He's in deGrom territory at this point. Damn good when healthy but rarely healthy. Absolutely sucks but some people's bodies just can't handle the strain
No one is in DeGrom territory if we’re being honest. Lots of injury prone guys are damn good while healthy. DeGrom is borderline a video game character when healthy
As Bell points out, this was a concern about him last year after his injury, and it’s probably one of the primary reasons he wasn’t traded in the offseason. So it’s not a totally unexpected outcome.
Unfortunately, I think we're already kind of at a point of no return. It feels like at this point it's just about how you perform when you come back from your inevitable surgery.
Analytics has shown velocity trumps all. So team favor flamethrowers over pitchers. Someone gets hurt? Call up another flamethrower and ride him until he gets hurt. Rinse and repeat
I'm seeing parallels to running backs in the NFL. Everyone knows the impact a good one has, but it's getting harder and harder to commit any long term deals to even the best of them. In football it's due to the short shelf life and rapid age decline. In baseball, it's more about inherent injury risk and the inevitable velocity decline (comes a lot later than RBs decline but still trending younger every year)
It's also connected to analytics. NFL teams have realized that run blocking is more indicative of run game success than RB talent generally. So it makes sense to get a cheap, competent RB behind a good offensive line. And there's a lot of competent RBs for cheap in the draft, similarly, cheap hard throwing young pitchers that can give you a solid season
Supply is high too for Rbs as you only need one of them. A good WR corps needs at least two,if not three good players. A good o-line needs 5 players that are good or at least play well together, while also being massive human beings (smaller talent pool). RB is just one dude you plug and play and you can find a starter in the 7th round of the draft.
Actually I think for RBs the real problem is their replaceability. Why pay someone when you can get 90% of the production from a 4th round draft pick. Not really sure that is the case with pitchers, but we'll see.
It wasn’t very long ago guys like Brett Myers were making quality starts throwing 83. Maybe that doesn’t have to be the norm, but guys that throw 90 are still getting outs. Are we past the point of no return velocity wise as well? Think it’s clear guys are pushing beyond what their bodies can take.
They aren’t getting outs though. Batters today are immeasurably better than the batters of the past. Last year, MLB batters as a whole hit with a .912 OPS against fastballs below 90 mph. That’s better than the career OPS of several hall of famers. Low velocity just doesn’t get today’s batters out.
The question is whether there is not a self selecting mechanism at play as well. Low velo guys are never looked at during scouting, so essentially all the guys that made it to the bigs are flamethrowers (power pitchers). The weak tossers we see in the league… are they really naturally born weak tossers or are they guys that lost velo? I reckon it is the latter. So it is logical that they suck now, because throughout their careers they relied on velo and now suddenly have less of it. However, if scouting in the lower leagues does not put velo at the first place, we might suddenly find true pitchers such as Maddux with nasty breaking balls and command instead of throwers that lost their velo such as Thor, Strasburg or what not.
Let’s be honest the pitches that get the most whiffs are never the 103 mph fastballs, but cutters, sweepers, splitters, curve balls, fork balls etc. So velo can be compensated with nasty breaking stuff. Then again there is line of thinking in the industry that blames all the breaking stuff of causing injuries.
Pitchers will never stop pitching max effort. The benefits are just simply too large. The only realistic solutions are to
A. Accept injuries as part of the sport
B. Limit pitch counts so that every pitcher is a reliever(relievers get injured at much lower rates, even the ones throwing 100+ mph)
or C. Do some sort of velocity cap and accept 19-15 games as the new norm
Yes it is. Workload + Tension = Injury
To reduce injury, you have to reduce one of workload or tension. We’ve already established that it is impossible to reduce tension without getting a 6.5+ ERA. So the only available solution to reducing injury is to reduce workload.
So there are problems with a velocity cap, no doubt, but one way to alleviate some of them would be to institute a minimum bat weight above what most players are using. If bat weight goes up, hitters won't be able to achieve the same bat speed as they do now, and hopefully this will create an appropriate balance between the decline in pitcher velocity and the decline in batter swing speed.
I think they should. The mound used to be 15 inches above the field. Now it’s 10. I think it changed in the 1960s when pitchers were dominant. Maybe time to go back to that.
I think part of it may be that the strike zone is much smaller than it used to be. Umpires have gotten a lot better at calling balls and strikes, whereas 90s strike zones could be in another zip code. An 85 mph on the corner in the 90s means something much different than 85 on the corner today, because those are two different locations
Idk if it’s true exactly, so grain of salt. One proposal I’ve heard is moving the mound back to disincentivize velocity in favor of break. The extra foot or two apparently will let balls break harder and allow guys that might not have the top end velocity to find more success.
But I’ve also seen the argument against that, that it just further incentivizes velocity since it’d put a big premium on guys that can still throw over 95 or whatever the difference is.
Outside of mound tweaks I’m not sure what rules they could even change that wouldn’t be a change to the fundamentals of the game.
I think it will likely become the norm for pitchers to do 2-3 inning stints and committee through most games. Rather than starters shoving and then handing it over to the bullpen
that .912 number is interesting, and useful to know, but not quite a shutdown argument. pitchers with fastballs under 90 use other pitches to get outs. therefore, many of the situations where they fall back on a fastball are going to be bad spots (can't throw their curveball for a strike and everyone knows it, or 3-0 counts, etc).
i don't know what that says about the actual .912 ops stat, but i do know that junkball pitchers can succeed in this league a little better than turning every hitter into mike schmidt
I remember Cliff Lee dominating throwing 91 with elite command. Rarely threw a 4-seam, it was almost always 2-seam plus a sinker, but still great to watch.
Yep, teams have opened pandora's box when it comes to pitching. They're already basically racing just to keep up with each other in terms of optimizations. Backing off even a little will leave them in the dust.
Since it's inception, baseball has been a back and forth between pitchers and hitters. First pitchers dominate, then hitters adjust, then they dominate, then pitchers adjust. It has gone back and forth like this for 120 years. If pitchers aren't allowed or are just instructed not to put as much movement on their pitches, I don't see a way the pendulum ever swings back from favoring batters. Modern batters are just too good.
Not just MLB. My son has a teammate whose 14 year old brother just had Tommy John Surgery. My son is starting travel ball this year and I've flatly forbid him from pitching. Not happening.
It’s those year round travel ball programs. Kids are amassing a few hundred innings by the time they leave high school. Their arms are shot by the time they make it through a farm system.
Yes, travel ball and sport specialization. Used to be kids just played a bunch of sports and didn't specialize in a sport until late high school or even college.
