MLB in TROUBLE? Why Jeff Passan is CONCERNED About Pitching Injuries in Baseball.

Kyle bradish is a guy that's dealing with a UCL injury then we're looking at Spencer strider's done Perez is done Bieber's done you got Garrett Cole that is you know who knows the timeline there and you talked about it in the article and you've been very diligent on this over the years training has changed rules have changed but it doesn't seem like this is ultimately moving the best way for these pitchers and the sport of baseball long term no it's it's really problematic and like this you know for me this issue personally goes back more than a decade now I was it was 2012 I think it was right around July or so and I had talked with some people in the Orioles at the time among them like the way that they were babying their pitchers in the minor leagues it was Dylan Bundy uh with the Orioles at the time and you know he had thrown a hundred I believe 1 70 something pitches in a high school game and so of course o were like taking a lot of caution with him but in addition to that the the Blue Jays at the time had uh Noah syndergaard Aaron Sanchez and Justin nicolino and I asked Alex anthopoulos who was running the Blue Jays like why are you doing this like why are you limiting them to you know one two innings at a time how are you going to build them up to be big league starters guys who ostens ibly should be going seven eight n Innings if they're going only one or two innings in their formative years and his answer was really telling to me and and really honest and I appreciate it in hindsight because he said I don't know and and he didn't say it like to be Flip or to you know to sound ignorant he actually didn't know what the answer was and I think it's a very human thing that when you see somebody getting injured doing something you believe that doing less of it is going to get them injured less frequently as we've seen that is decidedly not the case because guys are going shorter than ever in their starts and they're getting hurt more than ever now and what the actual cause of that is I wish I had the answer to I spent four years four years trying to answer that question for my book and it was it was the part where I look back now on not just that time spent but like the the finished product itself and I'm really proud of a lot of it and I think you know a lot of it holds up still eight years later but I was at that point and I'm still now dissatisfied that I never came to a conclusion on what exactly it is like did I not look into it deep enough did I not do enough research did I not talk with the right people I I think the answer is there's really not a Panacea out there there's not something that's going to keep all guys healthy but what I think we have learned is that throwing extraordinarily hard is in almost all cases going to wind up with your owner collateral ligament shredded and maybe it takes a little while longer with some guys you know Justin Verlander lasted until past his 40th birthday um but most like most it's gonna happen pretty early and Strider if he needs another Tommy John that'll be his second by the time he's 25 years old I I look at Grayson Rodriguez is right now I worry about him because when you look at the guys who are top 10 top 15 top 20 in average fastball velocity over the last four or five seasons it's like 70% of them have needed Tommy John and Rodriguez is on that list and so you know the like like the part that to me I can't fathom is knowing you are so good at something that it's going to harm you yeah like how do you go out there as a pitcher every time and go and execute the way that you've been taught to while understanding that that very execution could ultimately lead to your demise it's a ridiculous conceit and and it puts pitchers in such an enormously bad position that that's why I think everybody needs to be involved in this it needs to be players it needs to be the league it needs to be youth organizations it needs to be everyone at all levels of baseball trying to understand the arm better and trying to if not entirely solve this problem then at least address it in a meaningful way yeah you know and I um you know it's it is crazy when you think about it that way because it the ticking Time Bomb reference has been the new theme now Tommy John as you know Jeff and you've mentioned it Tommy John surgery is not the end all that it was or the situation it was decades ago when you had a UCL injury it was your career possibly done but the problem is and you you've mentioned it before I've seen if you have one Tommy John then you have to have another and then there's another complication yes you could bounce back but it further could harm you and it doesn't mean that you're going to get back to that point another example and just a last followup but the year I got drafted and signed I think it was 2014 the Marlins had a pitcher named Tyler KCK that was throwing 100 I remember you remember him K two overall pick number two overall pick and Tyler Kik never got out I think a double A but I if I'm not mistaken I think he had arm issues but the point where I was going to and same with the bundies guys are throwing even harder at a younger age more stress more strain so I guess in this case when we're looking at it I guess the last thing I'll ask with this followup of it with baseball with how it is and people are saying the pitch clock issues you've seen in the reports there's nothing out there like you said that's saying that the game's changed in but at what point are they going to have to try to change the philosophy or or are we already pass that point of saying hey we're going to have to change it because short term we might get wins today but long term these guys might not be able to go for longer careers that we're hoping for so I'll try and hit all the points and my memory is not what it used to be but I will start here the greatest predictor of a future arm injury is a past arm injury if you have gotten hurt in the past you are far likelier to get hurt in the future which is the scary part of all this right that you know these guys who are getting injured right now it's generally not just a one-time thing and and we look at Tommy John surgery as as something of uh a miracle surgery because it is it's been almost too successful I never thought I would say that about a medical procedure but it's so good at getting guys to return and a lot of them to return to their previous level that you know Scott Boris when I was reporting the book said it's a right of passage now and uh that's up yeah like really um that that you have to have major reconstructive surgery as part of your job is is like is that something that should be written into the script for players careers no but the problem is the more numbers that we've gotten the more this has been validated that when you throw harder you succeed more and so the incentive structure is there at every level for pitchers to try and throw harder it's there in high school because they know that they are going to get recruited if they hit 90 miles per hour right like if you if you throw 90 you will play college balls somewhere may not be high you know High major D1 but it will be somewhere and you'll be able to play at another level uh then the draft comes along and if you're throwing 95 you're probably going to get drafted somewhere you know if you can get the ball anywhere near the plate chances are good that you're going to get drafted and then if you're in the minor leagues if you're up to 98 all of a sudden you know there're going to be a lot of people who look to to promote you because if you're hitting 98 well you can probably hit 100 at some point if you're hitting 100 you're almost always going to make the big leagues and so it's there every step along the way I I see it I see it personally because I have a 16-year-old who's a pitcher guess what he wants to throw harder and and part of me is like like hey let's work on command like let's let's see if you let's see if you can dot a fastball on both Corners in all four quadrants and you know when we put your nine pocket out there I say upper left lower middle and and you can throw it in there like let's do that but it it's not that he's looking for shortcuts it's that he reads the room yeah and and he understands that even if he dots his fast ball and that makes him a really effective High School pitcher when it comes to uh to colleges that are are looking for guys maybe they're going to look at the high school numbers maybe they'll look at your erra your your strikeout to walk how many home runs you give up you know things like that but more than anything a lot of that as a function of the teammates who are surrounding you and uh the radar gun is as objective as it can get and and when the radar gun says something and that something aligns with what you're looking for in pictures a as it does in so many cases with college coaches who are who are trying to recruit if you want to play college ball you throw harder it's the easiest path toward it and you know I'm not like I'm not saying that going down the easiest path is the right thing to do necessarily but it's the path that most are going to take

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Id: gMCCC10b5uY

Length: 10min 5sec (605 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 09 2024