Kyle Bradish Has Sprained UCL, Will Start Season On IL (4/9 Update: Assigned rehab assignment w/Aberdeen)

[forphase1]

This reminds me so much of the CTE issues in football.  There the conversation seems to have been centered around trying to determine which is more impactful from a CTE standpoint.  The occasional VERY violent hits or the constant repetitive lighter hits that add up over time.  Clearly they are trying to limit both by the targeting rules and the lower amount of contact in practice, etc.  But I found the science and theories behind what the underlying cause of it to be fascinating.  

Arms are clearly different than brains, and we don't have the same sense of horror with the arm as, at least to my knowledge, all of the players with arm injuries can live a fairly 'normal' life after baseball, while CTE can obviously have long term impacts on quality and length of life.  But some of the same dynamics come into play.  Players have ALWAYS gotten injured, they always will get injuries, and the science/methods to prevent those injuries are always changing.

We often treat medical science as being true and settled, but many don't realize just how fluid and changing it can be.  I have 9 children (yes, I know what causes it!) and their ages range from 28 to 4 years old.  It's amazing how much the 'science' between child birth and early child care has changed.  Something as simple as how to lay a child in the bed and what items should be left in the crib with them has changed so much from one child to the next, sometimes the advice we'd be given for child #3 was different when we had child #4 and then went back to the former advise for child #5, which was then changed again with #7!  It's going to be very interesting to see how the science of pitching and the stress it puts on the body continued to change over the years.    

[sportsfan8703]

On 3/5/2024 at 10:27 AM, Sports Guy said:

 

Any update since this tweet?  Anymore throwing sessions?  At the end of the day, it all comes down to when he throws a bullpen.  

[emmett16]

2 hours ago, forphase1 said:

This reminds me so much of the CTE issues in football.  There the conversation seems to have been centered around trying to determine which is more impactful from a CTE standpoint.  The occasional VERY violent hits or the constant repetitive lighter hits that add up over time.  Clearly they are trying to limit both by the targeting rules and the lower amount of contact in practice, etc.  But I found the science and theories behind what the underlying cause of it to be fascinating.  

Arms are clearly different than brains, and we don't have the same sense of horror with the arm as, at least to my knowledge, all of the players with arm injuries can live a fairly 'normal' life after baseball, while CTE can obviously have long term impacts on quality and length of life.  But some of the same dynamics come into play.  Players have ALWAYS gotten injured, they always will get injuries, and the science/methods to prevent those injuries are always changing.

We often treat medical science as being true and settled, but many don't realize just how fluid and changing it can be.  I have 9 children (yes, I know what causes it!) and their ages range from 28 to 4 years old.  It's amazing how much the 'science' between child birth and early child care has changed.  Something as simple as how to lay a child in the bed and what items should be left in the crib with them has changed so much from one child to the next, sometimes the advice we'd be given for child #3 was different when we had child #4 and then went back to the former advise for child #5, which was then changed again with #7!  It's going to be very interesting to see how the science of pitching and the stress it puts on the body continued to change over the years.    

This is spot on.  I think the most progressive methods are being implemented by people who say 'we really don't know everything, but we are trying to learn as much as we can and we are going to track everything'.  And those same folks are continuously making adjustments as they go and are changing when the data shows it should change.  I think the frustrating part is 1. A lot of the people who are doing this are getting scooped up by Organizations and their data and research isn't available to the public 2. There isn't a central database in MLB that tracks every single throw, every single workout, every single pre & post-game routine, etc. from all players so they can build a database and start to find patterns and correlations to the injuries.  MLB players are the biggest data pool and so inclined could do the work to start and find some roots of the overlying issue 3. There isn't a huge incentive for MLB to do anything because there is seemingly an unlimited number of players out there dreaming of making the show, so when one person goes down, it's next man up.  

Edited March 13 by emmett16

[Just Regular]

3 hours ago, emmett16 said:

Bauer might get the last laugh on Cole. 

Bauer and Cole are for me kind of Crash and Nuke if Crash lived by the dark side of the Force.

I think Strider (and I'm sure by now many others, including hopefully a bunch of Orioles) is another fantastic iteration of the basic template.

