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Joe
Musgrove will undergo Tommy John surgery, Padres
GM A.J. Preller announces.
Mack – another UCL injury to a talented major league baseball
pitcher. Why? Well, let’s define a UCL injury first.
Pitchers are prone to ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) tears
because of repetitive stress on the elbow. Repetition can cause the UCL to
stretch. It then becomes irritated followed by breaking down.
Certain pitches, like high spin rate changeups and sweepers
particularly put excess stress on the UCL.
This all starts off in highly competitive youth and high
school teams and young players are playing this sport year-round, creating
overuse early in their life.
Most cases are from overuse. Repetitive motion, like overhead
throwing, can stress the ligament. Once stretched, it becomes irritated and the
tissue breaks down into small microtears.
I personally can attest to the origins of this injury. In my
day, I scouted many pitchers at both the high school and college level. It’s
the high schoolers and their managers that always stood out to me.
I watched 15 year olds being kept in the game up to 140
pitches, because that particular kid was the only talented starter on that
team. Managers didn’t care about this kid’s future. All he cared about was that
game, at that time.
I have no idea how to solve this at this level. And, because
“organized” baseball now starts so early, coupled with the young pitcher’s
attitude of immortality, these injuries will only continue to grow.
ATTENTION TEAM GM’S
DON’T offer 8+ year extensions or free agent contracts to
pitchers over 28. They probably won’t hold up through that period.
As longer as this game stresses velo plus added exotic
pitches like sweepers, arms are going to put in danger far more that the days
of #1 fastball, #2 curve, and #3 changeup. Those days are long gone.
An old scout friend told me: “you almost want to draft
someone that has already had TJS surgery and has come back with success. Almost
like a rebuilt engine”.
Teams may have to:
-draft or
sign more pitchers… even undrafted ones…
-increase investment in their pitching labs to lasso these arms in…
-create 6-man rotations in the minors to save on the amount
of pitches thrown
-place limitations on certain types of pitches being thrown
The league may have to increase the 26-man by one or more
specific additions of pitchers only.
Will any of these things actually be done? Probably not. This
is the game we all watch now and we probably are just going to see this degree
of injuries go up while the quality of pitching goes down.
8 comments:
Mack, I think part of the pitchers’ problem is that these guys today have so much more homer power. This year, the average team hit about 180 homers. In 1979 the average team hit around 125 homers. The gap would be greater, if the most of the pitchers had not counteracted that increased home run propensity by throwing ever harder and nastier. And thereby blowing up arms. They also know the money today is predicated on gaudy stats like strike out rate. These guys fervently hope they get to free agency on an upswing, so they can make some real money , a lot more money (in real terms) than existed in 1979.
I’m going to write something very unpopular, but it seems to be the case to me. In sports now, the phrase “next man up” is en vogue. This because injuries are an expected, accepted, circumstance as a hazard of the occupation. No one avoids them as they are considered an act of God and unavoidable.
I'll make an analogy to smoking. Smokers don't have direct feedback while smoking that it is dangerous to them. Many years later the cumulative effects are devastating and THEN they wish they had stopped. In the baseball world, these young kids don't get immediate feedback that their ligament is stretching. Throw hard and you expect a little soreness or fatigue but a couple days later it feels fine so go do it again. If a coach is waiting for a player to take themselves out of a game because they feel pain, he is ignoring the problem. That is either selfish or uninformed.
Batters now can hit a straight ball no matter the speed
Thus more move movement needed
Thus more junk
Thus more TJS
You write something unpopular???
Nah
As a made guy would say... "this is the game we've been delt with"
I don't see this changing
What coach is “uninformed”? All coaches know the ramifications…. But, they love the attention when they go out with their families.
Steve thanked is for our congratulations
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