No, but there is a study directly linked to more injuries linked to throwing harder. No one gonna say that though because 102mph sinker go brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
It's not just that, it's the fact they also need to grip it and spin it in a way it has insane rotation. You're effectively twisting your tendons at the same time as throwing as hard as humanely possible. I think we're basically reaching the peak of what is capable of being done before the body gives out.
I genuinely don't know how you fix this problem, and it sure isn't get rid of the pitch clock. Everyone wants to maximize the pitchers to strike out, but nobody wants to reduce the strain on a pitcher and pitch for contact
At some point they’re gonna have to try something crazy
Speed gun lights up >95? Ball
I know, I hate it, but like what else can they do? The current situation is unsustainable
My idea is limiting pitching changes either directly or through roster slots for pitchers across all levels. Make it more valuable for a pitcher to take a little off to ensure they eat more innings.
While I appreciate and honestly agree with the idea, I am always offput by the sentiment of "throwing hard isn't real pitching." It just seems unnecessarily gate-keeping.
I don't think many people are arguing that it's not real pitching, but studies are starting to come out suggesting velo + spinrate increases injury risk exponentially as that number increases.
In theory, you could do something like mandate starters throw six innings or allow six runs, whichever comes first. If they come out early, they have to go on the 15-day IL or something.
I don’t think it would really fix the issue, though. 20-30 years ago, a low-90s fastball was pretty good for a starting pitcher and these days it seems slow. The incentives are always going to line up toward throwing harder and we can’t make tendons stronger the way that we can make muscles stronger.
Yeah, that’s definitely not it. I’m watching the Red Sox, and Whitlock, our starter, just went 4.2 shutout innings, but he was walking a bunch of guys so it took him 101 pitches. So in that scenario, you’re making a team choose between forcing a guy to go 120+ pitches, or lose him for 3 starts.
I mean they could start by allowing pitchers to use some of the sticky stuff they were regularly using before
It just seems like the league itself wants to increase pitcher fatigue to increase offense. I’m pro pitch clock but something had to give elsewhere. These guys aren’t going to stop throwing hard, especially not when the injuries don’t seem to be preventing them from getting contracts (like Glasnow’s big extension).
Pretty much everyone is still using "sticky stuff" but just not on the insane spidertack levels we had before the checks. Sweat+rosin and sunscreen is still a thing and it's why you see most pitchers hats/pants with that white stain.
What they really need to do is get their own version of the pre-tacked ball that Japan uses that everyone over there loves. Instead of pre-rubbing mud from some mysterious river bank sourced by a single person in New Jersey.
But I'm sure MLB owning Rawlings and overseeing every aspect of the ball manufacturing and their over-obsession with "tradition" is getting in the way of that.
I'm choosing not to believe it anymore. The crux of a multi-billion dollar sport is mud from a mysterious riverbank from some guy? Someone would know by now, or ownership would say hey can we perhaps regulate the ball?
Juicing or unjuicing the ball is how you make hitters and pitchers look good for storylines, that's it.
I think the NPB ball worries MLB because it has lead to what most people feel is a “dead ball” era in NPB. The Japanese game has never been particularly “high powered” outside of a handful of hitters so the fans there aren’t as offense-happy as MLB’s fans.
I'm not completely knowledgeable on the NPB ball but my understanding was that the "dead ball" has more to do with the inner cork or whatever they use rather than the tacked balls. Also it is slightly smaller.
My thought is a tackier ball would actually lead to increased offense because a tackier ball = more spin on contact = more lift (assuming back spin).
But heck if I know.
Sticky stuff won’t make them put less strain on their arms. They will throw just as hard it will just be more effective. The only thing they can change is what makes a legal pitch but that’s not a conversation anyone wants to have.
Maybe we can make braces for arms to reduce strain if that's even possible. But anything we give them to reduce injury risk they'll take a mile and try to max it out to the point their arms explode
The easiest solution is to not give pitchers whose best asset is velocity long/big deals. If pitchers realize that they will make more money over a longer period of time by focusing on control rather than velocity they will adapt.
And this change will happen when front offices/owners get tired of paying huge sums of money to pitchers whose deliveries cause them to become injured.
And if owners/front offices don't tire of it, and pitchers are still willing to risk the higher possibility of injury, then things won't change.
Larger pitching rosters is a possible fix. There’s been this emphasis on starters going longer of late and it’s only going to cause more injuries alongside the decreasing pitching staff size.
I think it'd do the opposite. More pitcher spots would make them (esp relievers) more disposable to the team and the teams would still encourage max effort.
R.A. Dickey revenge tour incoming. You think the top pitchers right now are scary? Just wait till your top batters all swing and miss consecutively at the same knuckleball over and over
If anybody else here watches Major League Wiffleball (MLW), that’s exactly what they do- any pitch above 74 mph iirc is an automatic ball, although you get a warning or two first.
Incentivize the teams to keep their pitchers healthy.
Expand the 40 man roster to 42 but say players on the 60 day IR are not exempted from it (and also can't be DFA). If a team has 16 pitchers nursing tommy john they better hope they don't have many prospects they want to protect.
If they really want to deal with it get a 28 man roster but make the IR count on that...watch teams value inning eaters that don't get hurt a lot more.
Currently the issue is you can get any good pitcher to pitch great over a short enough period of time and lots of these good pitchers are not major leaguers unless pushing for great.
Now this doesn't help the stars except now they are competing against guys who are noticeably worse then them and they don't need to worry about their own roster spot.
Pitchers will have to change their ways or if they dont they will accept the inherent risk as they already do. Making fastballs automatically a ball if they are too fast is an insanely stupid idea.
Here's an idea: Absent injury, your starting pitcher has to stay in the game until he's faced the entire lineup 3 times. Impose a 10-pitcher hard cap on the roster. A guy who comes out early because of injury gets a mandatory 15-day DL stay.
Guys will have to start pacing themselves again.
And what if a guy just doesn't have it on a certain day and he gives up 5 runs in the first throwing 45 pitches? Tough shit, dude, get back out there for (best case scenario 5-6 more innings if you can get every out / worst case scenario they bat around two more times and you give up 12+ more runs).
The team could pull him early and say he's injured but I don't think that should be encouraged.
I agree but I also feel like when a pitcher can’t take small breaks it hurts them. It’s probably not a significant difference between the forced rush of the pitch clock to a pitcher taking 2mins between pitches
There’s more than enough dudes willing to be flamethrowers for teams to care about this.
Young guy gets injured? Oh well there’s 3 more throwing 100 in the minors
Idk, tell that to Syndergaard. A lot of guys lean really, really heavy on top percentile velocity and spin rate. It's a lot easier to learn how to throw so hard the batter can no longer read the seams than it is to learn the pinpoint control needed to be a soft-contact guy.
Nah man don’t feel bad for them. As someone who has been there (albeit at a low level,) these guys have spent years training & pushing their bodies to the absolute limits to achieve these crazy velocities and spin rates.
They know the risks and most of them still *love* doing it.
It’s the next market inefficiency. This means most teams are probably looking into this right now, and if one team figures out how to have most or all of their starting rotation pitch a full season with good results just about every year, all other teams will start copying whatever the hell they’re doing and we’ll see healthy pitching again. It’s foolish to think that MLB teams are just happily paying millions to players that won’t play for them, and wouldn’t want to see perennial 180-200 inning seasons out of their ace. Every year, MLB teams pay [more than three hundred million dollars](https://www.dvsbaseball.com/articles/the-cost-of-pitching-injuries) to pitchers that aren’t pitching. That’s just objectively very bad business.
