Hardball Times: Tommy John

[weams]

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/12842678/why-tommy-john-surgeries-cease-soon

But ligament is not muscle; it can't be strengthened through exercise as well as muscle can be. It is also not bone, which will adapt to the stress placed upon it. Ligament is just fibrous tissue, and an elite pitcher's ligaments are pretty much the same as yours and mine for one reason: There is little he can do to make his better.

Rick Peterson, the Orioles' director of pitching development, recalls a physicist who approached him after a conference. The physicist had done some calculations. The force exerted on the elbow ligament in the 0.03 of a second of acceleration during a pitch? If a human were exposed to that for 60 seconds, the physicist said, he'd die. So the ligament is pretty tough. It's just not getting any tougher.

[Can_of_corn]

What they need to do is, when performing TJ surgery, take the replacement tissue and braid it Kevlar fibers.

[25 Nuggets]

What they need to do is, when performing TJ surgery, take the replacement tissue and braid in Kevlar fibers.

That would probably be considered cheating and taint the players' legacies.

[srock]

Haven't read any of this thread so excuse me... Prior to the real Tommy John, the return rate was 0%. Your career was done. Pretty impressive stat.

78% is a meaningless figure without something to compare to. At first glance I actually think 78% of pretty high because my perception is the rate of return without surgery is likely approaching 0%.

I wonder if anyone knows the rate of return for pitchers who opt not to have surgery after the doctors recommend it. Is the sample size on this even meaningful? Pretty much every pitcher I can recall going down with this injury gets the surgery.

That's what I said!

giggity goooooo :agree:

Although its not really 0%, you can heal from these injuries depending on severity. But the sample size is so low, there is no way to use statistics in a meaningful way.

[OFFNY]

o

Happy 72nd birthday to Tommy John, himself.

John was the first person ever to have successful ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) reconstruction performed on him by the late Dr. Frank Jobe in 1974.

John's career span from 1963-1989 amazingly covered a time when a band called the Beatles was on the verge of exploding on a worldwide level until a guy named Mike Tyson was defending his undisputed world heavyweight title against the likes of Frank Bruno and Carl "The Truth" Williams.

[Can_of_corn]

o

Happy 72nd birthday to Tommy John, himself.

John was the first person ever to have successful ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) reconstruction performed on him by the late Dr. Frank Jobe in 1974.

John's career span from 1963-1989 amazingly covered a time when a band called the Beatles was on the verge of exploding on a worldwide level until a guy named Mike Tyson was defending his undisputed world heavyweight title against the likes of Frank Bruno and Carl 'The Truth" Williams.

The funny thing is they don't know who the second guy was.

Was a javelin thrower.

[weams]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Keith Law had Yoel Mecias at 87-90 in his last start, velocity has been down all year. Tommy John surgery is not a cure all</p>— Matt Winkelman (@Matt_Winkelman) <a href="

">June 22, 2015</a></blockquote>

<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

[weams]

[weams]

http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/checking-in-on-three-al-sp-tj-surgery-returnees/

Ignoring those who reinjured themselves or were moved to the bullpen, all of the American League starting pitchers who underwent Tommy John surgery last season have now returned. Typically, I ignore these pitchers ... during their first year back and then analyze their results and velocity when forecasting their performance the following season. But a blanket ignore on every TJ surgery returnee might not be prudent, as evidenced by the superhuman Jose Fernandez, whose performance suggests that he hasn't skipped a beat. So let's take a look at our three.

[weams]

Padres righty Josh Johnson will go under the knife for his third Tommy John procedure.

[weams]

http://mlb.nbcsports.com/2015/10/02/paco-rodriguez-underwent-tommy-john-surgery-to-miss-most-or-all-of-2016/

When they throw harder, they get cut.

[weams]

http://www.fantasyalarm.com/articles/flowers/23167/how-to-stop-tommy-john-surgery-november-27-2015/

Some people can?t throw 100 pitches without issues arising (health or performance). Others can throw 120 an be fine (Nolan Ryan averaged 127 pitches a game in 1989 the highest officially recorded mark since pitch counts weren?t officially kept until 1988). The fact is all those numbers are arbitrary. Is there any real difference between 95 and 105 pitches? It certainly seems likely that the more pitches a guy throws the more dangerous it is to the health of the player, I get it. Still, what if that pitcher throws 90 percent fastballs versus a guy who only throws 65 percent heaters because he works more off-speed stuff ? should the guy throwing more fastballs be allowed to throw more pitches because there is less stress throwing a fastball instead of a curveball? What if the pitcher is 23 or 29 years old? What if the pitch limit was reached in five or seven innings? See what I?m saying here?

Whatever people believe, guys are getting hurt on a daily basis in baseball, sometimes catastrophically so in situation that requires surgery. What we are doing isn?t working, I think we can all agree with that. What should we do to try and stem the tide of injury? Leave it to the one and only Bill James to throw out an oddball idea that, when you think more about, starts to make more sense than your initial reaction suggests. James suggests that we scrap 5-man rotations.

[brianod]

This is a fascinating situation, at least to me. The most fascinating thing about this situation is that we usually advance and get smarter as time goes on. It seems to me that we are getting worse at handling pitchers despite the millions spent studying the situation. Because of the failure to properly handle pitchers health, I'm to the point where I wouldn't sign any high priced pitchers in free agency.

[Can_of_corn]

I feel dumber for reading that.

Was there some actual evidence in the James piece that I missed?

I like my once through the order idea better then this and we decided my idea wasn't feasible.

[Can_of_corn]

This is a fascinating situation, at least to me. The most fascinating thing about this situation is that we usually advance and get smarter as time goes on. It seems to me that we are getting worse at handling pitchers despite the millions spent studying the situation. Because of the failure to properly handle pitchers health, I'm to the point where I wouldn't sign any high priced pitchers in free agency.

It's the velocity. The ligaments and tendons can't handle the strain. Throwing a ball is an inherently unsafe endeavor.