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‘Mini-bombs’ blowing up the elbows of baseball’s top pitchers

wsj.com

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Re: ‘Mini-bombs’ blowing up the elbows of baseball’s top pitchers

#41

Post by Loughla »

soared wrote: post #27
Loughla wrote: post #4

I care less about pro players who hurt themselves, and more about the 16-21 year olds. Anecdotally, our area has a ton of travel baseball teams, which start at kindergarten. Highly competitive leagues. These kids tend to have daily practice starting in kindergarten. There are three local high schoolers who have had Tommy John surgery. It's like they're proud of it. An it's terrifying. If the pitch clock comes into th…

Pitch clock and similar rules are not coming to little league, that’s absurd. The pitch clock was implemented because pro games take 3+ hours. Children’s games don’t have time/clock issues, and kids don’t even start pitching their own games until they are 11ish. Youth baseball is completely different than pros - kids throw way fewer pitches way less frequently. With the exception of extreme high school/college coache…

>kids throw way fewer pitches way less frequently.

I would like to push back on that a little. It is very common (again, anecdotally at least with the 16 K-12 districts I work with regularly) for kids to be on multiple teams. They'll do a summer league, fall/winter/spring weekend league and weeknight league. It is not uncommon for kids to be on 2 teams through the school year, and 3 in the summer. So, while there are rules around how many innings one kid can pitch, and how many pitches they can throw, there is no governing board to oversee that. It's all honor system; parents are in control of that. It tends to be more flexible than the rules actually intend.

Re: ‘Mini-bombs’ blowing up the elbows of baseball’s top pitchers

#42

Post by BoxFour »

nemo44x wrote: post #29

We’re seeing more frequent injuries in other sports too like golf and tennis. I think all the computer technology for analysis has allowed to hone in on and optimize specific things. This creates better performance but maybe pushes things to their limits.

Several credible theories are circulating, with the most convincing one suggesting that individuals are specializing in their respective fields and dedicating extended hours at a significantly younger age.

Professional athletes are now undergoing rigorous training from a much earlier age and are subjected to greater demands compared to previous generations. This plausibly accounts for the rising incidence of injuries as they progress in their careers.

Conversely, older athletes are extending their careers beyond what would have been the norm in earlier generations, which allows injuries to accumulate over time.

Re: ‘Mini-bombs’ blowing up the elbows of baseball’s top pitchers

#44

Post by slibhb »

Loughla wrote: post #4

I care less about pro players who hurt themselves, and more about the 16-21 year olds. Anecdotally, our area has a ton of travel baseball teams, which start at kindergarten. Highly competitive leagues. These kids tend to have daily practice starting in kindergarten. There are three local high schoolers who have had Tommy John surgery. It's like they're proud of it. An it's terrifying. If the pitch clock comes into th…

There's no evidence that the pitch clock has anything to do with these injuries.

The article goes into it, but the more likely culprits are starting pitchers throwing harder, throwing more sliders, pitching without foreign substances (so they grip the ball harder), and obsessing over spin rate.

Re: ‘Mini-bombs’ blowing up the elbows of baseball’s top pitchers

#45

Post by interestica »

_fat_santa wrote: post #31
walthamstow wrote: post #12

Is this a new thing? When was the pitch clock introduced? The article doesn't say. Sounds very similar to the knees and other parts of cricket fast bowlers. They get up to top sprinting speed then come to an immediate halt at the crease to deliver the ball at 90+ mph while keeping their arm straight, like a human trebuchet. Only one pace bowler in the history of the game seems to have cracked it, James Anderson, now…

The pitch clock got introduced in September 2022 [1]. Their reasoning back then was that games would take 3-4 hours (or longer) and that fans were loosing interest by the bottom of the 9th. I remember being pretty exited when it got introduced as the general sentiment was "no more 4 hour games!". But it seems to me this is just another symptom of the problem of player injuries, I heard a podcast where they said the a…

I remember growing up it was such a rarity to see someone pitch 100mph. Now, it’s way more common. We’ve optimized things and seem to be at a limit in terms of speed, and arms are failing catastrophically. There’s no long term gradual wear and tear for this.

Re: ‘Mini-bombs’ blowing up the elbows of baseball’s top pitchers

#46

Post by smcl »

willcipriano wrote: post #11
smcl wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You surely also have to pass the required classes and attend medical school, though right?