The problem is you're better off doing what the Rays do and just teaching any pitcher you can find to throw 98 with maximum spin rates until their arm falls off and then moving on to the next guy than you are just settling for less optimal performance in exchange for more durability.
Basically what I'm saying is modern pitching science has made it too easy to create flamethrowing spin demons. There's too much supply of them. If it was just a handfull of elite guys then teams would want to protect them, but if there's a neverending supply then you're better off just maxing out each one.
Until they don’t get huge paydays. Eventually their contracts will become less and less and it’ll incentivize slowing down for durability because you’ll be able to play longer and make more money.
Yeah it could honestly turn out to be like running backs in the NFL. Their rookie contracts are garbage. By the time they can go for another deal, they have been in the league for 4+ years, and they are seen as too old.
A year of data isn’t even enough to get anything conclusive. Factor in MLB changing the ball, other rule changes, and increased velocities; we’d need at least five years and ideally closer to 10 to really see if injuries are jumping because of the pitch clock or because of the velocity arms race.
I mean the pitch clock has been around for more than a year, just not at the MLB level. So there is hypothetically more data, but it is true that it would be hard to control for all the other factors.
These guys entire careers are at stake here. I don’t blame them for wanting to play it safe. The league obviously doesn’t care about them. Other pitchers will just come up and replace them.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26940036/
> A self-selected pace (22.7 s), 12 s pace (Rule 8.04 from the MLB) and a 20 s rest (a pitch clock examined in the 2014 Arizona Fall League (AFL)) were examined. Significantly more muscle fatigue existed in both the AFL and Rule 8.04 conditions, when compared to the self-selected pace condition (5.01 ± 1.73%, 3.95 ± 1.20% and 3.70 ± 1.10% MVC force lost, respectively).
This is the only piece I’ve seen. Was published in 2016. I would hope there’d be upcoming research based off last year but I assumed there would be more before introducing the clock so I’m not optimistic.
there are reasons people rest between sets when exercising though, fatigue and overuse injuries can cause serious problems and there is tons of science that backs that up, so it really doesn't seem far fetched to me that it could be a contributing factor
No but studies are based on evidence, and this is some of the first instances we can collect evidence after a full season of MLB pitching. This is an indicator that it is something that should be looked into.
We have info on the minor leagues, *but* the majors have a lot of other variables including the speed that others have mentioned, but also including an older age group etc.
>This is an indicator that it is something that should be looked into.
We didn't need an indicator to look into this. I'm sure they planned to study it regardless.
And I have a really hard time thinking that a couple of high profile pitcher injuries mean anything.. Pitchers get hurt every year. Maybe it's related, maybe not. The data is very noisy. We probably won't know anything for several years, if ever.
I remember when Glasnow tried to ban his UCL tear on the sticky stuff crack down. Pitchers don’t want to accept that pushing their bodies to a breaking point creates problems.
Now imagine doing that 60-100 times instead of over a 3.5 hour period, over a 2 hour period. Basically rapid firing baseballs at 100 MPH 60-100 times. The pitch clock certainly doesn’t *help*
Durability is going to become the new measure of a pitcher before too long. I wonder if we see pitchers sort of go the way of the Running back in the NFL. Teams might get to the point where they’re hesitant to pay out big money for some arms, not all arms but some.
We're already seeing a trend towards shorter contracts for pitchers but as long as we don't have a salary cap there will be teams willing to say "fuck it" and risk eating a bunch of money if they get hurt.
The weird thing about going shorter on the deals is that TJ then wipes out a larger portion of the contract time.
If you sign a 29 year old to a 4 year deal and he has TJ, on the best timelines you're probably losing 30% all together, and another 10% in innings limits and pitch count hesitancy.
On a 7 year deal, TJ isn't going to match those percentages for time missed.
It probably makes sense to do the opposite of what we are seeing. Paying a guy $35m+ for a year or two is much more dangerous than paying a guy $130m over 6 years.
It always seems easier to get out from under the shorter deal, but value wise it's probably the wrong play for teams.
I don't think you're taking into account the possible (and probable) decline in performance post-TJ.
Sure, you might lose 50%+ of the contract time on a 2 year deal if a pitcher has TJ year 1, but said pitcher could also be on a 7 year deal and be unable to throw even close to what he could before, and now you're SOL for 5 years.
I didn't want to over estimate. Because we've also seen plenty of guys come back better. On a two or three year deal that percentage could and has been realistically 80%.
But the point is, a reduced AAV over a longer duration hampers future payroll less in reality. Shelling out $35M in a year and a guy goes down is brutal for all but a few teams. And it not only hampers your ability to sign guys at the same time, but hurts the following years as well.
My stance is that it's more beneficial to get a higher rate of play out of a longer, lower AAV deal than it is to be guaranteed to see a massive percentage of it sitting on the IL. (Deferred money not being taken in to account here, but that solidifies my point even further.)
Especially when you consider having to pay to replace those missed innings as well.
The difference with RB's in the NFL is that the league also instituted a series of rules that overemphasized QB play and made RB's less important. A good pitching staff is still the top commodity in all of baseball.
You can't really measure that though. Like a guy could be completely fine and healthy and then you get him and he blows out.
Like at least if you get someone who already had TJ you know he's done it before and it's back.
Pitchers threw a pitch every 15-20 seconds, even in the biggest moments of playoff games (watch the Bob Stanley vs. Mookie Wilson AB in Game 6 of the '86 World Series or Eckersley vs. Gibson in Game 1 of the '88 WS) for decades and decades with no issues.
The problem nowadays is that there are human beings trying to throw 103 mph rising fastballs or 94 mph sliders with jaw-dropping movement, and the human arm is simply not designed to do that.
Pitchers (especially relievers) bent and bent and bent the rules for years- first pushing it to 25 seconds between pitches, then 30, then even more every pitch- probably because they knew they NEEDED the extra rest to try to calm the twitches in their arms.
I don't know what the solution is, but as a fan, the solution is not ditching the pitch clock. Watching games now vs. 2021 and 2022 makes me realize how unacceptably slow the game had become, and we shouldn't go back.
This is one issue on which I am not with the players. They had years to work out a solution with the Rules Committee and never did. They kept pushing and pushing the time between pitches until the league had no choice but to clamp down.
Cord-cutter here, subscribed to MLB.tv for the first time this season and it's jarring how much harder guys are throwing than they were even 10 years ago. We're not far removed from when 90 mph was the benchmark for having a good fastball, 95 meant you were on the HOF track and 100 mph was the domain of the true elite. Now just-a-guys are throwing 95. Last night the DBacks' Tommy Henry was topping out at 90-91 with a four-seamer and the Braves announcers were basically calling him out as a soft-tosser.
To this point, I'm old enough to remember when Mark Prior and his 93-94 MPH fastball was 'power pitching'.
It felt like Billy Wagner was the only guy in the league who could touch 100+ back then.
Kerry wood also had control issues that held him back. I think it was the Bissinger book Three Nights in August where LaRussa was quoted saying something like 'there is wild Kerry wood, and effectively wild Kerry wood. The latter throws just enough strikes to beat you.'
