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No hard conclusions on what do to about it, but some pretty strong theories as to why.
News: MLB just released a study on pitching injuries. The conclusions are no surprise: Chasing velocity and "stuff" at all levels of baseball are impacting arms in a negative way. More specifics in here, including when they're seeing the most injuries: https://t.co/hPE7hsVtj1
— Jesse Rogers (@JesseRogersESPN) December 17, 2024
Jeff Passan’s take on the same study…
I've spent more than 12 years searching for answers to keep arms healthy. MLB's report on the matter broke little new ground. But it was a necessary first step to address an issue that's been ignored for far too long. Free and unlocked at ESPN, my story: https://t.co/wGtbusVuHP
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) December 17, 2024
To summarize the position I have been relentlessly arguing for years: It doesn’t matter how good a pitcher’s stuff is if he has to push his arm beyond what it can tolerate to throw that stuff. It is why Roby is not a prospect in real life. Neither is Bedell, or Hjerpe or Hence. It is why its playing pretend to draft Dutkanych. How good can he be pitching within his physical tolerance? Nobody knows. He’s probably been tearing his arm up since 7th grade.
If you read anybody’s blurbs about prospects. Blake’s, for example, or anybody’s, there is a certain sameness that stands out. Its always, well if he can add a couple ticks, or ramp up the spin and sharpen up the break. More vertical, more horizontal. better stuff, more velo. Nobody ever says if he can keep it on the black better, work both sides of the plate better, up and down, change velocities better, use his whole repertoire better, change up the cadence better, be more deceptive. Nobody says any of that. In the old days, you would sometimes hear a grizzly old chomper point out that a repeatable delivery is repeatable for the batter too. Meaning the batter can time it. You never hear that today. Instead you hear that a repeatable delivery is how you get a 100 mph fastball over the plate, he needs to get that delivery more repeatable. Never mind that the batter can time it however fast it is. I am convinced nobody in PD knows anything about anything besides add a few more ticks and ramp up the spin. If they did, they could do something with the Trent Bakers and Alec Cornwells, who go out and do what they can without destroying their arm. Its why a McGreevy is solid gold and a Roby is fools gold.
What to do? Well, something has to be done. Unless someone has a better idea, I would disallow the use of radar guns and other tech to measure velocity and spin. But that will never happen. The game is going in exactly the opposite direction, with ever more focus on the tech that is pushing young players to destroy their arm if they want anyone to notice them. At least, have our scouts actually watch the player instead of the gun readout. Have them look for a kid who hits the black every time. Find, if you can, somebody who has an idea about pitching that factors in the human factor, and relies on skills besides brute force. If somebody doesn’t like that idea, lets hear another.
Bling, take it for what it’s worth, but this is one of the best, most sensible comprehensive arguments you’ve ever made (except the part where you added Trent Baker, who is just not good). I agree that we are pushing everyone to the max by measuring what we know how to measure and not measuring everything else. Yes, velocity and pitch movement is one good way to achieve an end, but both of those destroy arms. And the more those are pursued, the more arms are destroyed. This epidemic has been growing for about 10-15 years now and seems to be on a crash course.
I wonder if teams may add guys like Roby and Hence to MLB rosters late in the year and shoot for 50 innings of highly effective relief (including playoff innings). I do have to give the Cardinals credit for trying something different with Hence. They took a young guy and backed his innings ramp up down so slow in an attempt to maximize the number of innings he might pitch in the future. Overall, that methodology has serious flaws, but it was still worth a shot. I agree though that Hence and Roby are never likely to hold up as MLB starters so they’re probably ranked too high. I wouldn’t take them off the list entirely though.
When the Cardinals brass sit down with a prospective new hire for PD on the pitcher side, the first thing to do is say “how would you explain John Tudor’s 1985 season?”
J, i have stated in the past it makes sense to add top shelf arms at the deadline, choosing from the pool of arms that are answering the bell at that time. As opposed to adding them over the winter and keeping your fingers crossed.
As to Trent Baker, he’s an example of a pitcher who has a chance to get better because he can stay on the field long enough to learn the art. Guys shredding their arm have no chance at all.
Brian, thanks for mentioning the Lin write up. He is a great case study. As mentioned, he has great potential and needs to learn how to use it effectively. The whole thing boils down to whether he can avoid blowing his arm out so he can be around long enough with an in tact arm to learn how to do that. A shoulder can only “touch 101” so many times. An elbow can only produce so much spin. If his handlers are all about that his arm will take on battle damage sooner rather than later.
I agree with both bling and jnevel that the way MLB teams utilize starting pitchers today is disturbing. A lot of teams will gladly acknowledge that they don’t care if their starters go more than 5 innings or not as long as they are maxing out. Nor do they care how many IP for the year they get out of them. The Dodgers are a prime example of this. They have about 10-15 starters ready to go each year and almost every one of them has an extensive injury history and will be very unlikely to reach 150 IP for the year. The Dodgers don’t seem to mind because they obviously can just acquire as many as they want and can treat them as disposable toys. Other teams have the same mindset albeit on a smaller scale.
bling, your takeaway on Lin is different from mine. What I got from it is that he already has the velocity so they can focus efforts on better location and movement. By having more effective secondary pitches, he won’t have to throw the fastball at max velo as often. Also it would be a luxury to have him subtract velo to better locate the fastball. With so many others, it seems they are always looking for the extra mph.
