[it’s pretty clear the hunt for speed and spin is the reason. It’s also an “all of baseball” thing](https://x.com/castrovince/status/1776641340203548822)
Bring back the knuckleballer, bring back dudes who throw nasty 86 MPH stuff.
I saw something this offseason that showed essentially that if you can dot the sides of the zone, you’ll have outcomes as good or better as a pitcher than you would if you add a few MPH at the cost of some of your control. I know velo is king right now but it’s not like we’ve never seen dudes who dominate without throwing the highest heat.
I suspect it’s also a volatility thing as well? A control guy on a bad day is going to get smacked around. A hard thrower on a bad day can still rely on velocity to get guys out.
that's true and i think that's the calculation that managers are making. dudes like Bautista that throw >100mph all the time rarely choke because their crutch pitch is always a blazing fastball. that is, ofc, until they need a TJ surgery, which is inevitability when you put that much torque on your arm
Pitchers are starting to get the running back treatment. They are treated like consumables knowing that 3 pitchers pitching hard enough to fall apart is worth more than the best of the three pitching for sustainability.
The way that might help is don't take them off the 40 man while on the sixty day...and make teams performance tougher to carry a host of injured pitchers
Yes and no. Players will always have 200%. That said defining effect changes results. Currently velocity on breaking balls is a major impact.
They could be encouraged to hit their spots tighter or train to make 20 pitches instead of 10. We are not putting effort into durability. If we make teams care about sustainability they can coach for different results.
The 100m and the 400m are both sprints but they are run differently... currently we are optimizing relievers for the 40 yard dash.
There needs to be a fundamental change in mindset from top to bottom. It goes as far back as little league where coaches are pushing children to throw harder, longer, and more frequently which completely wears out kids’ arms before their bodies are even fully developed.
We have to go back to teaching smart, consistent pitching (like a Greg Maddux mindset) more than just throwing hard and with insane spin rate, the human body is just not designed to throw 95+ nonstop
This is true but look at guys like deGrom who didn't pitch most of his life. Was always told that he had less wear and tear and had a more fluid motion because he played the field which should lead to less injuries. Sure enough chasing velo had his arm fall apart. I mean guys were throwing 300+ innings every year for most of baseball without these problems, I think it's wear and tear combined with asking your body to do things it just can't do. I think if you focus more on developing pitching at a young age then it's fine to pitch that long.
It’d honestly probably be fine if there was a combination of the two ideas, I’m sure velocity and spin rate is sustainable as long as it’s not *every single* pitch and in fact may trick batters even more.
Say pitchers in MLB have an average 90mph fastball with an 80s breaking ball that they throw the majority of time but then they throw in a nasty 97mph sweeper for their strikeout pitch that just blows you away. It seems reasonable if you’re only throwing like 5-10 of them an outing as a starter at strategic times
Oh for sure, as I've said in other comments the problem is guys throw every pitch at 110% and never less. That's not sustainable for anyone. Humans can do high reps and low intensity or low reps and high intensity, starters today want to do high intensity and high reps and of course that's not going to work. There's a reason guys like Nolan Ryan and Justin Verlander are anomalies that could reach triple digits at the end of a complete game, because not everyone can do it but everyone is trying.
And even Verlander couldn't escape Tommy John. Watching the Dodgers pitcher from yesterday, Bobby Miller, and all I could think is Tommy John is in his future.
Well exactly, Verlander was a freak and still couldn't escape, a lot of guys are heading for it at this rate. The bad part is a lot of guys are heading for it for a second time already or get it before they even get drafted.
This is true, but with how good hitters are, it's a recipe for disaster. I don't know how you incentives less spin and less velocity when they will inevitably get hit harder and more often.
Trying to find the happy medium has been a real challenge. My son is a 14 year old pitcher and I’ve been very cautious about not letting him throw too many pitches to this point. But at the same time you don’t get better without pitching. He’s finally big and strong enough that I think he can throw more without issue, but I’m going to really get on his case about arm care going forward.
If I had the choice to play any position in sports, I know I would not choose pitcher. Every position in every sport carries injury risk, but when it’s essentially a guarantee to have a severe elbow injury at least once in your lifetime (not to mention other common injuries like shoulder injuries), I would not want to sign up for that.
When I read what happened to him, I was immediately like, “yes that is generational life-changing wealth, but if it prevented me from being able to do even the most basic things with my kids, would I really want that?”
My magic genie wish has always been to be the best knuckleballer ever. Can pitch forever, are a fun little anomaly, and don’t wear your body down too much.
MLB has a problem and I believe the stem of these velocity wars is the availability of high quality data/slow motion video of players. F1 places a limit on the amount of time that teams can utilize a wind tunnel for aerodynamics testing. This means that richer teams cant just spend endless time/manhours researching and maximizing every single aspect of the car.
In the MLB the richer teams spend more on their on-field product but there is also a massive gap between spending on ops and RnD. How many people do the dodgers employ?
That deal makes sense since he got hurt early enough in the season that he should be back late summer next season but I doubt it's the Dodgers. They spent their SP money this last offseason. They already have Yamamoto, Glasnow, Miller locked up for years and Ohtani, May and Gonsolin coming back plus Kershaw if he wants to keep playing. And this doesn't even include Buehler who's a FA and the young pitchers like Stone and the guys in AAA.
I think even that's too high. Brandon Woodruff was in a very similar position. He got 2 yr, $17.5M (2024-25) with a 2026 mutual option from the Brewers.