Dylan Bundy's dad got the formula wrong.

The level of pitching achievement any devoted enough person can attain now is surely much higher than it used to be, but not anyone can be Jonathan Ogden or Anthony Munoz, or Gerrit Cole or Justin Verlander.    It does put a lot of arrows in the Club's quivers developing those Arm Barns so you maybe don't have to pay Tyler Wells or Cole Irvin past Arb1.

[btdart20]

2 hours ago, forphase1 said:

 

We often treat medical science as being true and settled, but many don't realize just how fluid and changing it can be.  I have 9 children (yes, I know what causes it!) and their ages range from 28 to 4 years old.  It's amazing how much the 'science' between child birth and early child care has changed.  Something as simple as how to lay a child in the bed and what items should be left in the crib with them has changed so much from one child to the next, sometimes the advice we'd be given for child #3 was different when we had child #4 and then went back to the former advise for child #5, which was then changed again with #7!  It's going to be very interesting to see how the science of pitching and the stress it puts on the body continued to change over the years.    

Agreed.  Father of 5 and saw similar shifts over the 10 year range.

That is the scientific method though.  It's even a business model.  See an issue, analyze potential root cause/hypothesis, develop a treatment plan, measure results (and unintended outcomes), repeat.

That same process, in the business of baseball, is what led to higher velo and great spin.

The risks have been acknowledged and acted on at the MLB org level.  Not just through player selection, but through better/targeted conditioning.  And it needs to filter down to HS and lower levels too (adding a muscular-skeletal growth issues to a larger degree).

[btdart20]

2 hours ago, forphase1 said:

This reminds me so much of the CTE issues in football.  There the conversation seems to have been centered around trying to determine which is more impactful from a CTE standpoint.  The occasional VERY violent hits or the constant repetitive lighter hits that add up over time.  Clearly they are trying to limit both by the targeting rules and the lower amount of contact in practice, etc.  But I found the science and theories behind what the underlying cause of it to be fascinating.  

Arms are clearly different than brains, and we don't have the same sense of horror with the arm as, at least to my knowledge, all of the players with arm injuries can live a fairly 'normal' life after baseball, while CTE can obviously have long term impacts on quality and length of life.  But some of the same dynamics come into play.  Players have ALWAYS gotten injured, they always will get injuries, and the science/methods to prevent those injuries are always changing.

We often treat medical science as being true and settled, but many don't realize just how fluid and changing it can be.  I have 9 children (yes, I know what causes it!) and their ages range from 28 to 4 years old.  It's amazing how much the 'science' between child birth and early child care has changed.  Something as simple as how to lay a child in the bed and what items should be left in the crib with them has changed so much from one child to the next, sometimes the advice we'd be given for child #3 was different when we had child #4 and then went back to the former advise for child #5, which was then changed again with #7!  It's going to be very interesting to see how the science of pitching and the stress it puts on the body continued to change over the years.    

It's also why know-it-alls frequently find themselves out of jobs.  Or marginalized.  

It's also why I trust a guy like Enos on Rates and Barrels.  He’s constantly questioning his assumptions, even on air.

[emmett16]

8 minutes ago, Just Regular said:

Bauer and Cole are for me kind of Crash and Nuke if Crash lived by the dark side of the Force.

 

This is amazing.  And spot on.  Haha.

I think we are just starting to see the tip of the very tip of the iceberg when it comes to fully optimized pitching talent (and in general, arm talent).  Legit arm care has fully infiltrated college (actually did before Pro and Pro teams caught on because all their players brought it with them from college) and somewhat in high school.  But it hasn't made its way down into the youth ranks yet, at least not on a large scale.  Not enough time to implement and no short-term reward to make it worthwhile for a coach that might have kids for a season or two.   If you have a 1.5 to 2 hr practice, are you really goanna spend 20-30 minutes getting prepared and then another 20-30 minutes post workout to wind down properly?  Doesn't leave enough time for a typical coach to get done what they want to get done in the minimal amount of time they have for team practice.  So, it forces to kids to do it on their own time before and after, or not do it....  My son uses a wearable to track (torque, rpm, angle) every single throw he makes and the wearable/App outputs his AC ratio so he knows when he can push it or when he needs to dial it back.  Without the tech, you are just going off of feeling.  He always guesses how many throws he made at practice or a game before checking the app and is often wrong by as much as 70-80 throws. All that to say, kids and coaches have no idea what the actual workload of the player is.  He spends more time pre & post-game/practice on exercises than most kids do during practice.  He gets poked fun at for it and when playing with other teams, coaches have given him a hard time because of the time needed to do it properly.  Until that general attitude changes there will be issues in the levels above as kids push themselves full bore without being properly equipped to shoulder (no pun intended) the load.   