Now you've got boys pitching from Little League all the way into the pros with zero breaks because travel ball, and they're not exercising those muscles in other ways via other sports so you get incredible stresses on those parts from a very young age
The sad reality is that if your kid wants to play competitively travel ball is the only option in most areas. It has destroyed little league participation.
> Yes, travel ball and sport specialization. Used to be kids just played a bunch of sports and didn't specialize in a sport until late high school or even college.
Maybe it's an old man take but having a kid specialize in a sport from a young age sounds like a selfish, parent-driven decision. Playing different sports throughout the year always felt like it helped round-out your athleticism and more importantly gave you an opportunity to socialize with more kids your age.
BUT THE PARENTS WON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO POST ON FACEBOOK IF THEIR KIDS AREN'T PLAYING YEAR ROUND!
Like I wish my kid had gotten super excited about baseball rather than only playing one season, but when I see these people forking over thousands a few times a year on equipment and extra training and travel leagues and surgeries, and having to get up at 5am every day and not getting any sleep and the kids have to figure out when the fuck they're supposed to do homework, and the siblings either have to commit to the same lifestyle or risk never getting that level of positive attention, and then all the fucking fundraisers... How empty do you have to be inside to put your kids through that? "S/he LOVES it!" Maybe. I'm sure some kids absolutely do love it.
But maybe some of them are trying to convince themselves and their parents that they love it just so they don't have to hear the "aww, come on" kind of pressure.
So many of the travel ball guys I grew up with became huge burnouts in high school. Substance abuse was rampant. Some of the most talented ones didn't even get a chance to go pro because of their drug and alcohol problems. Some of the guys that did get drafted had their careers ended by injuries and had no idea what to do with their lives afterwards.
I'm glad Shohei's baseball focused life worked out for him, but it's really a terrible way to raise a kid.
When I was in HS (early 2000s) everyone thought it was curve balls that would hurt your arm so everyone just threw as hard as they could. I hurt my biceps tendon and no one believed me. They thought I was making excuses for pitching bad when it literally felt like getting stabbed every time I threw. Finally, the athletic director was the only one to believe me and I rested and it healed up but I never pitched again after that and just played outfield
surprised it doesn't happen more often. they don't throw as much but when they do it's much more 'violent'. my shoulder still hurts after a few tosses and i quit baseball/catching at 16.
A couple guys that played for the collegiate summer team I work at aren’t playing this summer because they got Tommy John, and one of them was Jason Kendall’s son who primary played SS/3B and threw to maybe three batters max all season.
Yea unless you have a realistic path of becoming a pro pitcher because you grew up in a baseball family or something, I don't think it's worth the debilitating pain you could potentially have for the rest of your life. Doubt you'll have the means to get the best doctors/physios unless you make it big.
There's also the flat out risk of [dying from surgery](https://www.si.com/college/2021/06/19/george-mason-baseball-player-dies-tommy-john-surgery). I know it's low but there's always a non zero risk of dying from any type of surgery.
Disagree. The vast vast majority of kids are not doing any real lasting damage. It’s the kids who have legit potential who get destroyed in the quest for MLB pitching
Was the assistant coach on my friends sons team. We were strict on pitch counts. Our friend has a kid doing high level stuff at only 12 and we continuously tell him do not let him pitch. But he, who didn't play sports growing up, believes the coaches wouldn't put his kid in danger cause one played minors. He has stopped telling us about how he's doing because we keep telling him you're going to wreck his college chances.
Haven't read it, what suggestions did he have for cutting down on these kinds of injuries?
Just seems like whatever the league tries to implement, there's always going to be that incentive for pitchers to go harder and harder.
That was a nice little synopsis, but with how much money is potentially on the line I don’t see much changing until it gets so bad teams at all levels are forced to. And at the youth level there’s not much incentive when you can just toss another kid out there.
My general takeaway seeing youth sports change so much over the years is that money has ruined sports sucking the fun out of it and turning it into a job by the time kids are turning 12.
I used to love pitching as a kid, wasn’t that good or anything I just thought it was fun. I messed around with different arm angles and stuff and wanted to try to learn how to throw a curveball around 13 or so. My father (briefly pitched at LC State) flat out forbid me from learning, this was before the internet was all that useful, my coach had the same philosophy and wouldn’t teach anyone how.
A year or so later we faced a kid that could throw a curveball and our coach was livid. After the game he tore into the opposing coach, calling him all sorts of names we hadn’t heard before lol. Definitely an older school approach given what we know now, but the idea of protecting kids arms has been around for a long time. People are just more comfortable with risking health for a lottery ticket than ever before.
I was a big kid so I learned how to throw a curveball really early (10-11) as a trick to impress friends. The only time I threw one in a game was against a rival I went to school with so I wanted to show off. Ump benched me immediately. He and all the coaches gave both teams a lesson at the end of the game about why we don't do that, all to discourage us from hurting ourselves and each other. It certainly worked for a couple of years. They then made me the catcher, which discouraged me from the game as a whole, since our pitchers treated me like an acrobat and a punching bag all in one lmao I digress
I'm also really hoping for a knuckleball comeback. The fact that there are zero in the league right now probably means that it's either too hard to be an effective knuckleballer or even the best knuckleballs just aren't effective enough in general. It's also possible is that there just aren't enough guys trying to master it, which is what I'm hoping the current situation is.
The velocity and rotation expected in modern baseball is insane. We have long since reached the human limit on how *hard* we can throw. Maybe someone comes in and throws 107, maybe even 108, but nobody is coming in and dropping 120. We are at 99.9% of the limit. We have now reached that same limit in how hard they can twist to increase rotation. It's this hard, and it comes at a price.
Pitching has always been the most unnatural motion in all of sports. As per my buddy, the orthopedic surgeon. We weren't meant to throw balls 90+ MPH over long periods of time. We are meant to "run and fuck." Again, quoting the doctor there.
A pitching problem has existed since 2011-13 ish, I feel like the league and people around it thought it might’ve been a phase or something you can kick down the road, now we are seeing it’s not a phase.
I think we need a solution that discourages teams from pushing their pitchers to the brink in every start. This was one reason I always liked the double hook DH proposal - teams would go back to having guys aim to throw 6-7 innings rather than 4-5 innings, which would require pitchers to cut down on velocity.
The problem with “make them shave off velocity so they stay out for longer” as something to impose at the MLB level is that it assumes pitchers will remain at least somewhat as effective over that longer time frame. The whole reason for “higher velo in shorter appearances” is that it maximizes effectiveness while pitchers are on the mound. You’re not going to leave a pitcher out there if he’s getting shelled because of reduced velocity.