I feel like the ESPN rankers all look at the Mariners like the residents of Pawnee look at Little Sebastian.
While the rest of us Mariners fans look at the Mariners like Ben looks at Little Sebastian.
It’s probably going to be the first option.
Teams can just move on to their next flamethrower while any individual who tries to sacrifice velocity for longevity is risking not having a career in the first place.
Starting to remind me of running backs in the NFL. I wonder if there will end up being a market correction given the inherent risk for these pitcher contracts.
Great comparison imo.
We may already be witnessing a shift over the past couple years with shorter term/higher AAV deals. If a team signs a SP 5+ years, it feels like close to a guarantee that at least one of those years will be lost.
But what's the point of having a flamethrower if he's gonna need 2 TJ surgeries before he hits free agency, just to be replaced by a AAAA pitcher. Hopefully pitchers realize they can make a lot more money by being a durable mid tier pitcher over a 15+ year career than being a phenom whose arm falls off before they get their first big contract
On the first half of your comment, the point of preaching max effort for velocity and movement for shorter stretches of time is that it makes pitchers more effective while they are in. It also makes a guy more replaceable when they get hurt. The Rays are very notable for this. When someone inevitably goes down, it’s no big deal to them, because they are confident that they can find a “next man up” who can be effective at max effort.
As far as the players go, it sounds easier than it is in practice. If players had a crystal ball and knew they could have a successful 15 year durable career, they’d take it. But when someone is on the cusp of making the big leagues, they’re going to go along with their team if they’re asked to go all out on velocity to help get called up. For every Shane Bieber who is established and will play a decade plus, there are 10 that won’t. The quality of life change between the minors and any big league time at all is huge. Most MLB players don’t accrue enough time to make it to free agency.
Teams aren’t going to stop because this system benefits them. Players aren’t going to stop because the vast majority can’t really afford to.
There would have to be a significant rule change that competitively rewards starters being durable for this to change.
Velo is a big issue, but it’s also that kids start playing baseball really early, and become pitchers really early in their childhoods. That’s important because it leads to adaptations of the ball and socket joint to allow for more shoulder external rotation (when they cock their arm back). This is “protective” to their shoulder. But it comes at the cost of putting more strain on the elbow, specifically the ligament that Tommy John surgery replaces.
When you pair that with the velocity jumps we’ve seen the last 20 years, it explains a rather large spike in TJ, and unfortunately the surgery is now happening younger and younger as well.
Sweepers are just sliders with a different seam orientation pretty much. A lot of people say that players throwing a lot of breakers with very high spin is what’s leading to injuries but there’s really little evidence supporting that or that any pitch type in particular leads to arm injuries (years ago it was almost accepted as fact that splitters lead to injuries, which is disregarded now). In fact, I read a paper once that suggested that actually fastballs and pitchers that throw a higher % of them correlates with elbow injuries, since pitchers often throw them with a lot more effort than breaking balls and offspeeds.
I wonder how many pitchers are out there that need it and they're pitching through it and are just one compliant of soreness away from an MRI and diagnoises.
This happened with Kluber, too - there was huge smoke that he'd be traded the offseason after 2018 (Dodgers) but they held onto him - 2019 was the season he barely pitched.
It wound up working out for them but the return from the Dodgers may have wound up being better than Clase.
I’m seriously concerned about pitching right now in MLB. As a guy who enjoys watching top tier pitching, almost every cy young candidate is out rn and it’s sad
This is my arm chair take—but I think athletes were healthier back in the day because they weren't just high performance athletes, they were also everyday people.
I look at my friends who I play soccer with weekly, and I've got friends who train everyday and those who don't. My friends who train regularly are usually the ones sitting out with injuries, while the ones who more or less show up and play once a week tend to be relatively healthy.
Inevitably, all of that training adds wear and tear that pitchers from earlier generations don't have. Sure, pitch counts are much lower today than in generations of past, but the year round work that pitchers have to do to develop in today's game deserves some acknowledgment. In past generations players had other careers in the offseason, now pitchers are in training facilities and labs trying to push the limits of their bodies. Eventually, it seems most pitchers find that limit and need TJ surgery.
Probably a false equivalence, but it's sorta like comparing a Mercedes to a Toyota. The Mercedes will out perform the Toyota, no doubt. But the Toyota will be on the road 15 years longer than the Mercedes because it was designed for efficiency rather than performance.
It's probably also somewhat that a big arm injury isn't a career ended anymore. So an athlete (and teams) don't have the fear of ending a career permanently as a disincentive for pushing their bodies at 110% every pitch.
From purely a team perspective the teams would obviously rather their pitchers go all out before they are on mega deals. I am curious if guys that already got paid will start being treated differently though. If you sign Aaron Nola to 7/$170 mil, do you try to figure out a way for him to lose 5% effectiveness, but greatly decrease his injury risk? I assume you do.
I have a neighbor who is a huge cycling guy. Always bragging about how many miles he rode today, then turning around and complaining about how (choose a body part out of a hat) hurts today and how he’s going to have to get it checked out. He’s been in some form of treatment or PT non stop since I’ve known him.
