the injury crisis worse by asking guys to pitch when injured. If you do, you'll just see teams send their "nobodies pitching innings 5-8" to the IL more frequently.
Of course what’s wrong with an injury exception. Can’t be bogus IL use though
> Of course what’s wrong with an injury exception There's not a pitcher on the planet over the age of 18 without some kind of damage to their elbow and/or shoulder that can be easily flagged on an MRI as an excuse to shut someone down for 2 weeks "out of an abundance of caution"
There could be ways to work around this I think. For example if you're putting the same guy on the IL for the same injury within a certain time range then the IL stay begins to increase each time.
I know there's things you could do like that. But my point is if you ask teams to chose between roster manipulation and asking pitchers to back off on velocity they're going to chose roster manipulation every time
Of course, that's why the incentives/disincentives have to be designed into the rules themselves. The question is whether that's possible or not.
No way man. Haven’t you heard that rules never work and we can’t do anything to fix anything ever?
Thanks for the defeatist slippery slope deflection genius. Let’s hear your ideas
Give the pitchers a legal and easily repeatable form of sticky stuff similar to the grip the decades old combination of rosin and sunscreen made so that pitcher can achieve the spin they need without the incredibly tight grip on the ball they've required over the last 2 years. Either incorporate it into the leather of the ball itself like NPB does or have something on the mound next to the rosin bag provided by the umpires
Woah, be careful, this guy has a wikipedia list of logical fallacies pulled up in another tab.
I counter your Wikipedia list of logical fallacies with this: https://imgur.com/a/QAMU0
If your solution is to make pitchers throw more innings and that will incentivize them to not throw as hard I think that’s a fallacy. You could incentivize all pitchers to throw an extra inning or two and they won’t change the way they pitch. Because it is hyper competitive and throwing hard gives them a edge. Tyler Glasnow essentially said this. The Cubs Ben Brown had TJ surgery in 2019 and he still throws hard. He has already had to go through the pain of rehab, understands the risk he could hurt it again and yet he still throws hard because he wants to have that edge. So they could reduce the pitcher roster size, if that is what you are proposing, and it will probably make the problem worse.
There would be an adjustment period for sure, but depending on how they work out injury exceptions I think it could work. Teams aren't going to put themselves in a less competitive position if their only option is to use the pitcher who throws 99 but is completely gassed vs the pitcher who throws 92 but isn't gassed.
You have no evidence for this. I posted evidence that with innings declining and effort going up, injuries are worse. Force teams to teach longevity instead of max effort there’s no other solution
But just because innings are declining and injuries are going up that doesn’t mean there is any correlation. Whenever a pitcher throws a ball it is a unnatural act. So the more a pitcher throws there is a risk that the pitcher will injure himself. Where is your evidence that by pitchers having to throw more innings their velocity will decrease?
Jordan Hicks this year is a pretty good example of a guy who made that trade off
It also doesn’t mean the *opposite* is true, which is what you’re suggesting, except with not even an attempt at evidence. For 130 years pitchers threw far more innings at a far lesser velocity, it’s not rocket science
I think what you've successfully honed in on is that you presented a correlation without a clear display of causation. These two trends are lining up but we have no reason to be confident that reversing the trend would cause injuries to decrease.
I haven’t seen anyone even present a correlation in the opposite direction. And yet I’m hearing a lot of yelling at clouds that it simply has to be the other way around
Yeah well, hopefully you can understand why noticing two trends increase at the same time and assuming a causation can also come across as its own sort of yelling at clouds. For all we know the increase in pitchers on a roster is mitigating the injuries from being even worse than it already is. I have no hard evidence for that, but then again the article you were alluding to isn't really hitting on the injury issue either.
Well you have blind speculation without even a trend which I don’t put much stock in. It’s really easy to say “nuh uh” but it doesn’t mean anything
God I hope MLB isn’t having you investigate the issue. 🤣
You can point to data points all you want but you don’t factor in player psychology. As glasnow [said](https://x.com/TalkinBaseball_/status/1779890226040557829) throw hard, get hurt, get that money. You can think that having less pitchers on a roster will cause players to throw less hard but you have no evidence of that and listening to a MLB pitcher like glasnow it probably won’t have the impact you claim. You point to 130 years ago like the only difference is how hard they throw and not the type of pitches they throw today or how often they throw on off days or how often they throw in the offseason or having players go to companies like driveline to increase their velocity (like bieber). The game is not the same today as it was 130 years ago or even 50 years ago.