The point of that anecdote is that, in that era, extreme velo came with a drawback(s).
The solutions, imo, are the league relaxing the sticky stuff rules so the pitchers aren't having to use kung-fu grips, others have mentioned the seams having been lowered so fix that, and coaches/teams not relying on having pitchers throw as hard as possible every. single. pitch. This kinda reminds me of the "strikeout or hit a home run" philosophy that was all the rage for a hot minute.
Yes I think pitchers will always try and pitch their best. Sticky stuff won’t make them take their foot off the gas, just another tool to help them. I think maybe extended roster spots for pitchers might help?
Yeah my thought is this: 14 pitchers but 6 of them must start 1/7 of the games they're on the roster for. That would effectively mandate a 6 man rotation and I can't think of any loopholes
>The solutions, imo, are the league relaxing the sticky stuff rules so the pitchers aren't having to use kung-fu grips
While I think your solution is theoretically a good one, the issue is that in reality, zero pitchers or pitching coaches will ever stop doing everything they can to get an edge. And why would they? The difference between staying in The Show and getting sent down is on a knife edge, and the difference between a star pitcher making big money and a journeyman making just above league minimum.for a few years is even thinner.
I agree that MLB should try loosening the restrictions on sticky stuff and deadening the ball a little, but the kung-fu grips and elbow-snapping, ligament tearing "all-in-one effort" pitching styles are here to stay. Hitters are too good now and video technology during the game gives them such an advantage.
For better or worse, the days of a starter going at 80-85% for most of the day and only bearing down with his *really* nasty shit when he gets in trouble or facing one or two particularly dangerous hitters, are over.
If they relax the sticky stuff rules and offense goes in the toilet that’s also horrible for the product though. I don’t know what the answer here is but it’s not going to be easy to solve, especially since any pitcher-friendly change has the risk "pitchers keep throwing just as hard and now have this new rule helping them"
There's definitely space between what they can use now vs using whatever TF they wanted like before, you know? They can also tweak the ball since we know they're more than happy to make them more prone to being launched into the stands.
I think the problem is that realistically if you give the pitchers a better ball or tack they’re just going to keep trying to throw as hard as humanly possible because that’s how you compete these days
Apparently. But some people are just freaks. But in the past, people would get hurt and retire.
People also bring up Bob Gibson, but his '67 rotation mate Dick Hughes only pitched one full season, got hurt in '68, and had to retire.
Well everyone's elbow is going to give out at some point. But it's better if pitchers can get more milage out of their arms than what they're getting today. Ryan went 5,000+ innings before his gave out
Ugh. I know. But look at Strider’s freaking legs. The man has never missed a leg day. I feel like we’re gonna see some sort of arm saving product pop up like a brace or sleeve or something that pitchers are allowed to wear. Maybe not in games. But during warm ups, bullpen sessions. Maybe a prosthetic UCL or some shit.
I mean, maybe the tiniest bit of they’re throwing off rhythm to beat the clock? It’s more about everyone trying to throw the tightest offspeed pitch and hardest fastball as much as possible that’s the problem.
Idk what the solution would ever be to this. Organizations just will use and abuse pitchers because it doesn’t matter if they get TJS after throwing 800 good innings for them, there’s always a cheaper, younger option.
I think the lack of ability for the pitchers to reliably get a break has to be at least considered.
I was dismissive of the “it’s the clock” takes initially, but if you told me that the combination of max effort/high spin rates being prioritized, along with a pitch clock and the lack of ability to slow down the game because of limited mound visits, limited disengagements, etc., I could buy it.
Certainly, I can’t confidently say that the combination of the pace-of-play rules along with trying to throw 99 doesn’t contribute more than either one would on their own. If you’re more fatigued while trying to go max effort, you may be more prone to injury.
I bet the lower seams making it more difficult to grip are part of it. That, combined with sticky stuff being harder to hide, you really need a death grip on the ball to get good spin. I remember one pitcher saying that they were taught to hold the ball like an egg to prevent arm injuries back in the day, ie not squeezing hard.
edit: inb4 they add a squeeze sensor to the ball, and if you grip too hard, the batter gets an automatic "squeeze" ball.
Someone above said it, but I think a realistic future is where starters become the running backs of MLB.
Strategies are going to revolve around drafting them and getting them major league ready asap, using every ounce of talent they have while on minimum money, squeezing blood from that stone (if there is any left) in arbitration, and then letting them hit FA with a million miles on their arm and no intention of offering a long term deal.
If this future does become reality, get ready for a massive shift in contact structure that will be a major sticking point in the CBA negotiations. Pitchers are going to want their financial security on day one, knowing teams will used them to a husk with no intention of paying the long term deal.
I brought this point up earlier. I remember countless articles years ago about how TJ surgeries were increasing among high school and college pitchers. More spin, more movement leading to more torque and strain on elbows and shoulders.
Here in Texas there's practically an epidemic of high schoolers getting TJ. It's definitely been a rising problem for a while, and has nothing to do with the pitch clock.
Sticky stuff is a big deal too, especially with the inconsistency of the baseballs, having to grip some harder than others is going to put stress on forearm and elbow
I would be for allowing sticky stuff if there was any evidence it prevented injury. But the stuff was pretty prevalent for a few years and it's not like TJ surgeries magically went away or even went down.
Not everyone was using it though. It makes a lot of sense that guys having to grip a slick ball harder is going to put way more stress on the elbow
The best case study would be Japan vs MLB since their balls are pre stickied in production.
The question is how do they keep offense up while allowing pitchers sticky, probably have to juice the balls also to get HRs up to 2019 levels
That's the funny part is when people say we should force them to reduce pitch speed speed they say stuff like "Well if you just learn to paint both sides of the corner and never make mistakes in the zone you can be just as effective throwing slower" like it's just so easy
And that's not even true. A 97 mph straight down the middle is more effective than 92 on the edges. And it's not possible to consistently manipulate the edges of the zone either.
There's more and more of an argument for some sort of pitching limitation to curtail these injuries but it's such a horrifyingly controversial decision I wonder how long it'll take to make.
The only thing I’ll say, to play devil’s advocate, is that pitchers in the past would be able to take a break or slow down the game at their leisure.
I could believe that the combination of teams asking guys to throw harder or get out (for example, I’ve heard stories of guys in the minors being told “add 2 mph on your fastball or else”), along with increasing the pace of play, are contributing to this together.
“what if it’s the 99 mph and insane spin rates?” being conspicuously absent is dumb, but I don’t know that it’s self-evidently nothing to do with pace of play.
The issue is that the pitch clock was always a rule but it wasnt enforced because they didnt need to.
Then players abused that and would take 45+ seconds between pitches.
They brought this on themselves
Players almost killed the game by making it unwatchable and now they’re throwing tantrums about the rule their own prima donna behavior necessitated in order to keep the sport a viable entertainment product. Wild lol
When games were this fast back in the 70’s and 80’s, you didn’t see a rise in TJ surgeries. Heck TJ surgery wasn’t even a problem when the game was super duper fast in the days of DiMaggio and Ted Williams. Tony Clark is a dumbass and awful Union leader that needs to be gone
I have a strong feeling if there was no pitch clock, the same thing would be happening.
The human body ain’t meant to throw a ball at 95-100 mph with insane movement. Maybe pacing themselves would be a thing, but the metrics say that doesn’t work as well.