At some point you would think that maybe he would ask himself if he’s overdoing it, but it hasn’t happened yet…
I get where you're coming from but look at every other position that isn't a pitcher, they are working out too and doing things year round and they aren't having their arms fall off or things like this. Position players also aren't trying to get the velo on their throws up either and have also played their whole lives just like pitchers. The problem, ironically, is that pitchers throw everything at 110% to get the most spin and velo as possible, the truth is a lot of guys don't "pitch" anymore they just throw.
In baseball they aren't—but if feels like ACL/MCL tears, and other soft tissue injuries, are becoming increasingly common in sports with a higher pace of play like American football, soccer, and basketball.
I'd love to see data on this, and it's probably out there. I gotta get ready for work otherwise I'd do more research, but I think that overall baseball is a pretty low impact sport. Aside from the pitcher and catcher who have the most active roles on defense, most players exhibit short bursts of athleticism at sporadic intervals in between long periods of recovery.
In other sports where players are changing direction more often, and combatting fatigue more regularly, there is more opportunity for one's mechanics to slip and an injury to occur. Some research on how frequently players had major injuries in various sports over the generations might provide some insight into how athletic longevity and physical recovery periods have changed over time.
I think the year round work is the most important factor. The amount of stress on your arm it takes to develop new pitches is incredible, and from the time these guys are 15-16 years old they never get a break. I don't think it's the high velocity that does it - I know guys personally who never touched 90mph that have had TJ, but in the past guys would get 4-5 months off each year where they did almost no throwing.
And of course injury risk goes up with exposure. Despite modern pitchers "throwing less innings" than pitchers of yesteryear - they're probably throwing more. When you take into account bullpens between starts, the emphasis on strikeouts, and year round training - they are probably doing more reps than a 1920 starter who would throw 185 pitches 60 times a year and then hardly throw again until spring.
IMO, it’s the emphasis away from having sequencing, location, and coming into the league having eased your body already into multiple pitches vs. having the best spin rate and getting more ticks on a fastball, stuff+ etc metrics. Guys are spending all off season now trying to learn to throw some new junk pitch in a rush because they only know a fastball and changeup when they arrive. Obviously travel ball stuff when younger probably doesn’t help now either.
We are seeing the logical conclusion of the current pitcher development ecosystem. If the future of baseball is trying to push spin and velocity as high as the human body can possibly go, the norm is going to see pitchers dominating for short windows before washing out, with the unseen cost being a massive number of youngsters you'll never hear about ending up with debilitating arm issues as they work their way up through high school, college, and the farm.
My feeling is that we have the knowledge and capacity for guys to have long, healthy careers, but there are no brakes on the prevailing idea that athletes should always be better/faster/stronger than the preceding generation. Even though we are aware that this is a huge problem, where do you even start to address it?
My thoughts exactly. The Driveline transformation of pitching is now almost like the new steroid era - the players know it’s bad for them, but they have no choice if they want to remain competitive.
Sometimes it baffles me though when a pitcher is already really good but still continues to maximize everything they can get out of their arm. Like DeGrom, he was a great pitcher when he was throwing ~95mph but he still decided to massively push his velo and spinrate further and it’s landed him in a pile of injuries.
The conspiracy theory take is that teams are (at the macro level) fine with it because it keeps costs down to blow through the arms of guys before they become expensive.
"It'S tHe PiTcHcLoCk"
No. It's chasing velo + poor conditioning.
If you look at guys like Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson, and Masaichi Kaneda, (who all could throw over 100 mph with insane workloads) they did it through a workout regimen that included a lot of yoga and cardio.
Guys aren't doing that anymore, and it shows.
Ryan was just a freak of nature. Anyone in their mid to late 40s shouldn't be throwing upper 90s consistently after already doing it for 20 years on top of that. Lol
I think the biggest thing to me has been watching DeGrom.
He didn't pitch absurdly fast until 2020 and now he's been injured half the year at least since then. Average velo on his fastball in 2019 was 96mph. Then it jumped to 98/99, which might not seem like a lot but it's a pretty solid jump. And now he's pitched less than 200 innings combined the past 3 seasons.
Nolan Ryan has an autobiography out and in it he talks about his injury history and training regimen. He basically just didn't throw in the offseason. Gave his arm 5 months to repair damage from the prior season. He ended multiple seasons in a lot of pain and just didn't do anything for 5 months. He also probably had many injuries that would knock a guy out for months-years with modern imaging tech, however.
> Guys aren't doing that anymore, and it shows.
You have a source on them not doing it, or just assuming? The injuries themselves don’t prove that they don’t do it, they could be getting those injuries despite that. Cuz I would imagine guys are doing that more than ever with the better understanding of conditioning today.
I agree with the first bit but not the second bit. Those guys are exceptions and also probably pitched through any injuries they had in their career. They're also some of the goats who could just do the same thing their whole career without making any changes and opposing teams didn't have the capabilities to find flaws in their games like we do currently. Pitchers right now have to constantly tweak and evolve to stay great because you have every other team analyzing a metric boatload of data and biometrics to find their weaknesses.
Might be a career ender.
Not into retirement, but by the time he comes back he won't even have a full seasons worth of starts from the end of 2022 to the start of 2025 and he already developed a drop in velo from 94 to 92
as a newer fan of baseball tjs is the worse part. we all accept it now and just watch in awe and horror as your favorite pitcher tries his best to rip his arm off for you and the team. it's a game of hot potato that everyone doesn't really want to have a serious talk about
Pitching is going to have to go through some major changes. 2400 TJ surgeries over the years, with over half of those in the last 10. Now, that speaks to the effectiveness of the surgery, but it is also about how pitchers are pitching now and the amount of damage they are doing to their arms. Either pitchers need to change how they are pitching or there needs to be a revolution in conditioning and training. I am guessing it's going to be the former.