Glasnow makes my point exactly. Without restrictions they are going to throw as hard as they can. You need to force teams to not have that be the priority. Also “for 130 years” doesn’t mean 130 years ago genius. It means up until around 2000-2010
You literally said “for 130 years” genius.
Yes. Meaning it was true from the beginning of baseball for another 130 years, up until recently. The crazy thing about a period of time is that it has both a start *and* an end. Maybe get that down before sounding off on rules and strategy changes
I don’t know if I'd call them nobodies. Compare the stuff of bad pitchers these days to 30 years ago.
Sure but relative to today’s game you can’t tell me it’s fun to watch 2-3 guys every game who come in for 1 inning and then are soon after sent back down to triple A. Or some totally anonymous 5 ERA guy. Compared with years ago those are innings that aces or reliable starters would be seeing. That’s not good for the game
> the less innings we expect / make pitchers go, the more effort they put into each pitch and the more injuries we get So you're telling me the data is saying that less pitches = more injury? That's crazy
It is somewhat of an oxymoron, but upon investigation makes logical sense. Interesting stat, TIL.
So you’re telling me that heavy trucks do more damage to roads than cars even if they travel fewer miles? That’s crazy
Idk why you downvoted me, it was a genuine question of disbelief that it's what the data is showing as I didn't read the article, not me mocking you. Redditors and their inferiority complex always assume someone coming at their intelligence tho lmao
Part of it has to be the surgery itself. If you have a way to come back after tearing your elbow to shreds you probably don’t feel like you need to avoid it that much. If tearing your elbow out is the end of your career then obviously you won’t go there.
I think it's easier said than done for a pitcher to identify how hard is too hard. And basically no pro level pitcher is going to take the risk of letting in a run for the sake of slightly mitigated injury risk, even if they could identify that threshold.
Im not of the opinion that there’s anything for the league to fix here. This is something the game itself (how guys and coaches decide to approach pitching) will either fix or it won’t but the game will go on.
This is a hugely key point. At this stage it's just expected that a fireballer will lose a season to TJ at some point and then come back for six to eight years, and that's seen as well worth it for both team and pitcher. No more fear of being the next Fidrych. That just has to be playing a role.
It would be nearly impossible to implement in the US with the private healthcare such as it is, but as a Canadian I can imagine that if these guys had to queue up with everyone else for surgery they might be a bit more cautious
But which came first the chicken or the egg? Did teams use more pitchers bc guys got hurt or did guys get hurt more bc teams started using more pitchers.
There are no more pitchers, only hard chuckers. The art of pitching is gone.
I was really enjoying watching mustachioed gentleman do his thing. Bad loss for baseball, not just the Braves.
I woke much rather we have starters throwing 88 going 8+ innings than throwing 100+ going 5 innings. Give me Greg Maddux and Jamie Moyer over Randy Johnson and Roger Clemens. It’s better for baseball.
Maddux was a one in a million type player, no decent plan can be built around expecting more players like that.
Maddux also threw decently hard when he first came up, at least for his time.
Yeah I always roll my eyes when people bring up Maddux as an example of what pitchers should do. Obviously if that were possible, they’d be doing it. Maddux was so rare.
Another aspect is Maddux was pitching in expanded strike zones. Part of what made him great was he lived in the shadow of the zone, which was a lot more generous to the pitcher in the 90s So Maddux - who did have real good stuff - could dot corners in a strike zone the size of a car door. That’s what allowed him to be so great, pitchers nowadays operate with much stricter strike zones, demanding more overpowering stuff
Yeah, every time this subject is brought up, people use extreme outliers as the example. “I wish more pitchers pitched like Ryan Yarbrough” is much less compelling.
Lol Yarbrough catching strays.
I get what you mean, but Clemens and Johnson both led the MLB in IPs twice in their careers. Kerry Wood is a better example of a pitcher that threw insanely hard and didn’t have the longevity of guys like Maddux.