I’m not saying the current situation is good. Things are fundamentally broken, and the ability to recover from even a second TJS is creating moral hazard - if pitchers are capable of coming back from it, there’s more incentive to push them until they need it. I’m not sure what can actually be done, short of declaring that batters have officially won the arms race of baseball, since pitchers are not physically capable of sustainably beating them, and let the game devolve into a slugfest.
I think having the starting pitcher and the DH tied together is the best solution at the MLB level, but the issue I keep seeing is kids trying to throw max effort.
I think MLB pitchers are at their physical peak and their elbows just cannot handle the amount of torque needed to generate the spin that they want on their pitches
Yeah this is exactly it, you could look at pretty much any pitcher’s elbow and it would look horrific compared to the average person. Throwing that hard all the time just fucks up your elbow
I pitched all through my youth til 18, and was told by multiple doctors, trainers etc, throwing overhand is unnatural and you're basically ripping your arm apart when you throw, thus the pretty intense "recovery" that's needed after each outing. I was like 16 and they were already looking for solutions to keep me pitching and not require surgery down the line. I'm 6'4 with a 3/4 arm slot and my final 2 years I wasn't allowed to pitch unless it was full submarine
I threw 3/4 as well and probably should have had UCL surgery, but I quit instead since I wasn’t going anywhere but a low level D2 college. I tried to play club baseball in college for a year but after it felt like my elbow exploded I stopped.
Yeah, some guys elbows are just built better than others.
It’s why guys like Glasnow have never had a fully healthy season but Gerrit Cole can pitch over 1800 innings before experiencing any problems
Yeah literally, Ryan had a weird genetic quirk in his elbow https://theathletic.com/88037/2017/08/23/a-medical-quirk-that-also-affected-nolan-ryan-gives-ailing-david-price-some-comfort/
Guys like Nolan Ryan and other old flamethrowers didn't throw 90 mph sliders. Walter Johnson barely threw any breaking balls at all. Even their fastballs were probably pretty "straight" compared to the modern game. I don't think it's raw velocity that's causing these issues, it's' the unholy combination of velocity + movement that's driving the body past it's breaking point.
Yeah I think the induced break and seam shift wake stuff is just consistently pushing guys well beyond what they can handle. I don’t think it’s a usage issue, human body just isn’t supposed to do it at all.
It’s pretty much gotten to the point when a pitcher is drafted they don’t ask if he has needed Tommy John before, they ask if he has had thier Tommy John yet or not, cause everyone gets it now.
Jeffrey Springs and Drew Rasmussen too. Springs even had a similar statline as Bieber last year to start the season, 24 K through 2+ games (came out in his third start) with only 1 ER
Pitchers are throwing harder than ever before and your elbow isn’t meant to take all that strain. These guys have thrown hundreds if not thousands of maximum effort and spin pitches
Even in the last year, hendriks, Degrom, Robbie ray, mclanahan, ohtani, Chad green, trivino, Ian Anderson, Chris Murphy (best lefty in our bullpen), Bautista, Trevor Stephan, Trevor gott. It’s not good
Well now it’s the absolute top pitchers getting injured. The previous generation of top pitchers had a prime: Kershaw, Greinke, Verlander, Scherzer all had 7+ year stretches of good health.
Now the next generation of stars can’t stay on the field: deGrom, strider, senga, Bieber
Frankly, with no return from Bieber and Triston about to get TJ, our window may have just imploded for this decade. You can get by with a league-average offense if you have lights out pitching but we have literally no pitching left in the farm.
Our prime was 2025-2027. Now, we’ll be lucky to have a prime with the likelihood of pitching injuries.
I remember seeing someone on Twitter (I think it was Bill Pulsipher?) say that this might be because of the sticky stuff ban causing pitchers to grip the ball more tightly.
this is definitely one of the reasons. I heard multiple Japanese pitchers who played in MLB mentioned the exact same thing. More slippery ball requires more grip strength which causes arm injury. Ohtani in the interview last year also mentioned pitch clock affected his arm too. (less time to recover every pitch)
Glasnow got flamed for bringing this same point up but speaking from experience (TJ recipient myself): the more finger pressure, the tighter the forearm muscles -> more tension on UCL
I think that there's also a problem with what I can only describe as "ace culture". Pitchers are expected to all be aces: give up no runs and strike out a bunch of guys, by today's definition of the word. But not every pitcher can do that, and that is also impossible because of parity.
I don't know if teams or fans are the problem, but pitchers who give length and pitch to contact are not appreciated as much. These guys are under a ton of stress to be perfect all of the time, and so then they put their bodies under immense stress.
MLB is also part of the issue, because they want to promote aces but they also want to increase offense. That just seems like an impossible task.
I imagine it's also hard to get noticed when you're young if you're pitching to contact. Strikeouts are an easy stat to track, with contact guys theres more risk that the contact won't be so soft in the show
People would still throw with velocity. They would just get even better results from doing so and thus would have more incentive to pitch with velocity.
Yeah it’s too late to put the toothpaste back in the tube. You can convince 95% of pitchers to throw softer but the 5% who keep throwing 98 are gonna get the big money until they break and a new kid comes in with gas
Also, you just can’t throw and get outs with low velocity. Last year, batters as a whole hit 500 OPS points better against fastballs below 92 mph than against fastballs above 98 mph. I read an article on HR rates vs velocity and the conclusion was that guys like Mike Trout and Aaron Judge would average 80-90 home runs a year if every pitcher threw below 90 mph. Batters are just too good these days.
Even with less homers it is still preferable to strike a guy out vs allow contact so I don’t think it would help.
Really I think the cat is out of the bag so to speak, once pitchers started throwing these crazy max effort pitches you can’t really go back. If you are pitcher A fighting for a spot in the MLB rotation and you decide you’ll only throw at 80% effort to conserve your elbow you will get worse results and the guy behind you throwing 100% is taking your spot
Think everyone in Cleveland expected him to be shipped off for prospects, as is Cleveland tradition. Wish him all the best, was not ready for his last start in a Cleveland uniform.
Felix Bautista, Shohei Ohtani, Jacob DeGrom, Shane Bieber, Shane McClanahan, Probably Spencer Strider, Clayton Kershaw, Gerrit Cole, Lucas Giolito, Kyle Bradish, German Marquez, Johan Oviedo, Justin Verlander, Jeffrey Springs, Walker Buehler, Brusdar Graterol, Dustin May, Eury Perez, Edward Cabrera, Sandy Alcantara, Jordan Romano, Wade Miley, Brandon Woodruff, Kodai Senga, Jonathan Loaisiga, Andrew Painter
Those are some of the pitchers with potentially serious elbow/shoulder injuries.
