Who wants to play doctor?
Since everyone seems to be doing it with or without a medical degree, a college degree, a high school diploma or a GED, I figured I’d weigh in on the “epidemic” of blown out elbow ligaments and Tommy John surgeries.
Without going into an in-depth research study, my guess is the numbers have been similar for a long while. It’s just that some big names – Spencer Strider and Shane Bieber – are heading for the procedure. This is right on the heels of Shohei Ohtani injuring the ligament a second time and derailing his pitching career, possibly forever. Gerrit Cole is on the injured list with an elbow issue but does not need surgery…yet. In truth, if an exhaustive assessment was done of pitchers throughout professional baseball, I’d guess the number of pitchers – good, bad and ugly – who need Tommy John is around the same.
This will be a big story because it’s drawing significant attention and search engine optimization-related clicks until it recedes into the background.
That doesn’t mean it should be ignored.
Experts – actual experts and not people who claim to have some form of empirical expertise, i.e. “I’ve been watching baseball all my life” – who know what they’re talking about have long lamented the series of “advancements” in baseball that have likely contributed to the spate of pitchers blowing out their elbows. Dr. James Andrews, who performed the then-radical procedure to save the real Tommy John’s career said the following:
Naturally, there were other notable medical professionals on Twitter like @BillytheSportsObserver2288w2283833 who replied to Dr. Andrews with, “Yes, but…”
And the obnoxious cretin Bill James – who should’ve been placed on the pay no mind list forty years ago –contributed the following:
Thanks for that, Bill. I’m still waiting for recompense for the time I wasted on reading half of “The Man From the Train” before throwing it across the room because you’re such an arrogant asshole without a concept of organizing a piece with a linear train of thought.
In any event, since everyone else is doing it, I’ll weigh in without contradicting doctors, trainers, pitching coaches and actual professionals.
They’re throwing too hard
Ligaments are essentially rubber bands. The more it’s violently stretched, the more likely it is to tear. Today, when everyone is obsessed with velocity and it’s velocity that gets people drafted, signed, paid and helps them get a job, keep their job or get another job, obviously pitchers are going to try to throw as hard as they possibly can. This is endemic from the despicable entity that is Little League all the way through to the Majors.
Is it necessary to throw 100 miles per hour to get hitters out? Of course not. Does it get people to “Ooh” and “Aah” at the numbers that are lighting up the questionable radar guns that are used today? Absolutely.
Pitchers like Greg Maddux, Jamie Moyer, Tom Glavine did not throw hard and that was by design. They had remarkable durability and success. Early in his carer, Bartolo Colon ripped it at 100+ as a starter and maintained it. Eventually, he became a craftsman who relied on little more than a moving fastball and pinpoint control. He lasted well into his 40s.
Pitchers who threw that hard were once rare. They could be rattled off quickly: Rich Gossage, Nolan Ryan and J.R. Richard. Now? Every team has at least five guys on their staff or in the high-minors who throw that hard. Hitters aren’t overwhelmed by it calling into question how valuable it truly is other than a macho rite of passage.
Then you add in the hard breaking stuff that is no longer meant to be a different look and change of speeds and is instead of vicious arm snap even on pitches like changeups that are supposed to be tactical. They’re doing this for 90 to 100 pitches a start. Then they’re doing it again five days later. And even with the innings limits and pitch counts, the stress is far worse than when pitchers threw at 80% capacity until they needed to get an out and threw 300 innings a year.
Sticky stuff bans and pitch clocks
Max Scherzer has said the pitch clock is a problem as it forces pitchers to get back on the mound and throw again before they’ve had the chance to have a few extra seconds to recover. MLB is increasingly becoming like the NFL if not worse in that it proclaims that it cares about player safety and player preferences and then does what it wants anyway. Do those few seconds matter? Maybe. It could be a psychosomatic response or there could be a legitimate medical concern.
Pitchers were trained for years and years to take as much time as they needed before making the next pitch. It’s the same thing as the innings limits and pitch counts. If they’ve been doing it one way for 20 years and are suddenly told to change, that is more indicative in causing an injury than the change itself. If they’re trained to adhere to the guidelines from the start, fine. They’re not.
The sticky stuff was banned in large part because offense had become so paltry. It was a knee-jerk reaction in thinking that because pitchers had increased their spin so massively that it was negatively impacting offense.
As for complaints that players – including hitters – wanted the guy throwing a projectile 100 miles an hour precariously close to their heads to have at least some form of grip aid, MLB shrugged. “Yeah. Whatever. Get out there and entertain the paying customers and boost our ad rates, clown.”