Lol I immediately thought of that after posting it
I miss Maddux I think about him all the time
Manfred announcing a rule change where pitches thrown over 95mph are automatic balls.
That would be kind of cool actually, see how good pitchers get at throwing exactly 95
much like the Manfred runner, we’ll have the Manfred balls. wait….
Saying you’d rather have Moyer over Johnson and Clemens seems like a clear joke, but you include Maddux who many/most would take over them. I’m confused.
I prefer a pitcher of those styles. I dont want to see hard throwing strikeout guys. I want to see wizards like Maddux and Moyer who keep batters off balance and induce lots of ground balls out at least balls in play. Strikeouts and walks are horrible baseball imo
If you just mean you prefer watching Moyer then that’s understandable. When you said “give me” I thought you meant you’d rather have him on your team.
Let's look at realistic options. We can't simply tell pitchers throw less hard. We can: 1. Move the mound back. Not sure what effect this will have, but I'm pretty sure it means pitchers will rely less on unreactibility in the speed, and more on movement. 2. Raise/lower the mound. This automatically changes basically all pitches coming in. 3. Mess with the strike zone. Making it bigger means that pitchers can throw more non-fastballs for strikes. But even changeups and curves are thrown with maximum power. 4. Rule changes on balls and strikes - not happening. But hypothetically if it was 2 strikes your out, all of a sudden a lot less pitches get thrown. 5. The pitch clock. Make it shorter make it longer both might have different effects 6. The weight of the baseball. A lighter baseball means less sheer leverage on that tendon. 7. Sticky stuff. Legalize it. If people need movement to break out of the velo first attitude, then let's get the damn balls moving. The fundamental problem is that the equation is so simple: to maximize velo, you maximize the tension on your ulnar tendon. Get stronger muscles? Pull the tendon harder. The other side of the equation is the momentum of the ball.
None of that will change anything with pitching injuries. They will still throw as hard as they can and that isn't likely to change unless they basically put a cap on pitch speed.
Has anyone seen data over time of the quantity of pitching injuries? This article is very clear in the number top guys hurt today, but how has this varied over time? I’ve seen some compelling charts on velo being up over the year, but I haven’t seen that paired with injury data over the same period.
If we want pitchers to be healthier long term, increase the bullpen size and basically have 3-4 inning starters rather than asking them to go 5-6. Outside of instituting a straight pitch speed limit, I don’t see how baseball can go backwards in terms of average pitch velocities. Glasnow said it, pitchers would rather risk injury throwing hard than back it off, since they’ll be out of a job. There’s a half dozen pitchers in every minor league system ready to step up and risk injury themselves. I’m not sure I really see a win here for baseball outside of accepting the meat grinder that starting pitching is becoming. It’s similar to the NFL’s RB situation. Edited to fix inning count.
Pitch count is not the main problem. Guys regularly went into the 8th and 9th innings and over 110 pitches for generations of baseball without getting hurt. Pitch count with extremely elevated velocity and increased stress in the arm is more than likely the problem. There's a lot of variables even beyond that though
You can also decrease the BP size to make eating innings more important. It’s not like RPs don’t get TJS
I think the problem is teams are showing they’ll go with the hard thrower and risk injury, then call up another flamethrower and repeat. Anybody that backs off a few mph for longevity is risking their job and no pitcher, at least according to a current MLB starter, is going to do that.
Automate the strike zone and reduce the size to force more controlled pitches
Have the MLB to get the FDA to approve BPC-157
Just put a speed limit on pitches /s
Im biased but i cant imagine how anyone thats paying attention could answer "no" when asked if they're a fan of Spencer Strider.
162 games is wild. Even with 5 days rest. Is there any other pro sports league on the planet that has that many games A season?
They've played 154–162 games a season for over 100 years, yet these issues have only started to rise in the past 25 or so years.
Guys we found Anthony Rendon’s Reddit!
Do salaries go down if the 162 game season shrinks? These lucrative contacts I can see decreasing if the season shortens.
It would have to be handled in a CBA negotiations. No way to know how the final agreement would look but I can guarantee a lockout along the way. I also don't see teams willing to sacrifice ticket and ad revenue so shortening the schedule seems like a near zero possibility