Passan: MLB Must Act Now on Pitching Injuries

[Can_of_corn]

6 minutes ago, jabba72 said:

HD camaras have really been influential on improving spin rates but pitchers elbows cant handle the torque. The only solution I see is to go back to pre HD analysis of spin and grip. Not sure when or if MLB clubs will do this.

You need to do more than that.  You need to deaden the ball or offense will jump and pitchers will end up with more wear.

[Moose Milligan]

There's nothing you can do.  And while it sucks for the pitchers to have to have TJ, there's a very small, cynical part of me that thinks they don't mind having to rehab (I'm aware that it's a lot of work) post surgery and get paid to do so.

17 minutes ago, TommyPickles said:

The players certainly believe the pitch clock is part of the problem. 

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/04/mlb-mlbpa-in-dispute-over-pitch-clocks-impact-on-injuries.html

“Despite unanimous player opposition and significant concerns regarding health and safety, the commissioner’s office reduced the length of the pitch clock last December, just one season removed from imposing the most significant rule change in decades,” MLBPA executive director Tony Clark said. “Since then, our concerns about the health impacts of reduced recovery time have only intensified. The league’s unwillingness thus far to acknowledge or study the effects of these profound changes is an unprecedented threat to our game and its most valuable asset — the players.”

The onus is on the players to show that a few seconds on the pitch clock would drastically cut down the number of TJ issues.  Seems silly to think that 5 extra seconds would really do much of a difference.

This is what the game has evolved to.  Do any of the pitchers want to stop their quest for adding 3-4 mph on their fastball?  Do any of the pitchers want to stop trying to spin the ball at insane rates?

 

[ChosenOne21]

I don't know how you begin to solve this.

I doubt it has anything to do with the pitch clock. The TJs in the first 100 days thing SportsGuy posted doesn't suggest the pitch clock has anything to do with it, nor does MLB's research showing guys who work faster aren't at higher risk for TJ.

As long as there are millions of dollars at stake for throwing hard, people are going to throw hard.

Maybe MLB could implement some kind of mandatory pitch count, but then guys will throw even harder since they don't have to last as long in the game. Maybe MLB can put a limit on how fast a pitch is allowed to be. Something like if the pitch is over 95 MPH it's automatically a ball, but that's not fair to the guys who can throw at high velocities easier, and I'm sure the MLBPA won't stand for it.

I think the only way this gets better is if technology improves to the point where we can get more out of arms without destroying the elbows. And even then, people will still push the limits to outcompete their peers.

[Frobby]

38 minutes ago, .500_OR_BETTER said:

This has nothing to do with the pitch clock and everything to do with velocity / spin rate.

That’s my belief.   And it’s not just velo and spin rate, but trying to “shape” pitches by throwing in ways that aren’t part of the pitcher’s natural motion.   I heard one of the O’s pitchers offer that opinion in an interview a few weeks back, and it makes a lot of intuitive sense.   

[elextrano8]

1 hour ago, Sports Guy said:

 

So like is there actual data to back-up the current collective freak-out? This tweet, at least, doesn't seem to suggest anything out of the ordinary.

I personally don't know what to think. What I do know is that I can't shake the feeling the current focus has the makings of a moral panic.

[backwardsk]

33 minutes ago, Rbiggs2525 said:

Passan has actually changed his viewpoint on this which is a good thing to see in this day and age of media. As previously stated the reward is still higher than the risk of pitching with the new mechanics. If you are a high school sophomore looking to make Varsity, 87-88 is much better than 84. When you are a college junior a few MPH could be the difference in 100’s of thousands of dollars. Strider was close to signing a 200 million dollar contract. The person I listened to yesterday was using Verlander as example. He said there was a reason he went to ODU, not to bash the school. He was pitching with good mechanics and building healthy velocity. The interviewer asked specifically about Grayson and he is one of 95% of pitchers with bad mechanics. He also noted that Skenes looks like Mark Prior 2.0, which will be interesting to track.

 

One extra thing he noted was looking into pre-tacking balls to take off pressure in forearm. I personally think they could do something with the seams instead but interesting.

I saw an old interview with Tyler Glasnow who made a comment about the crackdown on sticky stuff. He said he was against the Spider Tac, but using nothing (sunscreen plus rosin) was making him change his grip causing his arm to hurt in ways it never did.

[Sports Guy]

Just now, elextrano8 said:

So like is there actual data to back-up the current collective freak-out? This tweet, at least, doesn't seem to suggest anything out of the ordinary.

I personally don't know what to think. What I do know is that I can't shake the feeling the current focus has the makings of a moral panic.

The current freak out is because there are a lot of big names. That’s all it is.

[RZNJ]

1 minute ago, elextrano8 said:

So like is there actual data to back-up the current collective freak-out? This tweet, at least, doesn't seem to suggest anything out of the ordinary.

