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

https://www.wsj.com/sports/baseball/mini-bombs-pitching-elbow-injuries-ohtani-degrom-4aa32bfa

by megacorp • 3 years ago

24 49 3 years ago

Etheryte2• 3 years ago

I mean, if you look at a slow-mo of any pro pitching, you'll have no questions why their elbows are getting messed up. While the speeds they achieve are an impressive feat, the amount of torque and the way it applies to the elbow is just insane. Everyone familiar with ballet for example knows that the dancers slowly but surely destroy their bodies for their art. The question we need to ask is if we want baseball to be the same way.

eptcyka• 3 years ago

This is almost universally true for any professional sport. Ultimately, it's personal preference, and the people at the top are committed to fighting to get to the top anyway.

contravariant2• 3 years ago

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

jghn2• 3 years ago

Sometimes my arm hurts just replicating some of their pitches in slow motion. I have a long held belief that the most talented pitchers of all time never made it to pro ball for exactly this reason. A less commonly acknowledged attribute is being enough of a genetic freak that one's arm doesn't slag out.

Ekaros• 3 years ago

Or could it be that part of talent as sportsman is to have genes/body that is at extreme of the curve. There is talent to be able to throw one ball, but entirely an other talent to be able to keep throwing nearly as good balls. And later has much more value in professional setting.

Loughla3• 3 years ago

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 these leagues (and it will because why not treat 6 year olds like they're pro-players so the dads can live out some weird fantasy) we will see more and more youth with injuries.

willcipriano6• 3 years ago

We have this weird system where if you aren't good enough to become a doctor purely on academics we will also consider how good you are at baseball. It's quite insane on its face but it's how lots of midwits end up with "advanced" degrees. Those dad's are probably trying to make that happen.

Loughla3• 3 years ago

I'm very confused by your statements. Maybe it's too early but I legitimately don't understand what you said. Can you please explain a little?

smcl2• 3 years ago

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

SkipperCat• 3 years ago

Do advanced programs give athletic scholarships? I've never heard of a master's program offering that nor have I ever seen Yale Medical School's baseball team.

BoxFour2• 3 years ago

we have this weird system where if you aren’t good enough to become a doctor purely on academics we will also consider how good you are at baseball

This is not how any of it works. At all.

soared• 3 years ago

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 coaches, but those coaches will be extreme regardless.

Loughla3• 3 years ago

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.

iambateman• 3 years ago

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.

gibspaulding• 3 years ago

Does anyone know of any studies on the long term health of children who go through programs like this? I see this sentiment a lot, and can even think of annecdotes of people this describes in my own life, but haven't seen much attempt at quantifying it.

A quick search is just showing studies on sports participation and children's health while they are still children (which seems to be resoundingly positive).

cornholio• 3 years ago

I don't know how you would even approach that due to the huge selection bias.

Any kind of relevant metric, such as future injury of health, academic success in a non-sports-scolarship program, future propensity to crime etc etc. are strongly influenced if you simply are the kind of person that is likely to enroll into sports.

slibhb• 3 years ago

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.

walthamstow• 3 years ago

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 41yo and still playing, though he bowls closer to the 82-85mph mark.

sbelskie• 3 years ago

It is new and was introduced this season.

mkagenius• 3 years ago

In a similar vein, wicket keepers have messed up bent fingers keeping for fast bowlers. At least MS Dhoni has this.

_fat_santa• 3 years ago

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 age of players getting the "Tommy John" surgery (UCL / Elbow Reconstruction) is going down. Before they said it would be rare to see a player in the MLB get the surgery, now they said even players at the high school level are getting it done.

[1] https://www.mlb.com/glossary/rules/pitch-timer

interestica• 3 years ago

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.

elijaht3• 3 years ago

Not to get too nitpicky, but the pitch clock actually came into effect in the majors in February 2023 (spring training) or March 2023 (regular season). It debuted much earlier in minor (2015), fall (2014), and college (2010) leagues.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_clock

elijaht3• 3 years ago

This has really impacted my enjoyment of baseball. It feels really hard to get invested in a pitcher when you know there is a large chance he’s just gone for a year+. Not sure what the solution is here

threetonesun2• 3 years ago

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.

antasvara• 3 years ago

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.

nemo44x• 3 years ago

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.

BoxFour2• 3 years ago

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.

Aardwolf• 3 years ago

I can't see the article... But all I can think of is the south park episode with the exploding basketball player knees

tokai• 3 years ago

How much is misuse of steroids contributing? With how dirty a sport baseball is, it seems pointless if consequences of doping on injuries is not included in this discussion.

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

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