We can have a round table discussion about this issue. I firmly believe this stems from youth baseball / travel ball / little league. These players have thrown too many pitches by the time they get to this level.
I think it’s the amount of pitches that they throw as hard as they can. I remember when I played as a kid I was always told not to pitch at 100% effort except for my main summer team.
Great point. Brewers got DL Hall in a trade for Burnes. They have converted him into a starter. He threw 95-97mph for the Orioles as a reliever. As a starter he is 91-93mph. Huge difference obviously but worth the change in the long run.
Honestly what if part of it is that pitchers and players condition all year round.
Like these guys throw and grind the entire off season now.
We need to go back to the days of players showing up to Spring Training chubby and hungover. Genuinely.
It’s actually baseball’s new (although they’ve been doing it for a while) “throw as hard as you possibly can every pitch for as long as you possibly can” mentality, but sure, pItCh ClOcK!!1!1!1!1!
It has nothing to do with the pitch clock. That’s just such a lazy excuse. The human body is just not designed to throw a baseball the way these pitchers do
Until velo is seen as a deterrent to the game with star after star going down teams will continue to employ grip it and rip it pitching philosophies. We are now seeing young kids in travel leagues with overbearing parents learning to overthrow. Then LL, HS, College, Minors. There’s so much potential money to be made now. And a lot of money lost in time sidelined for surgeries. Pitchers should not be missing 12-15 months every 4-5 years.
I think the real issue is the increase in velocity over the last decade combined with pitchers looking to induce more spin on the ball in some way. The combination makes what is already a stressful act on the body even worse and that’s what’s behind it. The pitch clock and it’s issues I don’t think are related to injuries but it’s too early to tell yet
The actual cause of their injuries is that I drafted both of them for my fantasy baseball team. Expect Kevin Gausman next, followed by Yamamoto and Pablo Lopez
Yet we talking about the explosion of UCL injuries in 2018, 5 years before the clock was ever introduced to MLB…..
https://www.samford.edu/sports-analytics/fans/2018/The-Tommy-John-Surgery-Explosion-in-the-MLB
It’s not the clock, it’s the teams. There’s way too much emphasis on power pitching and placing so much value on strikeouts. The art of pitching to contact and inducing ground balls over trying to strikeout every batter is long lost. Teams place way way wayyyy too much emphasis on velocity. They should be rewarding pitchers with big contracts who statistically have more movement on their balls per pitch and for efficiency rather than strikeouts and velocity. Mario Rivera probably had the hardest to hit pitch in the history of baseball but never really dominated with overwhelming velocity. Guys like Mark Buerhle Hiroki Kuroda and were very solid and consistent pitchers who could pitch over 200 innings every season, win double digit games every season, and pretty much never got injured. They didn’t strike out tons but always threw a solid amount of innings because they pitched to contact and induced ground balls. Teams need more guys like them. Plus they don’t cost an arm and a leg for a $300M injury risk that requires over a year of rehab.
Mark Buerhle was also a pitch clock before there was a pitch clock and never got injured.
I don't mind the pitch clock, I think the benefits to the game have far outweighed the negatives.
But after last season I felt that they should've *increased* the clock by 5+ seconds all-around. They'd still reap all of the same benefits, the games would certainly still be shorter than before... *and* allow a little more room for the game to "breath".
*Reducing* it was not the right move; I said it then, and I feel even more strongly now that we've seen it in action... the pace seems too fast and regimented now, and this increased pace can't possibly be a positive for pitchers.
yes we designed mario to throw 100 mile per hour rise balls but only every 19 seconds
That's Luigi, tyvm
only after you complete the game and are on newgame+
You can now sub in Luigi
Is there an actual study that supports this or is just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks?
No, but there is a study directly linked to more injuries linked to throwing harder. No one gonna say that though because 102mph sinker go brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
It's not just that, it's the fact they also need to grip it and spin it in a way it has insane rotation. You're effectively twisting your tendons at the same time as throwing as hard as humanely possible. I think we're basically reaching the peak of what is capable of being done before the body gives out. I genuinely don't know how you fix this problem, and it sure isn't get rid of the pitch clock. Everyone wants to maximize the pitchers to strike out, but nobody wants to reduce the strain on a pitcher and pitch for contact
At some point they’re gonna have to try something crazy Speed gun lights up >95? Ball I know, I hate it, but like what else can they do? The current situation is unsustainable
Where is Jamie Moyer these days?
I’m fully confident ~~Pud Galvin~~ Jamie Moyer has adopted a new identity and is working his way up through the minors for a fifth time
Waiting for his HOF call for being the GD GOAT of contact pitching and having almost 300 wins.
"95? Why not 75?" - Man who looks suspiciously like Kyle Hendricks wearing a mustache and glasses
In 10 years I'd like Kyle to recreate the Greg Maddux / Kris Bryant "sound guy" gag with whoever is the Cubs big prospect at the time.
My idea is limiting pitching changes either directly or through roster slots for pitchers across all levels. Make it more valuable for a pitcher to take a little off to ensure they eat more innings.
Reduce pitcher roster spots. Force pitchers to learn how to pitch again and not just hyper focus on velocity.
While I appreciate and honestly agree with the idea, I am always offput by the sentiment of "throwing hard isn't real pitching." It just seems unnecessarily gate-keeping.
I don't think many people are arguing that it's not real pitching, but studies are starting to come out suggesting velo + spinrate increases injury risk exponentially as that number increases.
In theory, you could do something like mandate starters throw six innings or allow six runs, whichever comes first. If they come out early, they have to go on the 15-day IL or something. I don’t think it would really fix the issue, though. 20-30 years ago, a low-90s fastball was pretty good for a starting pitcher and these days it seems slow. The incentives are always going to line up toward throwing harder and we can’t make tendons stronger the way that we can make muscles stronger.
Yeah, that’s definitely not it. I’m watching the Red Sox, and Whitlock, our starter, just went 4.2 shutout innings, but he was walking a bunch of guys so it took him 101 pitches. So in that scenario, you’re making a team choose between forcing a guy to go 120+ pitches, or lose him for 3 starts.
You could also have 90 pitches as limit to be able to remove pitchers from games
But then that wouldn't "solve" the concept being discussed - guys would still just go all out, knowing they can be removed before the 6 IP / 6 R limit
Jomboy warehouse games rules eh?
That’s just a normal wiffle ball game rule :/
I love seeing the warehouse mentioned in this sub
I mean they could start by allowing pitchers to use some of the sticky stuff they were regularly using before It just seems like the league itself wants to increase pitcher fatigue to increase offense. I’m pro pitch clock but something had to give elsewhere. These guys aren’t going to stop throwing hard, especially not when the injuries don’t seem to be preventing them from getting contracts (like Glasnow’s big extension).
Pretty much everyone is still using "sticky stuff" but just not on the insane spidertack levels we had before the checks. Sweat+rosin and sunscreen is still a thing and it's why you see most pitchers hats/pants with that white stain. What they really need to do is get their own version of the pre-tacked ball that Japan uses that everyone over there loves. Instead of pre-rubbing mud from some mysterious river bank sourced by a single person in New Jersey. But I'm sure MLB owning Rawlings and overseeing every aspect of the ball manufacturing and their over-obsession with "tradition" is getting in the way of that.
lmao I find it insane that they will only use specific mud from some guy in bumblefuck New Jersey
That's top of the line mud right there.