P.S. Re: Trent Baker, it seems overdue for him to translate all that learning opportunity you speak of into results. He turns 26 in a few days but has yet to reach Triple-A coming off a 4.89 ERA season at Double-A. All the best to him with the Twins organization.
Nothing new. Years ago at a SABR gathering we had Larry Dierker as a guest when he was managing the Astros. The inevitable question came up about pitchers injuries being so much higher than when he pitched. His first response was, “Today you have that gun.” He went on to say that with each pitch clocked, pitchers are expected to maintain velocity at all times. Back years ago guys would pace themselves – put a little extra on in crucial situations, but not necessarily all the time.
Another headwind is the DH. Pitchers don’t have their opposing comrade hitting 2-3 times a game, which was a chance to ease up some.
And finally, with the increased emphasis on bullpens, the current norm is for guys to throw as hard as they can for a few innings, often only one, and not to plan on going the distance as they won’t be left in the game very long anyway.
I’m not sure why some people act like an arm injury basically means the pitcher has their arm amputated. Talent even with injuries will win out over lesser talents at reaching the majors and succeeding. Look at the top pitchers from this year and their injury history.
Top 10 WAR from Pitchers:
1. Chris Sale had Tommy John surgery plus all kinds of other isses
2. Zach Wheeler – Tommy John surgery
3. Tarik Skubal – Tommy John surgery x2
4. Cole Ragans – Tommy John surgery
5. Dylan Cease – Tommy John surgery
6. Seth Lugo – Partial UCL tear with injection treatment
7. Christopher Sanchez – No major injuries that I see
8. Logan Webb – Tommy John surgery
9. George Kirby – Tommy John surgery + internal brace procedure (UCL tear)
10. Logan Gilbert – Tommy John surgerySo 9/10 top pitchers this last year have had a UCL tear with 8 having Tommy John surgery.
While I hope MLB provides some type of incentives or rule changes to help prevent arm injuries, but the unfortunate reality is that for an individual player, it makes more sense for the players to go all out and focus on stuff. They are optimizing their odds of getting drafted, making the bigs, or getting a good deal in FA and these are opportunities they may not have if they weren’t chasing stuff. They may flame out, but many likely wouldn’t have an opportunity without improving their stuff.
For teams, it also makes sense to target pitchers that have quality stuff and not focus on innings. A committee approach of players giving it their all is a more effective for a team as they will prevent more runs as the overall inning pitched will be higher quality. I realize some will refute this point, but you can go argue it with MLB teams as they clearly have came to this conclusion and winning teams have adopted this approach. The Dodgers have really embraced this as they have more than a rotations worth of elite stuff SPs, but they just need them to give them 100 very good innings and hopefully be available in the playoffs.
I’m unsure what the solution is. You can reduce pitching roster sizes which may force targeting pitchers with more durability, but it could also just lead to pitchers still going all out and injuring themselves more. Maybe you can incentivize and inversely penalize teams based off pitchers injuries in their org, but I don’t think that stops individuals from trying to maximize their own odds and chase stuff. I won’t pretend to have the answer for this though as I don’t have nearly enough info and many smarter people conducting studies will have better solutions.
Raise the mound to 15 inches where it was up through 1968 and you’ll have fewer injuries, pitchers will throw 7-8 innings routinely and complete games will return.
UCL elbow injuries can usually be fixed with TJ surgery. Most of the time the pitcher is good as new. Shoulder injuries are a whole different thing. Pitchers virtually never are the same, although they can look good in spurts between re-injuries until its too far gone. The shoulder just gets progressively worse. Roby, Hence, Graceffo, Bedell, Robberse are in that boat. Hjerpe is probably elbow but we don’t know.
What it gets down to is the natural evolution in all team sports at the elite level towards specialization. Usually professional sports leagues eventually embrace specialization, and the skill level of the sport is higher.
We could go back to two-way players in football, but guys would not be quite as skilled in some areas and would need to pace themselves more. The “no greater than 100 pitches” pitcher is similar. The game of baseball at the elite level today is broken down into sections, where you have one pitcher cover the early innings, and others for the middle and late innings. Specialization.
Now there is talk of this silly “golden at bat”. Lets hope we never go that far from the original rules.
All very true BikeMike. It’s the Henry Ford model. You put these screws in this one door every time because that’s what you’re good at. Every person gets a specialty and no one builds the whole car anymore. It doesn’t matter if you get carpal tunnel putting in those same screws week after week after week. Basketball can still be different because you only get 5 players on the court at once so most have to be somewhat well rounded. But with pitchers, the specialization is going wild. It would be even worse if they hadn’t changed to the 3-batter minimum rule.
Bling, is Robberse a confirmed shoulder injury? I’m not certain it is. For that matter, I’m not sure anyone ever said anything about Hence either other than some back pain.
That’s why I said what I did Brian! I was pretty certain I had just read about his elbow and not his shoulder!
I had Robberse down as shoulder since June, but I don’t remember what was said at the time. Not sure when when they decided to say it was elbow. They are always cryptic about MiLB injuries. I have had Hence as shoulder forever. Not sure what the most recent injury shut down was called. I will point out the chest often means shoulder in the same way that forearm flexor often (virtually always) means elbow. Two months is a long lay off.
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