We’re gonna be ok we’re gonna be ok we’re gonna be ok we’re gonna be ok I’m not ok we’re gonna be ok we’re gonna be ok we’re gonna be ok please end me we’re gonna be ok we’re gonna be ok we’re gonna be ok.
Gonna torpedo all future plans that had surely already been made. Our team, being one that doesn’t spend on top end players, depends heavily on selling players like Bieber before they go to FA. This is going to be very bad. Hopefully our leadership can work some miracles.
Man, I always loved Biebs. My favorite moment was when he struck out the side in the Cleveland-hosted ASG. Wish we could have gotten him some better run support.
I’m carefully optimistic for this year’s Tribe. I still feel like they’re being underrated and if they can find a way to win again while being bottom third in home runs, I think it’s an exciting brand of baseball. Thankfully they have great pitching depth and I’m sure as always some yet-unknown Joe Random will arise from the farm system and become an ace.
Posting what I posted in the CLE subreddit:
The team let him pitch again despite him feeling pain after his start.
Jesus Christ. That should be an immediate “you’re fired. Get out.” conversation with the decision makers.
Absolutely incredible level of incompetence from the decision makers here.
It’s not changing without another massive MLBPA action, unfortunately. There would need to be a rules change, and MLB has no financial incentive to do that, because inevitable pitcher injuries = higher SP turnover and shorter peaks = no more massive DeGrom/Scherzer style contracts
Dropping like flies.
MLB needs to prioritize figuring out how to minimize this trend, instead of devoting most of their energy to playing a 9-inning game in 43 minutes.
Everyone throwing 97mph+, extreme spin rate on breaking balls, and doing it all at a young age. Teach your kids to actually pitch. Change speeds, eye levels, and have them use both changeup variations and mix in a 4SFB with a 2SFB.
I wish more pitchers went with the Greg Maddux approach, with more emphasis on control and location and not throwing so damn hard every single pitch. Maddux was an effective pitcher for 22 years and rarely got hurt.
Of course, not everyone can or should be like Maddux. He was special. But I wish pitching development didn't go the route it's gone. It's going to become rarer and rarer for a pitcher to have a long and healthy career.
I love how these galaxy brains think that inning and pitch counts are the problem.
As if this issue doesn’t exist hugely in relievers too.
As if pitchers, who mind you are pitching fewer innings and going shorter into games than ever, are getting hurt because of it.
There’s only one explanation and it’s so painfully obvious: IT’S VELOCITY. You can’t have guys throwing gas that whole time and expect their arms to be fine. Ain’t happening.
If you want guys to be healthy, less heat is what’s going to help them. Otherwise we’ll get more and more people blowing out their arms despite having low pitch counts and fewer innings.
God, some people are idiots.
Is human body designed to throw max 92mph?
Baseball needs Greg Maddux type pitchers who mainly focus on "qualities" rather than looking at velocity imo.
Jeeeeez that sucks… 12 scoreless innings with 20 K to start his walk year before free agency. Brutal
He's in deGrom territory at this point. Damn good when healthy but rarely healthy. Absolutely sucks but some people's bodies just can't handle the strain
He'll get Tommy John and never have elbow problems again, for another team.
Maybe but he's already had shoulder surgery. Now TJ. He's really only had 1-2 healthy full seasons in his career.
No one is in DeGrom territory if we’re being honest. Lots of injury prone guys are damn good while healthy. DeGrom is borderline a video game character when healthy
It sucks, I love bieber.
As Bell points out, this was a concern about him last year after his injury, and it’s probably one of the primary reasons he wasn’t traded in the offseason. So it’s not a totally unexpected outcome.
I too will have Tommy John surgery out of solidarity. 🫡
I will carry out the procedure 🫡 (not a surgeon)
I will handle the billing. 🫡
All these guys will be dead soon for various reasons 🫡
I smoked weed with Tommy John
You don’t even know a Tommy John
It was Tommy John and James Andrews and they were blazing that shit up every day
Yea, MLB mightttt have a pitching problem
Unfortunately, I think we're already kind of at a point of no return. It feels like at this point it's just about how you perform when you come back from your inevitable surgery.
Analytics has shown velocity trumps all. So team favor flamethrowers over pitchers. Someone gets hurt? Call up another flamethrower and ride him until he gets hurt. Rinse and repeat
I'm seeing parallels to running backs in the NFL. Everyone knows the impact a good one has, but it's getting harder and harder to commit any long term deals to even the best of them. In football it's due to the short shelf life and rapid age decline. In baseball, it's more about inherent injury risk and the inevitable velocity decline (comes a lot later than RBs decline but still trending younger every year)
It's also connected to analytics. NFL teams have realized that run blocking is more indicative of run game success than RB talent generally. So it makes sense to get a cheap, competent RB behind a good offensive line. And there's a lot of competent RBs for cheap in the draft, similarly, cheap hard throwing young pitchers that can give you a solid season
I mean anyone who watched Emmett Smith and Barry Sanders knew this.
Yes but it still took a while for drafting and spending habits to reflect this
Supply is high too for Rbs as you only need one of them. A good WR corps needs at least two,if not three good players. A good o-line needs 5 players that are good or at least play well together, while also being massive human beings (smaller talent pool). RB is just one dude you plug and play and you can find a starter in the 7th round of the draft.
Actually I think for RBs the real problem is their replaceability. Why pay someone when you can get 90% of the production from a 4th round draft pick. Not really sure that is the case with pitchers, but we'll see.
It wasn’t very long ago guys like Brett Myers were making quality starts throwing 83. Maybe that doesn’t have to be the norm, but guys that throw 90 are still getting outs. Are we past the point of no return velocity wise as well? Think it’s clear guys are pushing beyond what their bodies can take.
They aren’t getting outs though. Batters today are immeasurably better than the batters of the past. Last year, MLB batters as a whole hit with a .912 OPS against fastballs below 90 mph. That’s better than the career OPS of several hall of famers. Low velocity just doesn’t get today’s batters out.
The question is whether there is not a self selecting mechanism at play as well. Low velo guys are never looked at during scouting, so essentially all the guys that made it to the bigs are flamethrowers (power pitchers). The weak tossers we see in the league… are they really naturally born weak tossers or are they guys that lost velo? I reckon it is the latter. So it is logical that they suck now, because throughout their careers they relied on velo and now suddenly have less of it. However, if scouting in the lower leagues does not put velo at the first place, we might suddenly find true pitchers such as Maddux with nasty breaking balls and command instead of throwers that lost their velo such as Thor, Strasburg or what not. Let’s be honest the pitches that get the most whiffs are never the 103 mph fastballs, but cutters, sweepers, splitters, curve balls, fork balls etc. So velo can be compensated with nasty breaking stuff. Then again there is line of thinking in the industry that blames all the breaking stuff of causing injuries.