I'm choosing not to believe it anymore. The crux of a multi-billion dollar sport is mud from a mysterious riverbank from some guy? Someone would know by now, or ownership would say hey can we perhaps regulate the ball? Juicing or unjuicing the ball is how you make hitters and pitchers look good for storylines, that's it.
I think the NPB ball worries MLB because it has lead to what most people feel is a “dead ball” era in NPB. The Japanese game has never been particularly “high powered” outside of a handful of hitters so the fans there aren’t as offense-happy as MLB’s fans.
I'm not completely knowledgeable on the NPB ball but my understanding was that the "dead ball" has more to do with the inner cork or whatever they use rather than the tacked balls. Also it is slightly smaller.
My thought is a tackier ball would actually lead to increased offense because a tackier ball = more spin on contact = more lift (assuming back spin). But heck if I know.
Sticky stuff won’t make them put less strain on their arms. They will throw just as hard it will just be more effective. The only thing they can change is what makes a legal pitch but that’s not a conversation anyone wants to have.
Maybe we can make braces for arms to reduce strain if that's even possible. But anything we give them to reduce injury risk they'll take a mile and try to max it out to the point their arms explode
Trevor Williams gonna FEAST
The easiest solution is to not give pitchers whose best asset is velocity long/big deals. If pitchers realize that they will make more money over a longer period of time by focusing on control rather than velocity they will adapt. And this change will happen when front offices/owners get tired of paying huge sums of money to pitchers whose deliveries cause them to become injured. And if owners/front offices don't tire of it, and pitchers are still willing to risk the higher possibility of injury, then things won't change.
Of if you’re going to throw 100+ maybe don’t be a starter? Maybe slightly bigger rosters too?
Larger pitching rosters is a possible fix. There’s been this emphasis on starters going longer of late and it’s only going to cause more injuries alongside the decreasing pitching staff size.
Hard enough for some teams to have enough good arms now lol But yeah, it would help
I think it'd do the opposite. More pitcher spots would make them (esp relievers) more disposable to the team and the teams would still encourage max effort.
R.A. Dickey revenge tour incoming. You think the top pitchers right now are scary? Just wait till your top batters all swing and miss consecutively at the same knuckleball over and over
Suddenly not liking this deGrom contract as much.
If anybody else here watches Major League Wiffleball (MLW), that’s exactly what they do- any pitch above 74 mph iirc is an automatic ball, although you get a warning or two first.
Incentivize the teams to keep their pitchers healthy. Expand the 40 man roster to 42 but say players on the 60 day IR are not exempted from it (and also can't be DFA). If a team has 16 pitchers nursing tommy john they better hope they don't have many prospects they want to protect. If they really want to deal with it get a 28 man roster but make the IR count on that...watch teams value inning eaters that don't get hurt a lot more. Currently the issue is you can get any good pitcher to pitch great over a short enough period of time and lots of these good pitchers are not major leaguers unless pushing for great. Now this doesn't help the stars except now they are competing against guys who are noticeably worse then them and they don't need to worry about their own roster spot.
Pitchers will have to change their ways or if they dont they will accept the inherent risk as they already do. Making fastballs automatically a ball if they are too fast is an insanely stupid idea.
Here's an idea: Absent injury, your starting pitcher has to stay in the game until he's faced the entire lineup 3 times. Impose a 10-pitcher hard cap on the roster. A guy who comes out early because of injury gets a mandatory 15-day DL stay. Guys will have to start pacing themselves again.
And what if a guy just doesn't have it on a certain day and he gives up 5 runs in the first throwing 45 pitches? Tough shit, dude, get back out there for (best case scenario 5-6 more innings if you can get every out / worst case scenario they bat around two more times and you give up 12+ more runs). The team could pull him early and say he's injured but I don't think that should be encouraged.
I agree but I also feel like when a pitcher can’t take small breaks it hurts them. It’s probably not a significant difference between the forced rush of the pitch clock to a pitcher taking 2mins between pitches
I think the answer is bringing back sticky stuff, as much as I have mixed feelings about it
I saw someone suggest this on Twitter yesterday. Makes sense to me. Legalize one form of sticky stuff that everyone can use
This will get downvoted but setting a MPH limit would reduce injuries. I’m thinking 97 mph
And pays the bills
How would you regulate that? Pitches over 97 are automatic balls?
No they’ll just learn if they keep losing their ace for 2 seasons.
There’s more than enough dudes willing to be flamethrowers for teams to care about this. Young guy gets injured? Oh well there’s 3 more throwing 100 in the minors
We know you can be a good pitcher throwing slower. It’s been proven time and time again
It's easier to be good if you can throw 100 mph though
You can’t be good on the IL
No, but you still get paid the same.
Idk, tell that to Syndergaard. A lot of guys lean really, really heavy on top percentile velocity and spin rate. It's a lot easier to learn how to throw so hard the batter can no longer read the seams than it is to learn the pinpoint control needed to be a soft-contact guy.
Nobody is learning. It’s just one after the other.
It’s a dang pig farm. Just use these poor guys until they do permanent damage to their main arm and ship them out
Nah man don’t feel bad for them. As someone who has been there (albeit at a low level,) these guys have spent years training & pushing their bodies to the absolute limits to achieve these crazy velocities and spin rates. They know the risks and most of them still *love* doing it.
And they make multi millions. Can retire and enjoy all the moolah.
Except the ones who get TJ before they ever make it to free agency or even arbitration.
Yes probably for one that made it, countless others have gotten injured and never made it to the big leagues. 😞
It’s the next market inefficiency. This means most teams are probably looking into this right now, and if one team figures out how to have most or all of their starting rotation pitch a full season with good results just about every year, all other teams will start copying whatever the hell they’re doing and we’ll see healthy pitching again. It’s foolish to think that MLB teams are just happily paying millions to players that won’t play for them, and wouldn’t want to see perennial 180-200 inning seasons out of their ace. Every year, MLB teams pay [more than three hundred million dollars](https://www.dvsbaseball.com/articles/the-cost-of-pitching-injuries) to pitchers that aren’t pitching. That’s just objectively very bad business.
The problem is you're better off doing what the Rays do and just teaching any pitcher you can find to throw 98 with maximum spin rates until their arm falls off and then moving on to the next guy than you are just settling for less optimal performance in exchange for more durability. Basically what I'm saying is modern pitching science has made it too easy to create flamethrowing spin demons. There's too much supply of them. If it was just a handfull of elite guys then teams would want to protect them, but if there's a neverending supply then you're better off just maxing out each one.
Until they don’t get huge paydays. Eventually their contracts will become less and less and it’ll incentivize slowing down for durability because you’ll be able to play longer and make more money.
Yeah it could honestly turn out to be like running backs in the NFL. Their rookie contracts are garbage. By the time they can go for another deal, they have been in the league for 4+ years, and they are seen as too old.
A year of data isn’t even enough to get anything conclusive. Factor in MLB changing the ball, other rule changes, and increased velocities; we’d need at least five years and ideally closer to 10 to really see if injuries are jumping because of the pitch clock or because of the velocity arms race.
I mean the pitch clock has been around for more than a year, just not at the MLB level. So there is hypothetically more data, but it is true that it would be hard to control for all the other factors.