[jabba72]

 

[interloper]

3 minutes ago, jabba72 said:

 

This is cool but also who is Branden Hyde?

[jabba72]

Aren't fastballs the least strenuous pitch to throw? Still not in the clear yet.

[interloper]

2 minutes ago, jabba72 said:

Aren't fastballs the least strenuous pitch to throw? Still not in the clear yet.

Yeah I'm very, very far from venturing into "getting my hopes up" territory. But I guess it's somethin'. 

[sportsfan8703]

16 minutes ago, jabba72 said:

 

Very good news.  

[Tony-OH]

2 hours ago, emmett16 said:

This is amazing.  And spot on.  Haha.

I think we are just starting to see the tip of the very tip of the iceberg when it comes to fully optimized pitching talent (and in general, arm talent).  Legit arm care has fully infiltrated college (actually did before Pro and Pro teams caught on because all their players brought it with them from college) and somewhat in high school.  But it hasn't made its way down into the youth ranks yet, at least not on a large scale.  Not enough time to implement and no short-term reward to make it worthwhile for a coach that might have kids for a season or two.   If you have a 1.5 to 2 hr practice, are you really goanna spend 20-30 minutes getting prepared and then another 20-30 minutes post workout to wind down properly?  Doesn't leave enough time for a typical coach to get done what they want to get done in the minimal amount of time they have for team practice.  So, it forces to kids to do it on their own time before and after, or not do it....  My son uses a wearable to track (torque, rpm, angle) every single throw he makes and the wearable/App outputs his AC ratio so he knows when he can push it or when he needs to dial it back.  Without the tech, you are just going off of feeling.  He always guesses how many throws he made at practice or a game before checking the app and is often wrong by as much as 70-80 throws. All that to say, kids and coaches have no idea what the actual workload of the player is.  He spends more time pre & post-game/practice on exercises than most kids do during practice.  He gets poked fun at for it and when playing with other teams, coaches have given him a hard time because of the time needed to do it properly.  Until that general attitude changes there will be issues in the levels above as kids push themselves full bore without being properly equipped to shoulder (no pun intended) the load.   

While I can appreciate the effort you and your son are putting into this, the fun level has to be taken into consideration. When playing a sport becomes work at the youth level, and you are tracking how many throws he makes a day, does it start to lose the fun? 

Perhaps not with your son, but I'm betting many kids have no interest in this. At some point the science has to be weighed with the fun factor, especially at the Little League level.

I certainly don't know the answer to any of this so I'm not saying what's right or wrong, but I did coach kids at many level including high school and there always has to be a fun factor in there.

[LookinUp]

12 minutes ago, interloper said:

Yeah I'm very, very far from venturing into "getting my hopes up" territory. But I guess it's somethin'. 

I think it tells us his issue was originally very small or he wouldn't be throwing off a mound. That doesn't mean his elbow will hold up. I think it means they think his issue might have been addressed by the treatment and they are on step 2 (with flat ground being step 1) of starting to test it and building him up.

I think this is really good news. Not over the moon about it, but throwing off the mound is a substantial development.

[btdart20]

15 minutes ago, jabba72 said:

Aren't fastballs the least strenuous pitch to throw? Still not in the clear yet.

Depends?  Maybe?  Not settled science?

https://www.drivelinebaseball.com/2017/02/fastballs-offspeed-pitches-comparative-relative-elbow-stress/

https://www.drivelinebaseball.com/2017/11/reviewing-offspeed-pitches-elbow-torque/