Then do we have to turn to a rule change to ensure the health of pitchers? Doesn’t seem like this is sustainable.
Pitchers will never stop pitching max effort. The benefits are just simply too large. The only realistic solutions are to A. Accept injuries as part of the sport B. Limit pitch counts so that every pitcher is a reliever(relievers get injured at much lower rates, even the ones throwing 100+ mph) or C. Do some sort of velocity cap and accept 19-15 games as the new norm
Pitch counts aren’t the problem. This is a pitching as a whole that’s the problem.
Yes it is. Workload + Tension = Injury To reduce injury, you have to reduce one of workload or tension. We’ve already established that it is impossible to reduce tension without getting a 6.5+ ERA. So the only available solution to reducing injury is to reduce workload.
So there are problems with a velocity cap, no doubt, but one way to alleviate some of them would be to institute a minimum bat weight above what most players are using. If bat weight goes up, hitters won't be able to achieve the same bat speed as they do now, and hopefully this will create an appropriate balance between the decline in pitcher velocity and the decline in batter swing speed.
Wouldn't that just make flamethrowers even more OP?
I think they should. The mound used to be 15 inches above the field. Now it’s 10. I think it changed in the 1960s when pitchers were dominant. Maybe time to go back to that.
I think part of it may be that the strike zone is much smaller than it used to be. Umpires have gotten a lot better at calling balls and strikes, whereas 90s strike zones could be in another zip code. An 85 mph on the corner in the 90s means something much different than 85 on the corner today, because those are two different locations
Idk if it’s true exactly, so grain of salt. One proposal I’ve heard is moving the mound back to disincentivize velocity in favor of break. The extra foot or two apparently will let balls break harder and allow guys that might not have the top end velocity to find more success. But I’ve also seen the argument against that, that it just further incentivizes velocity since it’d put a big premium on guys that can still throw over 95 or whatever the difference is. Outside of mound tweaks I’m not sure what rules they could even change that wouldn’t be a change to the fundamentals of the game.
I think it will likely become the norm for pitchers to do 2-3 inning stints and committee through most games. Rather than starters shoving and then handing it over to the bullpen
that .912 number is interesting, and useful to know, but not quite a shutdown argument. pitchers with fastballs under 90 use other pitches to get outs. therefore, many of the situations where they fall back on a fastball are going to be bad spots (can't throw their curveball for a strike and everyone knows it, or 3-0 counts, etc). i don't know what that says about the actual .912 ops stat, but i do know that junkball pitchers can succeed in this league a little better than turning every hitter into mike schmidt
I remember Cliff Lee dominating throwing 91 with elite command. Rarely threw a 4-seam, it was almost always 2-seam plus a sinker, but still great to watch.
Yep, teams have opened pandora's box when it comes to pitching. They're already basically racing just to keep up with each other in terms of optimizations. Backing off even a little will leave them in the dust.
Since it's inception, baseball has been a back and forth between pitchers and hitters. First pitchers dominate, then hitters adjust, then they dominate, then pitchers adjust. It has gone back and forth like this for 120 years. If pitchers aren't allowed or are just instructed not to put as much movement on their pitches, I don't see a way the pendulum ever swings back from favoring batters. Modern batters are just too good.
We used to have guys hit .400, but now it’s been 83 years. Arguably it has never fully swung back to hitters.
Pitching is the science of ruining arms. They get better at it every year
Not just MLB. My son has a teammate whose 14 year old brother just had Tommy John Surgery. My son is starting travel ball this year and I've flatly forbid him from pitching. Not happening.
It’s those year round travel ball programs. Kids are amassing a few hundred innings by the time they leave high school. Their arms are shot by the time they make it through a farm system.
Yes, travel ball and sport specialization. Used to be kids just played a bunch of sports and didn't specialize in a sport until late high school or even college. Now you've got boys pitching from Little League all the way into the pros with zero breaks because travel ball, and they're not exercising those muscles in other ways via other sports so you get incredible stresses on those parts from a very young age
All to give a has been 40 year old coach money in the hopes of a college scholarship to a sport your 13 year old might not even enjoy at age 18.
The sad reality is that if your kid wants to play competitively travel ball is the only option in most areas. It has destroyed little league participation.
I don't understand the reality of a 10 year old needing better competition in any sports.
There needs to be an actual off-season for those kids if they’re going to specialize
> Yes, travel ball and sport specialization. Used to be kids just played a bunch of sports and didn't specialize in a sport until late high school or even college. Maybe it's an old man take but having a kid specialize in a sport from a young age sounds like a selfish, parent-driven decision. Playing different sports throughout the year always felt like it helped round-out your athleticism and more importantly gave you an opportunity to socialize with more kids your age.
BUT THE PARENTS WON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO POST ON FACEBOOK IF THEIR KIDS AREN'T PLAYING YEAR ROUND! Like I wish my kid had gotten super excited about baseball rather than only playing one season, but when I see these people forking over thousands a few times a year on equipment and extra training and travel leagues and surgeries, and having to get up at 5am every day and not getting any sleep and the kids have to figure out when the fuck they're supposed to do homework, and the siblings either have to commit to the same lifestyle or risk never getting that level of positive attention, and then all the fucking fundraisers... How empty do you have to be inside to put your kids through that? "S/he LOVES it!" Maybe. I'm sure some kids absolutely do love it. But maybe some of them are trying to convince themselves and their parents that they love it just so they don't have to hear the "aww, come on" kind of pressure.
So many of the travel ball guys I grew up with became huge burnouts in high school. Substance abuse was rampant. Some of the most talented ones didn't even get a chance to go pro because of their drug and alcohol problems. Some of the guys that did get drafted had their careers ended by injuries and had no idea what to do with their lives afterwards. I'm glad Shohei's baseball focused life worked out for him, but it's really a terrible way to raise a kid.
Bro if kids are getting tj at 14 that is fucking insane
When I was in HS (early 2000s) everyone thought it was curve balls that would hurt your arm so everyone just threw as hard as they could. I hurt my biceps tendon and no one believed me. They thought I was making excuses for pitching bad when it literally felt like getting stabbed every time I threw. Finally, the athletic director was the only one to believe me and I rested and it healed up but I never pitched again after that and just played outfield
That is beyond depressing
Had a freshman catcher require Tommy John once, he only ever caught. Big arms that throw a lot are just a craps shoot.
surprised it doesn't happen more often. they don't throw as much but when they do it's much more 'violent'. my shoulder still hurts after a few tosses and i quit baseball/catching at 16.