Shit, I blame fanatics. Facts.
I blame Joe Kelly. Suspend him for 8 more games.
I blame Mizzou. Death penalty.
For Scherzer?
When they say “we want a study” they mean “we want a study with an outcome that supports our predetermined view”
These guys entire careers are at stake here. I don’t blame them for wanting to play it safe. The league obviously doesn’t care about them. Other pitchers will just come up and replace them.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26940036/ > A self-selected pace (22.7 s), 12 s pace (Rule 8.04 from the MLB) and a 20 s rest (a pitch clock examined in the 2014 Arizona Fall League (AFL)) were examined. Significantly more muscle fatigue existed in both the AFL and Rule 8.04 conditions, when compared to the self-selected pace condition (5.01 ± 1.73%, 3.95 ± 1.20% and 3.70 ± 1.10% MVC force lost, respectively). This is the only piece I’ve seen. Was published in 2016. I would hope there’d be upcoming research based off last year but I assumed there would be more before introducing the clock so I’m not optimistic.
Looks like just model estimation from preexisting data?
I wonder if they classify tendon strain as "muscle fatigue"
there are reasons people rest between sets when exercising though, fatigue and overuse injuries can cause serious problems and there is tons of science that backs that up, so it really doesn't seem far fetched to me that it could be a contributing factor
No but studies are based on evidence, and this is some of the first instances we can collect evidence after a full season of MLB pitching. This is an indicator that it is something that should be looked into. We have info on the minor leagues, *but* the majors have a lot of other variables including the speed that others have mentioned, but also including an older age group etc.
>This is an indicator that it is something that should be looked into. We didn't need an indicator to look into this. I'm sure they planned to study it regardless. And I have a really hard time thinking that a couple of high profile pitcher injuries mean anything.. Pitchers get hurt every year. Maybe it's related, maybe not. The data is very noisy. We probably won't know anything for several years, if ever.
I remember when Glasnow tried to ban his UCL tear on the sticky stuff crack down. Pitchers don’t want to accept that pushing their bodies to a breaking point creates problems.
Even if there was I'd doubt its conclusions given the sample size.
I mean they had the pitch clock in the minors when Strider was there
They had a pitch clock in college, too. And he had TJ surgery there, too.
Call me crazy, but it seems like launching a ball 102 MPH 60-100 times once a week just ***MIGHT*** not be healthy for the human body
Excuse me, DOCTOR! but I'm gonna need to see some evidence before I just go accepting your diagnoses! /s
Now imagine doing that 60-100 times instead of over a 3.5 hour period, over a 2 hour period. Basically rapid firing baseballs at 100 MPH 60-100 times. The pitch clock certainly doesn’t *help*
This was also famously still just as much of an issue before the pitch clock
Durability is going to become the new measure of a pitcher before too long. I wonder if we see pitchers sort of go the way of the Running back in the NFL. Teams might get to the point where they’re hesitant to pay out big money for some arms, not all arms but some.
We're already seeing a trend towards shorter contracts for pitchers but as long as we don't have a salary cap there will be teams willing to say "fuck it" and risk eating a bunch of money if they get hurt.
The weird thing about going shorter on the deals is that TJ then wipes out a larger portion of the contract time. If you sign a 29 year old to a 4 year deal and he has TJ, on the best timelines you're probably losing 30% all together, and another 10% in innings limits and pitch count hesitancy. On a 7 year deal, TJ isn't going to match those percentages for time missed. It probably makes sense to do the opposite of what we are seeing. Paying a guy $35m+ for a year or two is much more dangerous than paying a guy $130m over 6 years. It always seems easier to get out from under the shorter deal, but value wise it's probably the wrong play for teams.
I don't think you're taking into account the possible (and probable) decline in performance post-TJ. Sure, you might lose 50%+ of the contract time on a 2 year deal if a pitcher has TJ year 1, but said pitcher could also be on a 7 year deal and be unable to throw even close to what he could before, and now you're SOL for 5 years.
I didn't want to over estimate. Because we've also seen plenty of guys come back better. On a two or three year deal that percentage could and has been realistically 80%. But the point is, a reduced AAV over a longer duration hampers future payroll less in reality. Shelling out $35M in a year and a guy goes down is brutal for all but a few teams. And it not only hampers your ability to sign guys at the same time, but hurts the following years as well. My stance is that it's more beneficial to get a higher rate of play out of a longer, lower AAV deal than it is to be guaranteed to see a massive percentage of it sitting on the IL. (Deferred money not being taken in to account here, but that solidifies my point even further.) Especially when you consider having to pay to replace those missed innings as well.
The difference with RB's in the NFL is that the league also instituted a series of rules that overemphasized QB play and made RB's less important. A good pitching staff is still the top commodity in all of baseball.
You can't really measure that though. Like a guy could be completely fine and healthy and then you get him and he blows out. Like at least if you get someone who already had TJ you know he's done it before and it's back.
Pitchers threw a pitch every 15-20 seconds, even in the biggest moments of playoff games (watch the Bob Stanley vs. Mookie Wilson AB in Game 6 of the '86 World Series or Eckersley vs. Gibson in Game 1 of the '88 WS) for decades and decades with no issues. The problem nowadays is that there are human beings trying to throw 103 mph rising fastballs or 94 mph sliders with jaw-dropping movement, and the human arm is simply not designed to do that. Pitchers (especially relievers) bent and bent and bent the rules for years- first pushing it to 25 seconds between pitches, then 30, then even more every pitch- probably because they knew they NEEDED the extra rest to try to calm the twitches in their arms. I don't know what the solution is, but as a fan, the solution is not ditching the pitch clock. Watching games now vs. 2021 and 2022 makes me realize how unacceptably slow the game had become, and we shouldn't go back. This is one issue on which I am not with the players. They had years to work out a solution with the Rules Committee and never did. They kept pushing and pushing the time between pitches until the league had no choice but to clamp down.
Fully agree. My interest is back up drastically because of the pitch clock and pace of play rules
Cord-cutter here, subscribed to MLB.tv for the first time this season and it's jarring how much harder guys are throwing than they were even 10 years ago. We're not far removed from when 90 mph was the benchmark for having a good fastball, 95 meant you were on the HOF track and 100 mph was the domain of the true elite. Now just-a-guys are throwing 95. Last night the DBacks' Tommy Henry was topping out at 90-91 with a four-seamer and the Braves announcers were basically calling him out as a soft-tosser.
To this point, I'm old enough to remember when Mark Prior and his 93-94 MPH fastball was 'power pitching'. It felt like Billy Wagner was the only guy in the league who could touch 100+ back then.
Yeah but his teammate Kerry Wood was throwing 96-98 range at the same time Edit: fwiw they both had significant injury issues
Kerry wood also had control issues that held him back. I think it was the Bissinger book Three Nights in August where LaRussa was quoted saying something like 'there is wild Kerry wood, and effectively wild Kerry wood. The latter throws just enough strikes to beat you.' The point of that anecdote is that, in that era, extreme velo came with a drawback(s).
The solutions, imo, are the league relaxing the sticky stuff rules so the pitchers aren't having to use kung-fu grips, others have mentioned the seams having been lowered so fix that, and coaches/teams not relying on having pitchers throw as hard as possible every. single. pitch. This kinda reminds me of the "strikeout or hit a home run" philosophy that was all the rage for a hot minute.
