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Hardball Times: Tommy John


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He is using median and not average. I believe that would exclude the highest end along with the lowest.

This comment got me to thinking: what is the median number of innings a pitcher throws in a year? For 2014, the answer was 46.

Having considered the additional mistakes MurphDogg identified, and the fact that the author didn't really provide any context for how many IP would be considered "normal" when presenting his data, I reluctantly conclude that the article isn't very reliable. There's a big distinction between a guy who had a cup of coffee in the majors, had TJ surgery later and never pitched in the majors again, and an established major league pitcher who has TJ surgery.

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This comment got me to thinking: what is the median number of innings a pitcher throws in a year? For 2014, the answer was 46.

Having considered the additional mistakes MurphDogg identified, and the fact that the author didn't really provide any context for how many IP would be considered "normal" when presenting his data, I reluctantly conclude that the article isn't very reliable. There's a big distinction between a guy who had a cup of coffee in the majors, had TJ surgery later and never pitched in the majors again, and an established major league pitcher who has TJ surgery.

Thank you, I thought the numbers looked weird.

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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.

Tanaka looks good so far and there are some other names out there. The number is going to be artificially low since the surgery does exist.

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This comment got me to thinking: what is the median number of innings a pitcher throws in a year? For 2014, the answer was 46.

Having considered the additional mistakes MurphDogg identified, and the fact that the author didn't really provide any context for how many IP would be considered "normal" when presenting his data, I reluctantly conclude that the article isn't very reliable. There's a big distinction between a guy who had a cup of coffee in the majors, had TJ surgery later and never pitched in the majors again, and an established major league pitcher who has TJ surgery.

Agreed. This article is closer to junk than helpful.

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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.

I don't think the issue here is surgery or not surgery. I think it is to temper the attitude that all will be well after surgery. Because clearly a significant part of the time it is not.

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Yeah, that chart is seriously messed up. Just glancing through I found several players who had the surgery before reaching the Majors and none of them were credited with any post-surgery MLB innings. Darren Oliver, Billy Koch, Jay Payton, and Eric Gagne, Jarrod Parker, among dozens of others never reached the Majors according to the chart. There are also other players who had it during their MLB careers who are also not listed as having returned. Scott Aldred is one, as is the aforementioned Bedard.

The article is based on someone who pitched in the majors, had the surgery, then returned to the majors. Only. The mistakes are just folks left out because of that parameter. Someone can appreciate this article or not. But to label it junk is outsized.

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Agreed. This article is closer to junk than helpful.

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I don't think it is meant to be helpful. I think the attitude that after Tommy John all will be better and pitchers will come back stronger than ever is the myth it looks to dispel.

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I don't think it is meant to be helpful. I think the attitude that after Tommy John all will be better and pitchers will come back stronger than ever is the myth it looks to dispel.

But it doesn't do that once you look at the data.

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TJ surgery seems to be have become a routine procedure

presently. The attitude is you are going to need it someday, get

it done now. The need for it earlier in life may indicate that kids

are throwing too hard, too young and too many innings(and practice)

before the skeletal/muscular system are strong enough for such strong

stresses on those systems.

I often wonder, back before Tommy John, just what happened to these pitchers? Was it that they did not have the mega hype and contracts so when they went away it was not so significant?

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But it doesn't do that once you look at the data.

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I think you are confusing only one graph. Hey, maybe the author could explain it to you if you reached out. That would be a good project for someone to bring to the board with his response.

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Jon Roegele is a baseball analyst and writer for The Hardball Times and Beyond the Box Score. He was nominated for a SABR Analytics Conference Research Award in 2014 and 2015.

He is obviously not just a blogger.

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Yeah, that chart is seriously messed up. Just glancing through I found several players who had the surgery before reaching the Majors and none of them were credited with any post-surgery MLB innings. Darren Oliver, Billy Koch, Jay Payton, and Eric Gagne, Jarrod Parker, among dozens of others never reached the Majors according to the chart. There are also other players who had it during their MLB careers who are also not listed as having returned. Scott Aldred is one, as is the aforementioned Bedard.

I think I answered why these guys were not in the main data set. If you feel you really found errors, please pass them on to the author. I am certain he will correct them.

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This comment got me to thinking: what is the median number of innings a pitcher throws in a year? For 2014, the answer was 46.

Having considered the additional mistakes MurphDogg identified, and the fact that the author didn't really provide any context for how many IP would be considered "normal" when presenting his data, I reluctantly conclude that the article isn't very reliable. There's a big distinction between a guy who had a cup of coffee in the majors, had TJ surgery later and never pitched in the majors again, and an established major league pitcher who has TJ surgery.

And just to give a little more context here, I had a look at the list of all pitchers who debuted in 1996 (who I figured would all be retired by now). The median number of innings they threw in their careers was 105.

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And just to give a little more context here, I had a look at the list of all pitchers who debuted in 1996 (who I figured would all be retired by now). The median number of innings they threw in their careers was 105.

Ah. That is good to know. Thanks. You should share that info with Roegele.

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The article is based on someone who pitched in the majors, had the surgery, then returned to the majors. Only. The mistakes are just folks left out because of that parameter. Someone can appreciate this article or not. But to label it junk is outsized.

I'm not going so far as to label it junk. However, in the case of Bedard, he did pitch in the majors before his surgery, having gotten an ill-advised cup of coffee (0.2 IP) at the start of the 2002 season.

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