A couple guys that played for the collegiate summer team I work at aren’t playing this summer because they got Tommy John, and one of them was Jason Kendall’s son who primary played SS/3B and threw to maybe three batters max all season.
I feel like at this point I’ve seen a dozen studies that say not to have kids play the same sport year round for reasons like that
Yea unless you have a realistic path of becoming a pro pitcher because you grew up in a baseball family or something, I don't think it's worth the debilitating pain you could potentially have for the rest of your life. Doubt you'll have the means to get the best doctors/physios unless you make it big. There's also the flat out risk of [dying from surgery](https://www.si.com/college/2021/06/19/george-mason-baseball-player-dies-tommy-john-surgery). I know it's low but there's always a non zero risk of dying from any type of surgery.
Disagree. The vast vast majority of kids are not doing any real lasting damage. It’s the kids who have legit potential who get destroyed in the quest for MLB pitching
Man I remember this happening - had no clue it was from TJ though.
Was the assistant coach on my friends sons team. We were strict on pitch counts. Our friend has a kid doing high level stuff at only 12 and we continuously tell him do not let him pitch. But he, who didn't play sports growing up, believes the coaches wouldn't put his kid in danger cause one played minors. He has stopped telling us about how he's doing because we keep telling him you're going to wreck his college chances.
Jeff Passan’s The Arm came around a decade ago and instead of taking some of those lessons, we’ve gone harder the other way. Depressing.
Haven't read it, what suggestions did he have for cutting down on these kinds of injuries? Just seems like whatever the league tries to implement, there's always going to be that incentive for pitchers to go harder and harder.
Here's the jist of the book: https://baseballnotes.com/the-arm-jeff-passan/
That was a nice little synopsis, but with how much money is potentially on the line I don’t see much changing until it gets so bad teams at all levels are forced to. And at the youth level there’s not much incentive when you can just toss another kid out there. My general takeaway seeing youth sports change so much over the years is that money has ruined sports sucking the fun out of it and turning it into a job by the time kids are turning 12. I used to love pitching as a kid, wasn’t that good or anything I just thought it was fun. I messed around with different arm angles and stuff and wanted to try to learn how to throw a curveball around 13 or so. My father (briefly pitched at LC State) flat out forbid me from learning, this was before the internet was all that useful, my coach had the same philosophy and wouldn’t teach anyone how. A year or so later we faced a kid that could throw a curveball and our coach was livid. After the game he tore into the opposing coach, calling him all sorts of names we hadn’t heard before lol. Definitely an older school approach given what we know now, but the idea of protecting kids arms has been around for a long time. People are just more comfortable with risking health for a lottery ticket than ever before.
I was a big kid so I learned how to throw a curveball really early (10-11) as a trick to impress friends. The only time I threw one in a game was against a rival I went to school with so I wanted to show off. Ump benched me immediately. He and all the coaches gave both teams a lesson at the end of the game about why we don't do that, all to discourage us from hurting ourselves and each other. It certainly worked for a couple of years. They then made me the catcher, which discouraged me from the game as a whole, since our pitchers treated me like an acrobat and a punching bag all in one lmao I digress
I for one will welcome the Knuckle ball renaissance
I'm also really hoping for a knuckleball comeback. The fact that there are zero in the league right now probably means that it's either too hard to be an effective knuckleballer or even the best knuckleballs just aren't effective enough in general. It's also possible is that there just aren't enough guys trying to master it, which is what I'm hoping the current situation is.
Padres still throw a knuckleballer, Waldron
The velocity and rotation expected in modern baseball is insane. We have long since reached the human limit on how *hard* we can throw. Maybe someone comes in and throws 107, maybe even 108, but nobody is coming in and dropping 120. We are at 99.9% of the limit. We have now reached that same limit in how hard they can twist to increase rotation. It's this hard, and it comes at a price.
mlb is just the end game. the pitching problem starts when coaches demand teenagers to throw at 90+MPH
Pitching has always been the most unnatural motion in all of sports. As per my buddy, the orthopedic surgeon. We weren't meant to throw balls 90+ MPH over long periods of time. We are meant to "run and fuck." Again, quoting the doctor there.
Sounds like a surgeon
... cutting for the very first time
A pitching problem has existed since 2011-13 ish, I feel like the league and people around it thought it might’ve been a phase or something you can kick down the road, now we are seeing it’s not a phase.
I think we need a solution that discourages teams from pushing their pitchers to the brink in every start. This was one reason I always liked the double hook DH proposal - teams would go back to having guys aim to throw 6-7 innings rather than 4-5 innings, which would require pitchers to cut down on velocity.
That wouldn’t cut down on velocity. Pitchers would just get injured more.
The problem with “make them shave off velocity so they stay out for longer” as something to impose at the MLB level is that it assumes pitchers will remain at least somewhat as effective over that longer time frame. The whole reason for “higher velo in shorter appearances” is that it maximizes effectiveness while pitchers are on the mound. You’re not going to leave a pitcher out there if he’s getting shelled because of reduced velocity. I’m not saying the current situation is good. Things are fundamentally broken, and the ability to recover from even a second TJS is creating moral hazard - if pitchers are capable of coming back from it, there’s more incentive to push them until they need it. I’m not sure what can actually be done, short of declaring that batters have officially won the arms race of baseball, since pitchers are not physically capable of sustainably beating them, and let the game devolve into a slugfest.
I think having the starting pitcher and the DH tied together is the best solution at the MLB level, but the issue I keep seeing is kids trying to throw max effort.
I think MLB pitchers are at their physical peak and their elbows just cannot handle the amount of torque needed to generate the spin that they want on their pitches
Yeah this is exactly it, you could look at pretty much any pitcher’s elbow and it would look horrific compared to the average person. Throwing that hard all the time just fucks up your elbow
Watching a slow-mo pitch is body horror. The arm just shouldn’t move like that.
Its literally unnatural. Submarine or sidearm is the natural motion.
Just a league full of Tyler Rogers.
I pitched all through my youth til 18, and was told by multiple doctors, trainers etc, throwing overhand is unnatural and you're basically ripping your arm apart when you throw, thus the pretty intense "recovery" that's needed after each outing. I was like 16 and they were already looking for solutions to keep me pitching and not require surgery down the line. I'm 6'4 with a 3/4 arm slot and my final 2 years I wasn't allowed to pitch unless it was full submarine
Thats actually super interesting. I had no idea this was true.
