Passan: MLB Must Act Now on Pitching Injuries

[Sports Guy]

11 minutes ago, foxfield said:

There are guidelines about usage that are easy to follow if leagues choose to do so.  I ran our local rec league for a few years.  We had pitch limits and tried to encourage coaches to pitch everyone,  with the idea that as a league we would develop more pitchers that way.  It worked reasonably well.  By far the biggest difficulty was father's who believed the rules were good, but didn't apply to their own child.  It was a constant battle.  And there were mothers who would text that we were hurting little Johnny by stealing his spotlight...at 10 years old.

The parents are truly the worst. These “living vicariously through their children” parents are such a huge problem. 
 

I coach with a friend of mine and his wife is the commissioner of our league and the absurdity that she faces on a daily basis for U8 baseball is stupid. 

Edited April 9 by Sports Guy

[btdart20]

3 minutes ago, emmett16 said:

Issue with all of it, is no one has any idea how much they are actually throwing unless it's tracked.  And if you do track it, it you have to manage that data and follow programming correctly.  And if you are tracking it and managing it correctly, you still have to make sure you are practicing proper arm care exercises to strengthen the muscles around the joints.  And you still have to throw with proper mechanics.  And if you do all that.....there is still a risk.  So, the real question is, is it worth the risk to you?  

 

But at the very least, I think young kids need to start tracking every throw they make.  Who cares if the kid throws 80-90 pitches in a game if he warmed up correctly with only 20-30 throws after a proper warm up and has not thrown any more that day?  I'm more concerned about the kid who plays IF or OF, who took 40-50 throws to warm up pregame.  Made 4-5 throws between each inning at full force, made a few max efforts throws in game, went to the bullpen to throw 20 warm up pitches, and then comes into the game and throws 30-40 pitches.  

Having been tracking throws consistently for over a year now, I can tell you the kids typically are throwing 50-100x more than what they thought they had in any given day.  

Can we make fun of the arm band now?!  I'm kidding of course!  But the cultural influence is even here among more informed fans.

[emmett16]

4 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

The parents are truly the worst. These “living vicariously through their children” parents are such a huge problem. 
 

I coach with a friend of mine and his wife is the commissioner of our league and the absurdity that she faces on a daily basis for U8 baseball is stupid. 

It only gets worse.  Pick your coaches (and fellow families) wisely.  1 or 2 bad apples can ruin a season/team/experience.  

[Moose Milligan]

10 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

 I coach with a friend of mine and his wife is the commissioner of our league and the absurdity that she faces on a daily basis for U8 baseball is stupid. 

Whoa, wait...you coach baseball?  This I gotta see.

"Dammit, Johnny!  You're not getting enough swings and misses in order to justify a trade for Tommy and prospects!"  

[emmett16]

20 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

For those of you who have been through it, is it throw as hard as you can and lots of breaking pitches for the kids?  Are coaches trying to get them to throw a changeup instead of the breaking ball, figuring that is less stress on the arm?

I'm not a believer in Curveballs before 13U.  It's not so much the valgus stress on elbow (it's shown to be lower), but it does make them switch up their mechanics which isn't a great thing to do IMO at such a young age.  For me, at the end of the day you want the kid to throw accurately and be able to repeat mechanics.  Throwing as hard as you can (intent) is actually a good thing to teach, but it has to be done in moderation, supervised, and tracked.  When you are in game and adrenaline is pumping, you're gonna let it eat.  If you don't practice that way, you are setting yourself up for disaster. 

What I've seen happen at the very young ages, is that there are only a handful of kids at 9U, 10U, and even 11U than can consistently throw strikes.  So what happens, is those 3,4,5 kids get saddled with all the innings.  When you are talking about teams playing 40-60 games a year those 3-5 kids get stuck with all those innings and the workload is insane.  

My recommendation would be to find a coach that insists every single kid pitches (in those early years).  It might be ugly, but the kids will be better for it developmentally wise and health wise in the long run.  You have to punt 8u-12u and focus on development to have a chance at success at a later age.  If the priorities are winning trophies before you get to the big field, then you're leading the kids down the wrong path.  

I highly recommend getting a pulse monitor and having your kid learn arm care training at an early age.  If they do it right away it becomes the new norm and will be SOP as they get older.  

They also need a solid 3-4 months off throwing.  For us that's Nov, Dec, Jan 1/2 feb.  During that off-time doing shoulder strengthening exercises to maintain is advised.  They also need a solid 6 week slow ramp up period before they go to games and go all out.  As I noted earlier in the thread, the vast majority of injuries will happen in the first part of the season due to the off time and not following a proper ramp up period.   Start them on this track at a young age and make it just the normal process and set good habits for the long run.  