You know what you call a doctor who got C's? A doctor.

I don't know about elsewhere but in the UK and Czech Republic, Medicine is a particularly challenging field of study that aggressively weeds out underperformers. You're not making it through unless you actually know what you're doing.

If studying medicine it's easy enough in the USA that the tough part is getting admission (which I doubt) then I think your priority would be to fix your degree courses rather than fiddling with the admissions process. It's still weird to me that you can get into university by throwing the ball good, but if someone can balance what is basically a unpaid professional athletics career and get a decent degree too then more power to them.

Re: ‘Mini-bombs’ blowing up the elbows of baseball’s top pitchers

#47

Post by contravariant »

ck45 wrote: post #28
contravariant wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If destroying your body is an acceptable tactic I'm not sure what the fuss about doping is about.

It's about keeping danger to the athlete to a moderate level. The line has to be drawn somewhere because a pro athlete will do the dumbest thing to gain an advantage. And with doping, we've nearly seen where this can end with pro bicycle riders like Bjarne with a hematocrit of 64%. Some sports ban certain techniques to protect athletes, just some examples: * Backflip in figure skating * Sommersault in longjump * Spin…

True, and if anything I'm arguing for exactly that, keeping danger to a moderate level.

It's just that doping is only one way, so ignoring something like this which seems likely to cause lasting damage because 'destroying the body for sport is not unusual' is a bit weird when on the other hand athletes are subjected to incredibly invasive surveillance to avoid the temptation to use even the tiniest amount of substances.

I honestly believe that some forms of doping are less dangerous than professional sport per se. This isn't the fairest comparison but far fewer cyclists died of EPO than by trying to descend too quickly.

Re: ‘Mini-bombs’ blowing up the elbows of baseball’s top pitchers

#48

Post by iambateman »

soared wrote: post #27
Loughla wrote: post #4

I care less about pro players who hurt themselves, and more about the 16-21 year olds. Anecdotally, our area has a ton of travel baseball teams, which start at kindergarten. Highly competitive leagues. These kids tend to have daily practice starting in kindergarten. There are three local high schoolers who have had Tommy John surgery. It's like they're proud of it. An it's terrifying. If the pitch clock comes into th…

Pitch clock and similar rules are not coming to little league, that’s absurd. The pitch clock was implemented because pro games take 3+ hours. Children’s games don’t have time/clock issues, and kids don’t even start pitching their own games until they are 11ish. Youth baseball is completely different than pros - kids throw way fewer pitches way less frequently. With the exception of extreme high school/college coache…

It’s not insane for high school at all.

The logic goes “we need to get these kids ready for college, so they’re used to it.”

It’s certainly plausible.

Re: ‘Mini-bombs’ blowing up the elbows of baseball’s top pitchers

#49

Post by threetonesun »

antasvara wrote: post #39
threetonesun wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Raise the pitching mound? Make the ball dead? The back and forth between "keep the game interesting" and "make the game easier for pitchers" has been going on for decades.

Do any of these make make players throw the ball softer or with less spin? Because that's largely the issue. The severity of the pitching motion seems to be the main culprit; gameplay adjustments that don't address this won't help.

Anything that makes it easier for the pitcher to have an advantage over a batter or reduce the odds that a ball in play will be a successful hit means the speed/motion of the pitcher doesn't need to be as great. On the other hand people who like seeing more balls in play will point to tall pitchers throwing 100mph as the reason not to do this.

Re: ‘Mini-bombs’ blowing up the elbows of baseball’s top pitchers

#50

Post by elijaht »

threetonesun wrote: post #49
antasvara wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do any of these make make players throw the ball softer or with less spin? Because that's largely the issue. The severity of the pitching motion seems to be the main culprit; gameplay adjustments that don't address this won't help.

Anything that makes it easier for the pitcher to have an advantage over a batter or reduce the odds that a ball in play will be a successful hit means the speed/motion of the pitcher doesn't need to be as great. On the other hand people who like seeing more balls in play will point to tall pitchers throwing 100mph as the reason not to do this.

I don't really buy that- if every pitcher is 50% better, a pitcher still gets an advantage from speed/motion. Even if that advantage is lessened, players are still going to eke out every bit of performance that they can. IMO the root cause is really down to how hyper-optimized pitching is now, where players can absolutely maximize performance, but that also increases injury rate. How can you put the genie back in the bottle?
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