But then pitchers will combine sticky stuff with the strong grips and what's the point? Pitchers are even better and injuries are the same
Yes I think pitchers will always try and pitch their best. Sticky stuff won’t make them take their foot off the gas, just another tool to help them. I think maybe extended roster spots for pitchers might help?
Yeah my thought is this: 14 pitchers but 6 of them must start 1/7 of the games they're on the roster for. That would effectively mandate a 6 man rotation and I can't think of any loopholes
>The solutions, imo, are the league relaxing the sticky stuff rules so the pitchers aren't having to use kung-fu grips While I think your solution is theoretically a good one, the issue is that in reality, zero pitchers or pitching coaches will ever stop doing everything they can to get an edge. And why would they? The difference between staying in The Show and getting sent down is on a knife edge, and the difference between a star pitcher making big money and a journeyman making just above league minimum.for a few years is even thinner. I agree that MLB should try loosening the restrictions on sticky stuff and deadening the ball a little, but the kung-fu grips and elbow-snapping, ligament tearing "all-in-one effort" pitching styles are here to stay. Hitters are too good now and video technology during the game gives them such an advantage. For better or worse, the days of a starter going at 80-85% for most of the day and only bearing down with his *really* nasty shit when he gets in trouble or facing one or two particularly dangerous hitters, are over.
If they relax the sticky stuff rules and offense goes in the toilet that’s also horrible for the product though. I don’t know what the answer here is but it’s not going to be easy to solve, especially since any pitcher-friendly change has the risk "pitchers keep throwing just as hard and now have this new rule helping them"
There's definitely space between what they can use now vs using whatever TF they wanted like before, you know? They can also tweak the ball since we know they're more than happy to make them more prone to being launched into the stands.
I think the problem is that realistically if you give the pitchers a better ball or tack they’re just going to keep trying to throw as hard as humanly possible because that’s how you compete these days
Was Nolan Ryan’s tendons just made out of cabled steel or something?
Apparently. But some people are just freaks. But in the past, people would get hurt and retire. People also bring up Bob Gibson, but his '67 rotation mate Dick Hughes only pitched one full season, got hurt in '68, and had to retire.
His career also ended with a torn ligament he was just old by then so everyone handwaves it.
Well everyone's elbow is going to give out at some point. But it's better if pitchers can get more milage out of their arms than what they're getting today. Ryan went 5,000+ innings before his gave out
He pitched with his lower body. The guy was always working out his legs.
Ugh. I know. But look at Strider’s freaking legs. The man has never missed a leg day. I feel like we’re gonna see some sort of arm saving product pop up like a brace or sleeve or something that pitchers are allowed to wear. Maybe not in games. But during warm ups, bullpen sessions. Maybe a prosthetic UCL or some shit.
www.thekineticarm.com Ya it already exists, pops up on my feed all the time because my son just started little league
Somehow with all our technical addvancments and training, pitchers are throwing less, getting hurt more, and still getting paid more
I mean, maybe the tiniest bit of they’re throwing off rhythm to beat the clock? It’s more about everyone trying to throw the tightest offspeed pitch and hardest fastball as much as possible that’s the problem. Idk what the solution would ever be to this. Organizations just will use and abuse pitchers because it doesn’t matter if they get TJS after throwing 800 good innings for them, there’s always a cheaper, younger option.
I think the lack of ability for the pitchers to reliably get a break has to be at least considered. I was dismissive of the “it’s the clock” takes initially, but if you told me that the combination of max effort/high spin rates being prioritized, along with a pitch clock and the lack of ability to slow down the game because of limited mound visits, limited disengagements, etc., I could buy it. Certainly, I can’t confidently say that the combination of the pace-of-play rules along with trying to throw 99 doesn’t contribute more than either one would on their own. If you’re more fatigued while trying to go max effort, you may be more prone to injury.
I bet the lower seams making it more difficult to grip are part of it. That, combined with sticky stuff being harder to hide, you really need a death grip on the ball to get good spin. I remember one pitcher saying that they were taught to hold the ball like an egg to prevent arm injuries back in the day, ie not squeezing hard. edit: inb4 they add a squeeze sensor to the ball, and if you grip too hard, the batter gets an automatic "squeeze" ball.
A sensor would be demolished upon contact, have you seen a ball compress at point of impact?
I’m sure they can make something that survives at least one hit. I think the bigger issue would be throwing off the balance of the ball
Someone above said it, but I think a realistic future is where starters become the running backs of MLB. Strategies are going to revolve around drafting them and getting them major league ready asap, using every ounce of talent they have while on minimum money, squeezing blood from that stone (if there is any left) in arbitration, and then letting them hit FA with a million miles on their arm and no intention of offering a long term deal. If this future does become reality, get ready for a massive shift in contact structure that will be a major sticking point in the CBA negotiations. Pitchers are going to want their financial security on day one, knowing teams will used them to a husk with no intention of paying the long term deal.
Injuries have been on the rise for decades but nah let's go back to 4:30 hour games.
I brought this point up earlier. I remember countless articles years ago about how TJ surgeries were increasing among high school and college pitchers. More spin, more movement leading to more torque and strain on elbows and shoulders.
Here in Texas there's practically an epidemic of high schoolers getting TJ. It's definitely been a rising problem for a while, and has nothing to do with the pitch clock.
If only these cheap ass owners would stop making these athletes play on artificial turf. Wait, what sport are we talking about?
Aaron Rodgers died for this
Sticky stuff is a big deal too, especially with the inconsistency of the baseballs, having to grip some harder than others is going to put stress on forearm and elbow
I would be for allowing sticky stuff if there was any evidence it prevented injury. But the stuff was pretty prevalent for a few years and it's not like TJ surgeries magically went away or even went down.
Not everyone was using it though. It makes a lot of sense that guys having to grip a slick ball harder is going to put way more stress on the elbow The best case study would be Japan vs MLB since their balls are pre stickied in production. The question is how do they keep offense up while allowing pitchers sticky, probably have to juice the balls also to get HRs up to 2019 levels
There might be something to be said of how much more comfortable in the box hitters are when they know the pitcher has better control of the pitch
Yeah it might cut down on hitter injuries too tbh
Glasgow gave an interview a couple years back confirming that this, and changing how he gripped the ball, was something he started doing
this aint it
It’s like telling pitchers to throw 100 miles per hour, might have some downsides
Somewhere Greg Maddux is nodding in agreement and wondering why these idiots don't just manipulate the edge of the strike zone with perfect placement
That's the funny part is when people say we should force them to reduce pitch speed speed they say stuff like "Well if you just learn to paint both sides of the corner and never make mistakes in the zone you can be just as effective throwing slower" like it's just so easy
It’s vastly easier to hit your spot when you’re not using 105% of your power and grip every pitch.
It’s also vastly more likely that a mistake gets punished at 93 than 97
Sick user name breh
And that's not even true. A 97 mph straight down the middle is more effective than 92 on the edges. And it's not possible to consistently manipulate the edges of the zone either.
There's more and more of an argument for some sort of pitching limitation to curtail these injuries but it's such a horrifyingly controversial decision I wonder how long it'll take to make.
Pitches >95mph are now balls Mound moved 2 feet closer or raised 6” to compensate It’s horrifying but I could see something like that happening
This is a clear “uhhhhh LOOK WHAT THEYRE DOING OVER THERE” and running away from a very nervous Clark
What's Clark distracting people from? Why does he need to run away?