[Satyr3206]

I Coached Youth Baseball for a good while. Anywhere from 8 to 15 years old. Our Leagues had a pitch count rule. I strongly discouraged sliders and curves but sometimes they threw them anyway. Kids being kids. I wanted them to throw FB's and Changes and learn control and command. Some things that haven't been touched on. I did not want my pitchers lifting weights during the season. Strongly recommended stretching, swimming and long toss. Never had a serious arm injury. Could have been luck. Or genetics.

[Malike]

Close to 60% of all Tommy John surgeries performed are on kids 15-19 years old.

[Sports Guy]

1 hour ago, Malike said:

Close to 60% of all Tommy John surgeries performed are on kids 15-19 years old.

That’s disgusting.  

[waroriole]

5 hours 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.”

Do they believe that or is this just an avenue for someone like Scherzer to complain about something he didn’t want in the first place?

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, Malike said:

Close to 60% of all Tommy John surgeries performed are on kids 15-19 years old.

It’s not that surprising, when you think of the number of kids who play baseball at that age to how many are still playing at age 19+.  Roughly 482,000 kids a year play high school ball, while 34,500 play college ball and you have maybe 7,500 professionals.   And the 482,000 doesn’t include kids who play in leagues but not on their high school teams.  

[Malike]

39 minutes ago, Frobby said:

It’s not that surprising, when you think of the number of kids who play baseball at that age to how many are still playing at age 19+.  Roughly 482,000 kids a year play high school ball, while 34,500 play college ball and you have maybe 7,500 professionals.   And the 482,000 doesn’t include kids who play in leagues but not on their high school teams.  

I'd be curious as to what the number was in like 2010 before everyone started chasing spin and velocity and weren't using pitching labs.

[SemperFi]

2 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

For those of you who have been through it, is it throw as hard as you can and lots of breaking pitches for the kids?  Are coaches trying to get them to throw a changeup instead of the breaking ball, figuring that is less stress on the arm?

It evolves with age but in my experience kids really should not be throwing breaking balls while their growth plates are still developing.  The other issue is control of a curve/slider which at ages 12-15 most guys don't have, you get ahead 0-2 and lose all that momentum and additional pitch count.  My direction to the pitching coach was always 4 seam with a changeup focusing on same release/arm speed and a 2 seamer for movement.  To me control was much more important at that age than speed or break.  

On a personal note my son grew up with Max Meyer (Marlins) and I coached him for a few years and have followed his career closely.  We were surprised he was picked so early by the Marlins at #3 who were quoted that his repeatable low impact delivery, great athlete, low mileage short-season arm made him less susceptable to injury!!  He's just returning now from TJ but likely never threw a breaking ball before HS.

Emmet has some really good points the one thing I would echo is the simple fundamentals of throwing a ball which is why proper short/long toss is so important.  Stretch and ice-two things kids hate to do.   

 

 

Edited April 9 by SemperFi

[oriolediehard]

Is anybody frustrated that there are no moves to improve our bullpen?  We lost 2 games in a row that we should have won.  I can't be happy that Elias is doing absolutely "NOTHING" to help the team with a glaring problem!!!!  I love the O's but I am worried we will dig a deep hole early in the season with the Yankees starting to pull away and we need to keep leads in the late innings!!!

[24fps]

The following if from the abstract of a 2008 article entitled: The Prevention of Arm Injury in Youth Baseball Pitchers.  Dr. Andrews is one of the contributors to this paper

Quote

The advent of youth year-round baseball has come with an increased incidence of pitching related injury and surgery, most notably involving the shoulder and elbow (ulnar collateral ligament). These injuries become evident in high school and college, but begin at the youth level. Several studies have identified baseball pitching risk factors during youth that increase likelihood for injury and surgery in subsequent years. Based on these studies, the USA Baseball Medical & Safety Advisory Committee has published guidelines for pitching that include limits on pitch count and pitches per week and season as well as recommendations for number of rest days between pitching. Also, recommendations include the restriction of breaking balls prior to puberty, the importance of instruction for proper pitching mechanics as early as possible in development, and at least three months of rest after a season.

Note that there are links to the citations from the abstracted article and links to similar articles but full access requires paying.  Probably a rabbit hole worth diving into...

The bottom line is there has been reputable information available for at least 25 years and results of long-term studies for around 15 years.  Nothing about current situation should be a surprise to either MLB or the youth and college coaching industry.  Hats off to those youth coaches who have made efforts to understand and follow sensible guidelines, but I suspect the solution will remain out of reach given that there is no incentive for anything other than complete success.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15262637/

[Billy F-Face3]

I'm in favor of adding more pitching roster spots to allow pitchers for more rest. 

I say that even after previously having had the old school mindset that todays pitchers are soft because old school startimg pitchers could pitch nearly 200 pitches a game and still be ready in 4 days.