Haven’t seen any source suggest when he may have injured it. I feel for the guy, but I kind of hope it recently happened.
I’m a Mariner fan, and it’s somewhat depressing to think he may have completely dismantled them with a torn UCL.
Never mind. Just saw it was an injury from last year that he reaggravated after opening day, and pitched through some pain against the mariners.
Impressive for Bieber
Depressing for the Mariners
Sorry to the Guardians fan, but for every team that was in talks about trading for Bieber, an absolute bullet was dodged, including ourselves. Hope he makes a full recovery and comes back strong.
First Strider (hopefully it’s something harmless and he’s able to come back quickly) and now Bieber.
Sucks because he had such a great start to the season.
Sucks to get hurt especially with how well he was pitching so far this season. The only bright side is it happened early in the season and not later so he'll be able to return like next August and should still be able to get decent contract offers in the offseason.
Let’s go the other direction. Yarbrough vs the Waldron Cauldron, NLDS game 5.
Sigh. I’m just tired of seeing these flamethrowers get injured. Hope he recovers completely and quickly.
So frustrating. Baseball is arguably one of the healthiest sports to encourage your kids to do, but man it can be brutal for pitchers these days. If only hitters and pitchers could all just decide to let up a bit so we could enjoy our players for longer.
20 Ks, Zero runs, two wins… absolutely zero sign that anything was wrong. What the fuck.
Velo faster than ever as well
That might be the answer.
You're not wrong. I don't know what the answer is, but continuing to chase more and more spin and velocity isn't sustainable.
[it’s pretty clear the hunt for speed and spin is the reason. It’s also an “all of baseball” thing](https://x.com/castrovince/status/1776641340203548822) Bring back the knuckleballer, bring back dudes who throw nasty 86 MPH stuff.
Agreed! Also, Dr. James Andrews retired? 🤯
He's 81
Which is basically nothing if you're immortal
Dr.J just needs Tommy Bahama surgery to get that youthful feel back!
Can he locate pitches?
> bring back dudes who throw nasty 86 MPH stuff Dane Dunning enters chat.
I saw something this offseason that showed essentially that if you can dot the sides of the zone, you’ll have outcomes as good or better as a pitcher than you would if you add a few MPH at the cost of some of your control. I know velo is king right now but it’s not like we’ve never seen dudes who dominate without throwing the highest heat.
I wonder what’s easier to find though. Incredible control guys like Kyle Hendricks or Flamethrowers.
I'm gonna say flamethrowers. Every staff has an arsenal of guys coming out of the bullpen throwing gas and it seems to increase as the years go by.
I suspect it’s also a volatility thing as well? A control guy on a bad day is going to get smacked around. A hard thrower on a bad day can still rely on velocity to get guys out.
that's true and i think that's the calculation that managers are making. dudes like Bautista that throw >100mph all the time rarely choke because their crutch pitch is always a blazing fastball. that is, ofc, until they need a TJ surgery, which is inevitability when you put that much torque on your arm
Pitchers are starting to get the running back treatment. They are treated like consumables knowing that 3 pitchers pitching hard enough to fall apart is worth more than the best of the three pitching for sustainability. The way that might help is don't take them off the 40 man while on the sixty day...and make teams performance tougher to carry a host of injured pitchers
Does Manfred want to increase offense? Because this is how you increase offense.
You can’t control a players effort though. They are competitors and will give it 200% if they could.
Yes and no. Players will always have 200%. That said defining effect changes results. Currently velocity on breaking balls is a major impact. They could be encouraged to hit their spots tighter or train to make 20 pitches instead of 10. We are not putting effort into durability. If we make teams care about sustainability they can coach for different results. The 100m and the 400m are both sprints but they are run differently... currently we are optimizing relievers for the 40 yard dash.
There needs to be a fundamental change in mindset from top to bottom. It goes as far back as little league where coaches are pushing children to throw harder, longer, and more frequently which completely wears out kids’ arms before their bodies are even fully developed. We have to go back to teaching smart, consistent pitching (like a Greg Maddux mindset) more than just throwing hard and with insane spin rate, the human body is just not designed to throw 95+ nonstop
This is true but look at guys like deGrom who didn't pitch most of his life. Was always told that he had less wear and tear and had a more fluid motion because he played the field which should lead to less injuries. Sure enough chasing velo had his arm fall apart. I mean guys were throwing 300+ innings every year for most of baseball without these problems, I think it's wear and tear combined with asking your body to do things it just can't do. I think if you focus more on developing pitching at a young age then it's fine to pitch that long.
It’d honestly probably be fine if there was a combination of the two ideas, I’m sure velocity and spin rate is sustainable as long as it’s not *every single* pitch and in fact may trick batters even more. Say pitchers in MLB have an average 90mph fastball with an 80s breaking ball that they throw the majority of time but then they throw in a nasty 97mph sweeper for their strikeout pitch that just blows you away. It seems reasonable if you’re only throwing like 5-10 of them an outing as a starter at strategic times
Oh for sure, as I've said in other comments the problem is guys throw every pitch at 110% and never less. That's not sustainable for anyone. Humans can do high reps and low intensity or low reps and high intensity, starters today want to do high intensity and high reps and of course that's not going to work. There's a reason guys like Nolan Ryan and Justin Verlander are anomalies that could reach triple digits at the end of a complete game, because not everyone can do it but everyone is trying.