Regarding sticky stuff, Tyler Glasnow of the Dodgers gave his take as to why pitchers are getting hurt and he said it’s not because of pitch clocks, but because the absence of any form of sticky stuff led to he and others needing to grip the ball harder to get the same velocity and movement.
Money
There’s a disconnect between the old man yelling at cloud “In my day…” advocates of pitchers starting 45 games and throwing 360 innings and pitchers begging out of games after 75 pitches a game, throwing 160 innings a year and calling it a day.
What routinely gets ignored is the financial realities involved.
In the 1960s, 70s and even 80s, players didn’t make a ton of money. Today, the star pitchers are making a thousand times what most pitchers made in a year in the 1970s. Before free agency in 1976, they were at risk of pay cuts if they had a bad season or were perceived to have had a bad season – based on wins and losses and ERA – they were subject to a lower salary. For the lower-tier pitchers, they would be out of a job. Injuries meant they weren’t taking the mound and weren’t doing their jobs. Many pitched through injuries and made them worse. If they didn’t pitch, they wouldn’t have a job. They’d also curry disfavor from other clubs when they sought new employment. “He’s a malingerer.” “He won’t pitch through pain.”
Jim Palmer famously took a pay cut from the Orioles after he had an injury-plagued, subpar year in 1974. This was the year after he won his first of three Cy Young Awards and was second in the Most Valuable Player voting.
He had little recourse.
Now?
Bieber is a free agent after this season. No, he doesn’t want to be injured and need Tommy John surgery. But he’ll receive a contract after the season, probably for two years. If he pitches well in his recovery in 2025-26, he’ll get a huge contract at 30.
The same goes for Strider who is 25, already has a long-term contract paying him $74 million guaranteed through 2028 when he’ll turn 30 and be in line for another enormous deal if he recovers well enough.
Why pitch through pain when this is the reality?
Mechanics
One would think with all the research and development there would be a set of mechanics that are deemed optimal to maximize ability and avoid injuries.
There aren’t.
The debate is ongoing with a seemingly endless stream of pitching labs where one advocates a theory and another one that advocates a completely different theory. Is it drop and drive? Tall and fall? Inverted W (why isn’t it called an “M”)? Flip and flop? Bounce and rebound?
Who knows?
Athletes are always willing to listen to a theory that sounds like it makes sense and are persistent in tweaking their motions, arm angles, head position, movement, training tactics, whatever. They’ll listen to a noted medical professional and some drunk schmuck in a bar. Even anecdotal evidence and a history of success is irrelevant.
To me, a big problem is changing the way a pitcher naturally throws. The Orioles dumped Jake Arrieta after he was labeled a “bust” when they tried to change his natural throwing motion from throwing across his body and his lead foot landing toward third base to stepping straight toward the plate. One of the first things the Cubs did when they got their hands on him was to change him back to his natural way of throwing.
The Giants and every other team were told that Tim Lincecum’s mechanics – designed by his father – were not to be messed with. Teams that were already reluctant to draft him because he was small were completely scared off by that edict.
When Madison Bumgarner was drafted, the team tried to alter his motion from his preferred slingshot style. It didn’t work, he went back to what he was comfortable with and became a star.
The Giants were smart enough to know when to back off. With most organizations, there is so much data and so many voices along with people trying to make a name for themselves or just make sure they keep their own jobs by trying to look busy that they screw with their charges and make adjustments that didn’t necessarily need to be made.
The human anatomy is a mystery
Stephen Strasburg officially retired over the weekend. He was babied in college; he was babied in the pros; the Nationals had strict usage guidelines for him and he still blew out his elbow.
When he returned, he was on a Scott Boras-mandated innings limit that the Nationals didn’t think would be a major issue because in 2012, they weren’t expecting to contend. Contradicting their plans, they won 98 games and, but for the ridiculous shutdown in which they refused to use their best pitcher even though he was healthy, they might have won the World Series. Despite all the protection and medically approved guidelines, that Hall of Fame arm which comes along once a century never fulfilled its potential. For all intents and purposes, he was done at 31.
Who can explain why someone who lived a Spartan life like former bodybuilder and actor Steve Reeves and never touched drugs or alcohol died of lymphoma?
How did Andy Kaufman die of lung cancer when he never smoked a cigarette or cigar?
How is Keith Richards still walking around?
Nobody, not even experienced doctors, can say. Obviously nor can some dick on Twitter…or with a blog.
PAULLEBOWITZ.COM 