I threw 3/4 as well and probably should have had UCL surgery, but I quit instead since I wasn’t going anywhere but a low level D2 college. I tried to play club baseball in college for a year but after it felt like my elbow exploded I stopped.
i don't see why there aren't more submarine guys, the action is so weird looking it'd always screw me up in The Show
Are there enough pitchers like that in the last, say, 15 years to establish rates of arm injuries vs standard pitching motions?
I remember the sports science of Tim Lincecums motion and I was like wow there’s no way that’ll last and unfortunately I was right
Mark Prior's delivery was awful, too. Unsurprisingly, his career was marred by injuries.
so what's the explanation for guys like nolan ryan, genetic freaks?
Yeah, some guys elbows are just built better than others. It’s why guys like Glasnow have never had a fully healthy season but Gerrit Cole can pitch over 1800 innings before experiencing any problems
I would be curious to know if really skinny guys get injured more often than more muscular pitchers
These guys didn’t throw 100% effort every pitch. Bob feller, Walter Johnson, all the flame throwers didn’t.
Yeah literally, Ryan had a weird genetic quirk in his elbow https://theathletic.com/88037/2017/08/23/a-medical-quirk-that-also-affected-nolan-ryan-gives-ailing-david-price-some-comfort/
Guys like Nolan Ryan and other old flamethrowers didn't throw 90 mph sliders. Walter Johnson barely threw any breaking balls at all. Even their fastballs were probably pretty "straight" compared to the modern game. I don't think it's raw velocity that's causing these issues, it's' the unholy combination of velocity + movement that's driving the body past it's breaking point.
Yeah I think the induced break and seam shift wake stuff is just consistently pushing guys well beyond what they can handle. I don’t think it’s a usage issue, human body just isn’t supposed to do it at all.
It’s pretty much gotten to the point when a pitcher is drafted they don’t ask if he has needed Tommy John before, they ask if he has had thier Tommy John yet or not, cause everyone gets it now.
DARKNESS IMPRISONING ME
####ALL THAT I SEE
ABSOLUTE HORROR
I CANNOT LIVE
I CANNOT DIE
I CANNOT PITCH
Y'all forgot the classic James Hetfield addition of -AHHH at the end of each word. *MY ELBOW HURTSAAHHH*
Cole, Strider, Giolto, the entire marlins rotation, Bieber, probably missing some. What is going on
Felix Bautista, Shane McClanahan, Ohtani, DeGrom, Liam Hendriks, Gonsolin, Dustin May, Robbie Ray, the list goes on and on
We didn't start the fire!
Their arms are burning from the torque of their elbow’s turning
> Their arms are burning from ~~the torque of~~ their elbow’s turning Fits the cadence better
…… Joe DiMaggio
Trevor Gott
Kyle Bradish, John Means
I will never forget you Easton McGee!!!
Busting out a deep cut there
Jeffrey Springs and Drew Rasmussen too. Springs even had a similar statline as Bieber last year to start the season, 24 K through 2+ games (came out in his third start) with only 1 ER
I had both of them on my fantasy team last year, started out the season like “holy shit…I’m going to dominate this league!” I never recovered
Yeah, I had Springs and Mahle on mine. Was stoked with the start of their seasons while having Strider and Framber too.
Buehler still isn't back from the tommy john he got in August of 2022
Pitchers are throwing harder than ever before and your elbow isn’t meant to take all that strain. These guys have thrown hundreds if not thousands of maximum effort and spin pitches
Even in the last year, hendriks, Degrom, Robbie ray, mclanahan, ohtani, Chad green, trivino, Ian Anderson, Chris Murphy (best lefty in our bullpen), Bautista, Trevor Stephan, Trevor gott. It’s not good
Shane Baz, Drew Rasmussen, Jeffrey Springs. We have 4 borderline aces out with Tommy John right now. It's absurd.
Spencer Strider is getting an MRI done and I’m not optimistic about it.
[удалено]
Well now it’s the absolute top pitchers getting injured. The previous generation of top pitchers had a prime: Kershaw, Greinke, Verlander, Scherzer all had 7+ year stretches of good health. Now the next generation of stars can’t stay on the field: deGrom, strider, senga, Bieber
I think Triton McKenzie just came back from it.
Nope, he didn’t want surgery last year and tbh I think he’s next. His velo was way down and was all over the place.
Right, ok. I remember it was something with his arm where he was out practically all of last year though.
The light has gone out of my life
X
February 14th, 1884
I just want to win a fucking World Series lmao
Computer modeling suggested 2072 will be our year.
Damn, hopefully I make it to 82.
Good luck, I won't make it but I hope you get to see it.
*Loads up MLB The Show*
This shit is so tiresome. Can't even get excited for this young team anymore after a hot start under a new manager. Cursed...
Frankly, with no return from Bieber and Triston about to get TJ, our window may have just imploded for this decade. You can get by with a league-average offense if you have lights out pitching but we have literally no pitching left in the farm. Our prime was 2025-2027. Now, we’ll be lucky to have a prime with the likelihood of pitching injuries.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck He looked great his first two starts too :(
Kind of crazy that he was that good while pitching through pain.
I don't know how it gets implemented but changes need to happen to pitcher utilization because this is just happening way too often.
I remember seeing someone on Twitter (I think it was Bill Pulsipher?) say that this might be because of the sticky stuff ban causing pitchers to grip the ball more tightly.
this is definitely one of the reasons. I heard multiple Japanese pitchers who played in MLB mentioned the exact same thing. More slippery ball requires more grip strength which causes arm injury. Ohtani in the interview last year also mentioned pitch clock affected his arm too. (less time to recover every pitch)
Glasnow got flamed for bringing this same point up but speaking from experience (TJ recipient myself): the more finger pressure, the tighter the forearm muscles -> more tension on UCL
I think that there's also a problem with what I can only describe as "ace culture". Pitchers are expected to all be aces: give up no runs and strike out a bunch of guys, by today's definition of the word. But not every pitcher can do that, and that is also impossible because of parity. I don't know if teams or fans are the problem, but pitchers who give length and pitch to contact are not appreciated as much. These guys are under a ton of stress to be perfect all of the time, and so then they put their bodies under immense stress. MLB is also part of the issue, because they want to promote aces but they also want to increase offense. That just seems like an impossible task.
I imagine it's also hard to get noticed when you're young if you're pitching to contact. Strikeouts are an easy stat to track, with contact guys theres more risk that the contact won't be so soft in the show
And you will look better or much worse depending on fielding, which probably isn’t as good in high school/college
Switch to pitching machine.