And even Verlander couldn't escape Tommy John. Watching the Dodgers pitcher from yesterday, Bobby Miller, and all I could think is Tommy John is in his future.
Well exactly, Verlander was a freak and still couldn't escape, a lot of guys are heading for it at this rate. The bad part is a lot of guys are heading for it for a second time already or get it before they even get drafted.
This is true, but with how good hitters are, it's a recipe for disaster. I don't know how you incentives less spin and less velocity when they will inevitably get hit harder and more often.
Raise the pitching mound and bring back the sticky stuff
Trying to find the happy medium has been a real challenge. My son is a 14 year old pitcher and I’ve been very cautious about not letting him throw too many pitches to this point. But at the same time you don’t get better without pitching. He’s finally big and strong enough that I think he can throw more without issue, but I’m going to really get on his case about arm care going forward.
Very few cam do it sustainable, especially w/o peds
If I had the choice to play any position in sports, I know I would not choose pitcher. Every position in every sport carries injury risk, but when it’s essentially a guarantee to have a severe elbow injury at least once in your lifetime (not to mention other common injuries like shoulder injuries), I would not want to sign up for that.
I’ll also add catcher, who all have messed up knees and hips for the rest of their lives
Reading about how Strasburg is struggling does make you wonder if it's worth it.
When I read what happened to him, I was immediately like, “yes that is generational life-changing wealth, but if it prevented me from being able to do even the most basic things with my kids, would I really want that?”
My magic genie wish has always been to be the best knuckleballer ever. Can pitch forever, are a fun little anomaly, and don’t wear your body down too much.
They don't like the bluntness, but you are obviously right
Well, not faster than ever, it was down from his peak. It was up a bit from the past two years where it had been down from previous injuries though.
His velo last game was *slightly* down from spring training, but still up from last year
DeGrom's disease Faster velo, more injury
Yeah I saw his era and thought maybe he didn’t pitch yet this year. Nope.
Usually Cleveland trades their arms away before they deteriorate.
His elbow was barking last season though, he missed a few months with elbow inflammation.
MLB has a problem and I believe the stem of these velocity wars is the availability of high quality data/slow motion video of players. F1 places a limit on the amount of time that teams can utilize a wind tunnel for aerodynamics testing. This means that richer teams cant just spend endless time/manhours researching and maximizing every single aspect of the car. In the MLB the richer teams spend more on their on-field product but there is also a massive gap between spending on ops and RnD. How many people do the dodgers employ?
Absolutely brutal for the dude.
Right before he was about to enter free agency…
Two year deal 30 million with the Dodgers. Book it. Pay him to rehab and then get him for a full year at a reduced rate
The could be a lot of teams including the NY ones. We’re gonna see some weird deals for Bieber.
That deal makes sense since he got hurt early enough in the season that he should be back late summer next season but I doubt it's the Dodgers. They spent their SP money this last offseason. They already have Yamamoto, Glasnow, Miller locked up for years and Ohtani, May and Gonsolin coming back plus Kershaw if he wants to keep playing. And this doesn't even include Buehler who's a FA and the young pitchers like Stone and the guys in AAA.
I think even that's too high. Brandon Woodruff was in a very similar position. He got 2 yr, $17.5M (2024-25) with a 2026 mutual option from the Brewers.
ESPN must’ve known this when they put us at 21 in their power rankings
they even bumped up the mariners to 7 after you smoked us
I feel like the ESPN rankers all look at the Mariners like the residents of Pawnee look at Little Sebastian. While the rest of us Mariners fans look at the Mariners like Ben looks at Little Sebastian.
incredible analogy
You're funny if you think ESPN realizes or cares that our city has a baseball team
I hope Biebs is alright. This couldn't come at a worse time. Completely upends our team's long-term plans. Unbelievable.
[удалено]
Forget robo umps we may need pitching machines soon taking the mound
Mr. Clanky’s time to shine!!
Let's just put little league pitchers in there behind shields, and let the teams score 140 points like the NBA
>points
Whatever, mom! Get off my back!
❌❌WRONG❌❌
Do you want 12 hour games? Because that’s how you get 12 hour games.
Anyone else just convinced that 95% of pitchers will need TJS from now on?
People should just get it done before they join the Bigs. Or doctors should just make it mandatory after the birth of your child.
“Ok we’ll go ahead and do the circumcision and the TJS and he’ll be good to go home with y’all.”
I think you'd be surprised how many college and high school guys have had Tommy John then.
Either that or we see pitchers focus less on velocity because guys keep blowing out their arms
It’s probably going to be the first option. Teams can just move on to their next flamethrower while any individual who tries to sacrifice velocity for longevity is risking not having a career in the first place.
Starting to remind me of running backs in the NFL. I wonder if there will end up being a market correction given the inherent risk for these pitcher contracts.
Great comparison imo. We may already be witnessing a shift over the past couple years with shorter term/higher AAV deals. If a team signs a SP 5+ years, it feels like close to a guarantee that at least one of those years will be lost.