I personally don't know what to think. What I do know is that I can't shake the feeling the current focus has the makings of a moral panic.

The freak out is over the names of the pitchers going down.  If it were 9 Cole Irvin types you wouldn’t hear a peep.

[.500_OR_BETTER]

1 minute ago, Frobby said:

That’s my belief.   And it’s not just velo and spin rate, but trying to “shape” pitches by throwing in ways that aren’t part of the pitcher’s natural motion.   I heard one of the O’s pitchers offer that opinion in an interview a few weeks back, and it makes a lot of intuitive sense.   

Look at what these "velocity" farm clinics are doing to young kids now.  They advertise that they can increase your velo on all your pitches, etc. They are now having such young kids (I think even at ages 12 now) that can sign up for these camps and all they do is focus on pitching exercises that put so much torque and stress on their throwing arms.

[Sports Guy]

3 minutes ago, .500_OR_BETTER said:

Look at what these "velocity" farm clinics are doing to young kids now.  They advertise that they can increase your velo on all your pitches, etc. They are now having such young kids (I think even at ages 12 now) that can sign up for these camps and all they do is focus on pitching exercises that put so much torque and stress on their throwing arms.

As Andrews said, this is stemming from youth baseball.

These travel teams are so crazy with how often they play. The kids are training all year round, on top of playing.

My youngest son is 7 and is already showing signs of having a hell of an arm And has a chance to be a travel player and maybe more (depending on obviously so many things) but I don’t think I will do all of this with/for him.

My youngest nephew did the Baseball Warehouse, played a ton as a kid/teenager and ended up playing for Calvert Hall. His arm is shot. He stopped playing after HS because he needed TJ surgery to keep going.  He pitched through it his senior year but he didn’t pitch a lot and wasn’t as effective as he could be but since it was his senior year, he wanted to do it.

I guarantee all the training, pitching coaches and all the time he spent playing is the reason for it.

I get why parents do it. I get why the kids want it but it’s really asking too much of them.

[Orioles0615]

Yea picth clock is a poor excuse, its not 93 mph sliders at all. 

 

Also didn't some players say when sticky stuff was banned injuries would go up?

[Moose Milligan]

24 minutes ago, elextrano8 said:

So like is there actual data to back-up the current collective freak-out? This tweet, at least, doesn't seem to suggest anything out of the ordinary.

I personally don't know what to think. What I do know is that I can't shake the feeling the current focus has the makings of a moral panic.

It's just dumb.  If Strider doesn't go down this past weekend, no one's pearl clutching.  

It's like when Buster Posey snapped his knee blocking home plate.  A star catcher goes down and all of a sudden there just had to be a referendum on blocking home plate and what baseball needs to do to prevent such tragedies.  If it were Taylor Teagarden that screwed up his knee, no one would have cared.  

If the 5th starter for the Rockies had forearm tightness last weekend, no one would care.  But it's Spencer Strider and a guy with declining stats from his CYA season, but is still somewhat of a name!  Oh no!  We need a bunch of thinkpieces about this.

[btdart20]

I fully agree that the trend is toward arm injuries.  Velo, spin...  Everyone has counted the costs. How do you limit velo?  How do you limit spin?  Teams are moving toward better conditioning which should help in the long run.  (Arm care and conditioning needs to work its way down puberty aged baseball.  Maybe that's a value-add service the MLB/MLBPA can add to the future.)

I'm fine adding a few seconds to the pitch clock if recovery time between pitches helps.  I want to see the pitching stars as much as the hitting stars.  But the sudden chatter seems like emotional "never let a crisis go to waste" machinations more than a deliberate and rational approach.

Should they discuss roster size?  Would more spots continue the bullpenification (max effort for less IP)?  Does less pitches per outing help or hurt?  Would less spots put more value on IP coverage (toward the Lyles/Gibson types) if at a lower level of performance per start?

[Moose Milligan]

8 minutes ago, btdart20 said:

 

Should they discuss roster size?  Would more spots continue the bullpenification (max effort for less IP)?  Does less pitches per outing help or hurt?  Would less spots put more value on IP coverage (toward the Lyles/Gibson types) if at a lower level of performance per start?

Then suddenly front offices will want to stop giving large contracts to starting pitchers because they won't be working as much.  Not throwing as many innings?  We're not paying as many dollars.  

The MLBPA won't like that one bit.

I don't disagree with your ideas, having a couple more BP spots on a roster.  Less pitches per outing...I dunno, they seem like decent ideas.  

But I can see where this might be heading, where MLB front offices are increasingly going to look at FA pitchers as injury risks and won't want to pay as much because they're going to have to carry a guy who'll most likely have to rehab for 18 months.  Salaries for star pitchers might plateau or even go down.  

 

[Sports Guy]

Interesting stuff from Verlander here.

The change in the baseball is interesting. That, I guess, is the thing MLB could fix and has control over.