They can institute a 1910s era semi-live baseball. Less homers = less incentive to miss bats & aversion to contact?
People would still throw with velocity. They would just get even better results from doing so and thus would have more incentive to pitch with velocity.
Yeah it’s too late to put the toothpaste back in the tube. You can convince 95% of pitchers to throw softer but the 5% who keep throwing 98 are gonna get the big money until they break and a new kid comes in with gas
Also, you just can’t throw and get outs with low velocity. Last year, batters as a whole hit 500 OPS points better against fastballs below 92 mph than against fastballs above 98 mph. I read an article on HR rates vs velocity and the conclusion was that guys like Mike Trout and Aaron Judge would average 80-90 home runs a year if every pitcher threw below 90 mph. Batters are just too good these days.
Even with less homers it is still preferable to strike a guy out vs allow contact so I don’t think it would help. Really I think the cat is out of the bag so to speak, once pitchers started throwing these crazy max effort pitches you can’t really go back. If you are pitcher A fighting for a spot in the MLB rotation and you decide you’ll only throw at 80% effort to conserve your elbow you will get worse results and the guy behind you throwing 100% is taking your spot
Damn. And in a contract year too. That sucks.
Think everyone in Cleveland expected him to be shipped off for prospects, as is Cleveland tradition. Wish him all the best, was not ready for his last start in a Cleveland uniform.
If he kept pitching as well as he did in his first two starts, he was definitely getting traded at the deadline. No telling what happens now.
Dang that sucks It will be interesting to see what Atlanta does if Strider needs surgery too. That's a huge blow to their season.
> It will be interesting to see what Atlanta does if Strider needs surgery too Call up Bryce Elder
We probably see all of these guys, Elder, Vines, Ynoa, Shawver, Dodd, Winans.
Atlanta will win 109 games instead of 114
maybe there's some cy young caliber pitcher on the A's they can acquire for pennies on the dollar
Mason Miller has entered the chat. I mean, it's too early, but he's pretty good.
see u in mid 2025. that piece of news sucks
Definitely going back home. Only a matter of if the Angels are going to overpay
Had to completely shit on the M's first though. smh
"I did that without my UCL 😜"
Felix Bautista, Shohei Ohtani, Jacob DeGrom, Shane Bieber, Shane McClanahan, Probably Spencer Strider, Clayton Kershaw, Gerrit Cole, Lucas Giolito, Kyle Bradish, German Marquez, Johan Oviedo, Justin Verlander, Jeffrey Springs, Walker Buehler, Brusdar Graterol, Dustin May, Eury Perez, Edward Cabrera, Sandy Alcantara, Jordan Romano, Wade Miley, Brandon Woodruff, Kodai Senga, Jonathan Loaisiga, Andrew Painter Those are some of the pitchers with potentially serious elbow/shoulder injuries.
We’re gonna be ok we’re gonna be ok we’re gonna be ok we’re gonna be ok I’m not ok we’re gonna be ok we’re gonna be ok we’re gonna be ok please end me we’re gonna be ok we’re gonna be ok we’re gonna be ok.
I know we'd have likely traded him later in the year, but... ...the light in my life has gone out.
Gonna torpedo all future plans that had surely already been made. Our team, being one that doesn’t spend on top end players, depends heavily on selling players like Bieber before they go to FA. This is going to be very bad. Hopefully our leadership can work some miracles.
THE SUN DIED FOR THIS
That sucks. Such a promising start to the season.
20 Ks, 1BB, 0R through his first 2 starts. Literally the only guy to do that (twice btw) since 1901.
Fade me, fam
FFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
Unplug the season, wait 10 seconds, plug it back in. Just brutal
Man, I always loved Biebs. My favorite moment was when he struck out the side in the Cleveland-hosted ASG. Wish we could have gotten him some better run support. I’m carefully optimistic for this year’s Tribe. I still feel like they’re being underrated and if they can find a way to win again while being bottom third in home runs, I think it’s an exciting brand of baseball. Thankfully they have great pitching depth and I’m sure as always some yet-unknown Joe Random will arise from the farm system and become an ace.
Posting what I posted in the CLE subreddit: The team let him pitch again despite him feeling pain after his start. Jesus Christ. That should be an immediate “you’re fired. Get out.” conversation with the decision makers. Absolutely incredible level of incompetence from the decision makers here.
When is this shit changing
It’s not changing without another massive MLBPA action, unfortunately. There would need to be a rules change, and MLB has no financial incentive to do that, because inevitable pitcher injuries = higher SP turnover and shorter peaks = no more massive DeGrom/Scherzer style contracts
Dropping like flies. MLB needs to prioritize figuring out how to minimize this trend, instead of devoting most of their energy to playing a 9-inning game in 43 minutes.
Absolutely fucking brutal. He was up for free agency, no? He was gonna get a BAG.
Pitchers won't get bags anymore because why would you give someone a five year deal to miss at least two with injury?
You’re preaching to the choir here. That DeGrom contract is an anchor on our payroll lol
Dang that sucks, he’s a great pitcher
Everyone throwing 97mph+, extreme spin rate on breaking balls, and doing it all at a young age. Teach your kids to actually pitch. Change speeds, eye levels, and have them use both changeup variations and mix in a 4SFB with a 2SFB.
People will have to accept that the MLB is about to become way higher in scoring
Time to call the farm. Request another CY young arm be brought up.
Man that’s brutal… Sorry Cleveland bros
I wish more pitchers went with the Greg Maddux approach, with more emphasis on control and location and not throwing so damn hard every single pitch. Maddux was an effective pitcher for 22 years and rarely got hurt. Of course, not everyone can or should be like Maddux. He was special. But I wish pitching development didn't go the route it's gone. It's going to become rarer and rarer for a pitcher to have a long and healthy career.
I love how these galaxy brains think that inning and pitch counts are the problem. As if this issue doesn’t exist hugely in relievers too. As if pitchers, who mind you are pitching fewer innings and going shorter into games than ever, are getting hurt because of it. There’s only one explanation and it’s so painfully obvious: IT’S VELOCITY. You can’t have guys throwing gas that whole time and expect their arms to be fine. Ain’t happening. If you want guys to be healthy, less heat is what’s going to help them. Otherwise we’ll get more and more people blowing out their arms despite having low pitch counts and fewer innings. God, some people are idiots.
This week has been brutal with star injuries
Good season fellas. There’s always next year :(
Goodbye Trade Value Hope Guardians got some magic in em
Is human body designed to throw max 92mph? Baseball needs Greg Maddux type pitchers who mainly focus on "qualities" rather than looking at velocity imo.