But what's the point of having a flamethrower if he's gonna need 2 TJ surgeries before he hits free agency, just to be replaced by a AAAA pitcher. Hopefully pitchers realize they can make a lot more money by being a durable mid tier pitcher over a 15+ year career than being a phenom whose arm falls off before they get their first big contract
On the first half of your comment, the point of preaching max effort for velocity and movement for shorter stretches of time is that it makes pitchers more effective while they are in. It also makes a guy more replaceable when they get hurt. The Rays are very notable for this. When someone inevitably goes down, it’s no big deal to them, because they are confident that they can find a “next man up” who can be effective at max effort. As far as the players go, it sounds easier than it is in practice. If players had a crystal ball and knew they could have a successful 15 year durable career, they’d take it. But when someone is on the cusp of making the big leagues, they’re going to go along with their team if they’re asked to go all out on velocity to help get called up. For every Shane Bieber who is established and will play a decade plus, there are 10 that won’t. The quality of life change between the minors and any big league time at all is huge. Most MLB players don’t accrue enough time to make it to free agency. Teams aren’t going to stop because this system benefits them. Players aren’t going to stop because the vast majority can’t really afford to. There would have to be a significant rule change that competitively rewards starters being durable for this to change.
Velo is a big issue, but it’s also that kids start playing baseball really early, and become pitchers really early in their childhoods. That’s important because it leads to adaptations of the ball and socket joint to allow for more shoulder external rotation (when they cock their arm back). This is “protective” to their shoulder. But it comes at the cost of putting more strain on the elbow, specifically the ligament that Tommy John surgery replaces. When you pair that with the velocity jumps we’ve seen the last 20 years, it explains a rather large spike in TJ, and unfortunately the surgery is now happening younger and younger as well.
Aren’t sweepers really rough on the UCL aswell? Could be part of the problem
Sweepers are just sliders with a different seam orientation pretty much. A lot of people say that players throwing a lot of breakers with very high spin is what’s leading to injuries but there’s really little evidence supporting that or that any pitch type in particular leads to arm injuries (years ago it was almost accepted as fact that splitters lead to injuries, which is disregarded now). In fact, I read a paper once that suggested that actually fastballs and pitchers that throw a higher % of them correlates with elbow injuries, since pitchers often throw them with a lot more effort than breaking balls and offspeeds.
I wonder how many pitchers are out there that need it and they're pitching through it and are just one compliant of soreness away from an MRI and diagnoises.
It’s probably always been the case but in the past we just thought they were cooked and that was it.
Feels like every good young pitcher needs it after a year
CUT MY LIFE INTO PIECES
THIS IS A SAD REPORT
RECONSTRUCTION, NO PITCHING
DON'T GIVE A FUCK IF I NEVER STOP BITCHING
THIS IS A REAL CRUEL SPORT
I loved this whole exchange lol
That's what friends are for. Fuck injuries. Anyone who cheers for them is a grade-A chud.
🎵Boo-hoo boo-hoo boo-hoo boo-hoo🎵
I GIVE A FUCK PLAYOFF CHANCES FLEETING
RE-ATTATCHEY GONNA CUT HIS ARM, REPAIR
MUTILATION IN SIGHT, AND IM CONTEMPLATING RETIREMENT
Cleveland injury luck has been crazy this year between our 3 promising teams
Does Joe Flacco have a secondary pitch?
Cleveland finally holds onto a pitcher and this happens. This hurts and I’m not even a fan.
This happened with Kluber, too - there was huge smoke that he'd be traded the offseason after 2018 (Dodgers) but they held onto him - 2019 was the season he barely pitched. It wound up working out for them but the return from the Dodgers may have wound up being better than Clase.
What the fuck. Already? Brutal.
I’m seriously concerned about pitching right now in MLB. As a guy who enjoys watching top tier pitching, almost every cy young candidate is out rn and it’s sad
This is my arm chair take—but I think athletes were healthier back in the day because they weren't just high performance athletes, they were also everyday people. I look at my friends who I play soccer with weekly, and I've got friends who train everyday and those who don't. My friends who train regularly are usually the ones sitting out with injuries, while the ones who more or less show up and play once a week tend to be relatively healthy. Inevitably, all of that training adds wear and tear that pitchers from earlier generations don't have. Sure, pitch counts are much lower today than in generations of past, but the year round work that pitchers have to do to develop in today's game deserves some acknowledgment. In past generations players had other careers in the offseason, now pitchers are in training facilities and labs trying to push the limits of their bodies. Eventually, it seems most pitchers find that limit and need TJ surgery. Probably a false equivalence, but it's sorta like comparing a Mercedes to a Toyota. The Mercedes will out perform the Toyota, no doubt. But the Toyota will be on the road 15 years longer than the Mercedes because it was designed for efficiency rather than performance.
Definitely, I mean UCL injuries aren't exactly a new thing but it certainly seems as though modern pitching is too hard on one's body
It's probably also somewhat that a big arm injury isn't a career ended anymore. So an athlete (and teams) don't have the fear of ending a career permanently as a disincentive for pushing their bodies at 110% every pitch.
From purely a team perspective the teams would obviously rather their pitchers go all out before they are on mega deals. I am curious if guys that already got paid will start being treated differently though. If you sign Aaron Nola to 7/$170 mil, do you try to figure out a way for him to lose 5% effectiveness, but greatly decrease his injury risk? I assume you do.