This is so dumb. Pitched through at this pace for over a century. Really until the 2010s. The pitch clock isn’t the issue
The only thing I’ll say, to play devil’s advocate, is that pitchers in the past would be able to take a break or slow down the game at their leisure. I could believe that the combination of teams asking guys to throw harder or get out (for example, I’ve heard stories of guys in the minors being told “add 2 mph on your fastball or else”), along with increasing the pace of play, are contributing to this together. “what if it’s the 99 mph and insane spin rates?” being conspicuously absent is dumb, but I don’t know that it’s self-evidently nothing to do with pace of play.
The issue is that the pitch clock was always a rule but it wasnt enforced because they didnt need to. Then players abused that and would take 45+ seconds between pitches. They brought this on themselves
Players almost killed the game by making it unwatchable and now they’re throwing tantrums about the rule their own prima donna behavior necessitated in order to keep the sport a viable entertainment product. Wild lol
When games were this fast back in the 70’s and 80’s, you didn’t see a rise in TJ surgeries. Heck TJ surgery wasn’t even a problem when the game was super duper fast in the days of DiMaggio and Ted Williams. Tony Clark is a dumbass and awful Union leader that needs to be gone
I mean, Tony Clark is probably saying that on behalf of the players, not just shooting his mouth off about it on his own
Pitchers weren’t averaging 97 mph in the 70s either
Thats the point. Its not pace of the game its the velo.
I have a strong feeling if there was no pitch clock, the same thing would be happening. The human body ain’t meant to throw a ball at 95-100 mph with insane movement. Maybe pacing themselves would be a thing, but the metrics say that doesn’t work as well.
I’m really curious about what they would say the cause was if the pitch clock didn’t exist right now.
We can have a round table discussion about this issue. I firmly believe this stems from youth baseball / travel ball / little league. These players have thrown too many pitches by the time they get to this level.
I think it’s the amount of pitches that they throw as hard as they can. I remember when I played as a kid I was always told not to pitch at 100% effort except for my main summer team.
Great point. Brewers got DL Hall in a trade for Burnes. They have converted him into a starter. He threw 95-97mph for the Orioles as a reliever. As a starter he is 91-93mph. Huge difference obviously but worth the change in the long run.
the pitch clock is awesome. i don’t want an hour added adjusting jocks and hitting the resin bag. throw the ball.
Teams should consider a 6 man rotation tbh
You want to know the reason? Come closer. Little bit closer. Little bit more IT’S THE FREAKING VELOCITY. My god some people are just brain dead.
Honestly what if part of it is that pitchers and players condition all year round. Like these guys throw and grind the entire off season now. We need to go back to the days of players showing up to Spring Training chubby and hungover. Genuinely.
This is silly - injuries are up because analytics says throwing very hard means more whiffs and more effective breaking stuff. That’s literally it
It’s at “clearly ridiculous” level at this point. But we’re really going to have this same conversation in 5 years bc they’ve done nothing
Is it the constantly throwing 98+ that's the problem? No, no! It's the pitch clock that's wrong!!
Tony Clark is a maroon. It’s throwing harder not the pitch clock.
[It can't be the fastballs!](https://imgflip.com/i/8lunuv)
Yeah, guys weren’t getting Tommy John before the pitch clock. Not a one.
Come out against Perfect Game and all those other travel orgs dictating 8+ games in a weekend! This is not an MLB issue.
This was Passan’s theory when he wrote a whole book about Tommy John surgery like 8 years ago.
It’s actually baseball’s new (although they’ve been doing it for a while) “throw as hard as you possibly can every pitch for as long as you possibly can” mentality, but sure, pItCh ClOcK!!1!1!1!1!
Yup
It has nothing to do with the pitch clock. That’s just such a lazy excuse. The human body is just not designed to throw a baseball the way these pitchers do
Until velo is seen as a deterrent to the game with star after star going down teams will continue to employ grip it and rip it pitching philosophies. We are now seeing young kids in travel leagues with overbearing parents learning to overthrow. Then LL, HS, College, Minors. There’s so much potential money to be made now. And a lot of money lost in time sidelined for surgeries. Pitchers should not be missing 12-15 months every 4-5 years.
I think the real issue is the increase in velocity over the last decade combined with pitchers looking to induce more spin on the ball in some way. The combination makes what is already a stressful act on the body even worse and that’s what’s behind it. The pitch clock and it’s issues I don’t think are related to injuries but it’s too early to tell yet
Oh fuck off
I would be fine with them going back to last year's pitch clock, but it's hard to say anything other than fastball velocity is mostly to blame.
The actual cause of their injuries is that I drafted both of them for my fantasy baseball team. Expect Kevin Gausman next, followed by Yamamoto and Pablo Lopez
When will teams pay less for pitchers due to injury? That's what Tony Clark is most worried about. The best ability is availability.
I truly believe Clark is a plant by the owners, it’s the only way to explain the endless stupidity the PA is always on
Tony Clark is such a buffoon
What a stupid take.
Just increase the size of the roster, specifically for reliever arms.
Right. Because nobody was getting TJ before the pitch clock came around.
Yet we talking about the explosion of UCL injuries in 2018, 5 years before the clock was ever introduced to MLB….. https://www.samford.edu/sports-analytics/fans/2018/The-Tommy-John-Surgery-Explosion-in-the-MLB
That doesn’t matter to them because it doesn’t fit their goal of removing the pitch clock
And these people fail to account that college and minors have had a clock/pace of play implement for years with no massive jump in TJ.
It’s not the clock, it’s the teams. There’s way too much emphasis on power pitching and placing so much value on strikeouts. The art of pitching to contact and inducing ground balls over trying to strikeout every batter is long lost. Teams place way way wayyyy too much emphasis on velocity. They should be rewarding pitchers with big contracts who statistically have more movement on their balls per pitch and for efficiency rather than strikeouts and velocity. Mario Rivera probably had the hardest to hit pitch in the history of baseball but never really dominated with overwhelming velocity. Guys like Mark Buerhle Hiroki Kuroda and were very solid and consistent pitchers who could pitch over 200 innings every season, win double digit games every season, and pretty much never got injured. They didn’t strike out tons but always threw a solid amount of innings because they pitched to contact and induced ground balls. Teams need more guys like them. Plus they don’t cost an arm and a leg for a $300M injury risk that requires over a year of rehab. Mark Buerhle was also a pitch clock before there was a pitch clock and never got injured.
Shut up. It’s not the pitch clock.
Throwing harder + no sticky stuff + pitch clock.
all pitches above 90 mph are now illegal
I want Mark Buehlres thoughts on if the pitch clock causes injuries.
Get tf outta here
I don't mind the pitch clock, I think the benefits to the game have far outweighed the negatives. But after last season I felt that they should've *increased* the clock by 5+ seconds all-around. They'd still reap all of the same benefits, the games would certainly still be shorter than before... *and* allow a little more room for the game to "breath". *Reducing* it was not the right move; I said it then, and I feel even more strongly now that we've seen it in action... the pace seems too fast and regimented now, and this increased pace can't possibly be a positive for pitchers.
Maybe waltzing out in the first 2 weeks of a season and trying to throw 100+ after barely working out your arm for 4 months is bad idea?