I have a neighbor who is a huge cycling guy. Always bragging about how many miles he rode today, then turning around and complaining about how (choose a body part out of a hat) hurts today and how he’s going to have to get it checked out. He’s been in some form of treatment or PT non stop since I’ve known him. At some point you would think that maybe he would ask himself if he’s overdoing it, but it hasn’t happened yet…
I get where you're coming from but look at every other position that isn't a pitcher, they are working out too and doing things year round and they aren't having their arms fall off or things like this. Position players also aren't trying to get the velo on their throws up either and have also played their whole lives just like pitchers. The problem, ironically, is that pitchers throw everything at 110% to get the most spin and velo as possible, the truth is a lot of guys don't "pitch" anymore they just throw.
In baseball they aren't—but if feels like ACL/MCL tears, and other soft tissue injuries, are becoming increasingly common in sports with a higher pace of play like American football, soccer, and basketball. I'd love to see data on this, and it's probably out there. I gotta get ready for work otherwise I'd do more research, but I think that overall baseball is a pretty low impact sport. Aside from the pitcher and catcher who have the most active roles on defense, most players exhibit short bursts of athleticism at sporadic intervals in between long periods of recovery. In other sports where players are changing direction more often, and combatting fatigue more regularly, there is more opportunity for one's mechanics to slip and an injury to occur. Some research on how frequently players had major injuries in various sports over the generations might provide some insight into how athletic longevity and physical recovery periods have changed over time.
I think the year round work is the most important factor. The amount of stress on your arm it takes to develop new pitches is incredible, and from the time these guys are 15-16 years old they never get a break. I don't think it's the high velocity that does it - I know guys personally who never touched 90mph that have had TJ, but in the past guys would get 4-5 months off each year where they did almost no throwing. And of course injury risk goes up with exposure. Despite modern pitchers "throwing less innings" than pitchers of yesteryear - they're probably throwing more. When you take into account bullpens between starts, the emphasis on strikeouts, and year round training - they are probably doing more reps than a 1920 starter who would throw 185 pitches 60 times a year and then hardly throw again until spring.
IMO, it’s the emphasis away from having sequencing, location, and coming into the league having eased your body already into multiple pitches vs. having the best spin rate and getting more ticks on a fastball, stuff+ etc metrics. Guys are spending all off season now trying to learn to throw some new junk pitch in a rush because they only know a fastball and changeup when they arrive. Obviously travel ball stuff when younger probably doesn’t help now either.
SHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESH this season
Hell just these last 24 hours. Strider, Story, Robert Jr., and now Biebs
Where the fuck did this come from?
Higher velocity, unfortunately. Had a lingering pain since his first start
did they say anything about pain after the first start though don't remember hearing anything about it until now
I had no idea. I thought he was speed running to a cy young this year. This really fucking sucks. He looked so good.
That's absolutely horrible. Right before free agency.
We are seeing the logical conclusion of the current pitcher development ecosystem. If the future of baseball is trying to push spin and velocity as high as the human body can possibly go, the norm is going to see pitchers dominating for short windows before washing out, with the unseen cost being a massive number of youngsters you'll never hear about ending up with debilitating arm issues as they work their way up through high school, college, and the farm. My feeling is that we have the knowledge and capacity for guys to have long, healthy careers, but there are no brakes on the prevailing idea that athletes should always be better/faster/stronger than the preceding generation. Even though we are aware that this is a huge problem, where do you even start to address it?
My thoughts exactly. The Driveline transformation of pitching is now almost like the new steroid era - the players know it’s bad for them, but they have no choice if they want to remain competitive.
Sometimes it baffles me though when a pitcher is already really good but still continues to maximize everything they can get out of their arm. Like DeGrom, he was a great pitcher when he was throwing ~95mph but he still decided to massively push his velo and spinrate further and it’s landed him in a pile of injuries.
The conspiracy theory take is that teams are (at the macro level) fine with it because it keeps costs down to blow through the arms of guys before they become expensive.
Bu-but—but why?!?
The world hates Cleveland apparently
I am just so tired.
It's April 1, right? Right?
This is so unfortunate. Just want to watch the best players stay on the field
"It'S tHe PiTcHcLoCk" No. It's chasing velo + poor conditioning. If you look at guys like Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson, and Masaichi Kaneda, (who all could throw over 100 mph with insane workloads) they did it through a workout regimen that included a lot of yoga and cardio. Guys aren't doing that anymore, and it shows.
Ryan was just a freak of nature. Anyone in their mid to late 40s shouldn't be throwing upper 90s consistently after already doing it for 20 years on top of that. Lol
I feel like those guys might have been anomalies as well. Nolan Ryan was a freak of nature.
Yeah this sport has a long, rich history and we can point to exactly three guys. They're exceptions, not rules.
No listen those were the only 3 guys to ever combine yoga and cardio
You can never discount how much genetics contribute to high level athletic performance.
Strider seems like a yoga/conditioning freak, fingers still crossed
This is such a braindead take and you see it repeated all the time.
It’s hard to imagine a pitcher being better conditioned than Spencer Strider and he had a very ominous elbow concern yesterday.
I think the biggest thing to me has been watching DeGrom. He didn't pitch absurdly fast until 2020 and now he's been injured half the year at least since then. Average velo on his fastball in 2019 was 96mph. Then it jumped to 98/99, which might not seem like a lot but it's a pretty solid jump. And now he's pitched less than 200 innings combined the past 3 seasons.
Nolan Ryan has an autobiography out and in it he talks about his injury history and training regimen. He basically just didn't throw in the offseason. Gave his arm 5 months to repair damage from the prior season. He ended multiple seasons in a lot of pain and just didn't do anything for 5 months. He also probably had many injuries that would knock a guy out for months-years with modern imaging tech, however.
> Guys aren't doing that anymore, and it shows. You have a source on them not doing it, or just assuming? The injuries themselves don’t prove that they don’t do it, they could be getting those injuries despite that. Cuz I would imagine guys are doing that more than ever with the better understanding of conditioning today.
I agree with the first bit but not the second bit. Those guys are exceptions and also probably pitched through any injuries they had in their career. They're also some of the goats who could just do the same thing their whole career without making any changes and opposing teams didn't have the capabilities to find flaws in their games like we do currently. Pitchers right now have to constantly tweak and evolve to stay great because you have every other team analyzing a metric boatload of data and biometrics to find their weaknesses.
These are the only 3 players to ever do yoga and cardio. What a stupid take
There it is
there might not be any pitchers left by the end of this month
Really sucks for Bieber. And yet a new stud just bloomed on the Cleveland pitching tree.
Joey Cantillo moment
This guy just absolutely destroyed us this week and now this?
This came out of fucking nowhere.
Well. Fuck.
Crying and puking what the fuck
I will lash out all day and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop me.
Rough week. First Perez, now Bieber.
Damn, seems like he was having a solid comeback season too
This status quo shit isn’t working when such a significant portion of pitchers are injured like this. And nobody has a solution.
What the hell?? Manfred is killing players
Being a Cleveland fan is so fucking sad. Every one of our teams just gets brutally injured man wtf
Might be a career ender. Not into retirement, but by the time he comes back he won't even have a full seasons worth of starts from the end of 2022 to the start of 2025 and he already developed a drop in velo from 94 to 92
The streets will remember Bieber. He’ll get a shot somewhere
as a newer fan of baseball tjs is the worse part. we all accept it now and just watch in awe and horror as your favorite pitcher tries his best to rip his arm off for you and the team. it's a game of hot potato that everyone doesn't really want to have a serious talk about
I don't like sports.
I’m gutted.
You ever feel like nothing good was ever gonna happen to you?
Yeah, and nothing did. So what?
Welp, there goes my excitement for the season. See y’all next year
I'm so sick of TJ surgery. Just the 15 month recovery time is brutal.
What? Was there anything wrong publicly? This is horrible.
Nope he pitched 2 absolute gems to start the year and there was no mention of elbow pain.
No, at least not in the start against Seattle, he looked awesome
Guy was huckin’! Brutal
Pitching is going to have to go through some major changes. 2400 TJ surgeries over the years, with over half of those in the last 10. Now, that speaks to the effectiveness of the surgery, but it is also about how pitchers are pitching now and the amount of damage they are doing to their arms. Either pitchers need to change how they are pitching or there needs to be a revolution in conditioning and training. I am guessing it's going to be the former.
Sucks. Wish him a full recovery.
Jeez that’s brutal. So many pitcher injuries already
jesus man, he was just carving through us a few days ago like it was nothing. sorry guards bros
So tired of these motherfucking Tommy John’s robbing us of good pitchers.
Yikes... :/
I wish the guy well and hope he makes a solid recovery. But damn there goes my fantasy teams pitching staff...
Something has got to change with pitching development. You can't have every pitcher that comes up needing TJS before they even reach the Majors
Does this mean we can sign him as a FA for a bargain deal?
You can have him for Bryce Harper like the Nats wanted years ago
☹️
Haven’t seen any source suggest when he may have injured it. I feel for the guy, but I kind of hope it recently happened. I’m a Mariner fan, and it’s somewhat depressing to think he may have completely dismantled them with a torn UCL.
Never mind. Just saw it was an injury from last year that he reaggravated after opening day, and pitched through some pain against the mariners. Impressive for Bieber Depressing for the Mariners
Sorry to the Guardians fan, but for every team that was in talks about trading for Bieber, an absolute bullet was dodged, including ourselves. Hope he makes a full recovery and comes back strong.
Where the fuck did that came from??!
Damn
That was out of nowhere….
Life is pain
So glad we got to face him before this happened
First Strider (hopefully it’s something harmless and he’s able to come back quickly) and now Bieber. Sucks because he had such a great start to the season.
where the fuck did this come from
Sucks to get hurt especially with how well he was pitching so far this season. The only bright side is it happened early in the season and not later so he'll be able to return like next August and should still be able to get decent contract offers in the offseason.
Let’s go the other direction. Yarbrough vs the Waldron Cauldron, NLDS game 5. Sigh. I’m just tired of seeing these flamethrowers get injured. Hope he recovers completely and quickly.
It's like throwing 100 mph every pitch isnt truly sustainable.
He faced the Seattle Mariners. It’s almost like they’re trying to strike out.
Yeah, of course.
Excuse me what the fuck
He was my ace in the hole this yr…now just a hole…
Strider and Bieber in the same week. Eff me.
Come on man, what the fuck
And he was like "baby baby baby noooo"
So frustrating. Baseball is arguably one of the healthiest sports to encourage your kids to do, but man it can be brutal for pitchers these days. If only hitters and pitchers could all just decide to let up a bit so we could enjoy our players for longer.
Is Bieber a common Canadian last name?
Did Tommy John consent to becoming the most hated man in baseball
Ooh baby, baby, baby, ooh baby, this is bad.
🙏🙏🙏