Despite best efforts, Yanks youngsters still have arm troubles
By“Three areas that can cause injured arms are a poor delivery, poor conditioning and overuse.” – Rick Peterson
For Major League teams, Peterson’s words have been ones to live by. Over the years they’ve seen countless prospects fall victim to various arm maladies which have turned once promising careers into veritable busts. With the stakes so much higher these days, in the form of multimillion dollar bonuses, teams are looking for every conceivable way to protect their young arms — now termed assets because of the immense investments required just to obtain them.
This is the exact reason the Yankees have acted so strangely, by traditional standards, with Joba Chamberlain this season, and why they will likely act similarly with Phil Hughes next year. They want to avoid the overuse part of Peterson’s statement. Since it is something they can directly control, they’re certainly going to take every precaution possible. Hence, what might seem like ridiculous, kid-glove rules are, to the Yankees, a way to ensure that they don’t overwork their prized young arms.
Yet even the most stringent precautions can’t ensure an injury-free existence. As Joe Brescia chronicles in The New York Times, the Yankees have seen a large number of their best prospects miss significant time with arm injuries over the past few years. This year alone they had two prospects, George Kontos and Brett Marshall, undergo Tommy John Surgery, while another, Dellin Betances, had ligament reinforcement surgery, similar to the procedure Mariano Rivera underwent in 1992. What is it with the Yankees and injuries to young pitchers?
There are two question which need asking before this one. One is of whether the Yankees are doing anything to exacerbate the injury rate, but even before that is a more important one. How are other teams doing in this area? Is the Yankees situation anomalous? Or are other teams seeing their prospects go down at a similar rate? It’s tough to know that answer. We might follow all levels of the Yankees system, but it’s difficult to keep up with all levels of all systems.
Though it might seem like the Yankees system is riddled with injuries, the case is sometimes overstated, and Brescia’s account is guilty of that. He mentions a handful of names whose surgery ostensibly has little or nothing to do with the Yankees system.
Andrew Brackman: Underwent Tommy John surgery before throwing a pitch for the organization. It was a known issue when the Yankees selected him with the 27th pick in the 2007 draft.
Humberto Sanchez: Underwent Tommy John surgery after the Yankees acquired him from the Detroit Tigers in the Gary Sheffield trade. Sanchez’s injury history was one reason the Tigers were willing to part with him for the over-the-hill Sheffield. He hadn’t even started a game in the minors for the Yanks before the surgery.
J.B. Cox: His elbow surgery had nothing to do with on-field issues. It came as the result of a bar fight.
Zach McAllister: Yes, he did have an MRI, but his stint on the DL was mostly related to fatigue. He’s come back strong since the team reactivated him, and is showing no signs of injury.
Ian Kennedy: It’s tough to pin an aneurysm on something the Yanks did. You can’t rule it out, but there’s certainly no causation there.
Chien-Ming Wang: Again, it’s tough to make a causal connection, but there’s a pile of evidence which suggests that Wang’s shoulder injury was a cascade from his foot injury, which he suffered running the bases.
That still leaves a number of names, like Tim Norton, Alan Horne, Betances, Chris Garcia, Marshall, and others, who have been injured while in the Yankees system. But once you weed out the names that don’t appear to be related to work done in the Yankees system, the injury numbers seem to be at a more reasonable level.
Echoing Peterson’s three points, Yankees’ senior vice president for baseball operations Mark Newman notes what the Yankees can control. “We certainly don’t overwork guys. We can control three things: their workload, their mechanics and their conditioning.” Surely all teams do this, based on advice from numerous experts. Still, that might not be enough in some instances. “The DNA of the player, how strong the connective tissue is, is something we don’t have any control over,” adds Newman.
Even with these precautions in place, teams can’t be sure of an injury’s nature. As Peterson says, it could come from their past. “If you monitor pitch counts, the young pitcher might not be overused currently, but he might have been overused in the past,” says the former A’s and Mets pitching coach. Even if they’re not overworked, poor mechanics can be a killer. “A hundred pitches with poor mechanics is a lot more stressful on the arm than a hundred pitches with good mechanics,” says Dr. Glenn Fleisig, the chairman of research at the American Sports Medicine Institute.
Rest assured that the Yankees are using every bit of information they have on hand in evaluating their young pitchers. This includes not only general information like innings and pitch counts, but other factors like a pitcher’s mechanics and conditioning. Sometimes things just aren’t going to work out. But with an effective injury prevention system in place, perhaps we’ll see more prospects break through, rather than bust out.
That’s the idea behind the Joba Rules, and really the rules for any young pitcher. As Newman notes, the Yankees, and surely the other 29 teams, have been tracking injuries for the past 20 years. These rules don’t exist just to infuriate fans. They’re in place because data has shown that there are certain things that correlate strongly with injury. The hope is that by heeding these correlations that the overall number of injuries decreases. That’s the best scenario for everyone involved.
Maybe everyone should have Tim Lincecum’s NASA created delivery.
And his Prell created hair.
Look at that hair, Cotton. Flowing and lethal…
Go ahead and make your jokes, Mr. Jokey… Jokemaker.
his back spasms make me nervous
Which is why, if you gave me a choice of which player I could have between Lincecum and King Felix, I’m taking the King.
Little guys with whiplash deliveries always scare me. I’m not Rick Peterson, maybe I’m making a big to-do about nothing, but I still have a nagging feeling in my gut that Lincecum either breaks down or just wears down. I like Felix’s build way better, I’ll take whatever small stepdown in terms of stuff he represents.
According to B-ref:
Felix: 6′2″ 225lbs
Timmy: 5′11″ 160 lbs
I don’t trust any of those numbers. They’re basically guesses from someone in media relations for the team.
What do your eyes tell you?
1. tcwa
2. dude’s really only 5′11 160? jesus
That’s not really fair, those height/weight numbers are notoriously inaccurate.
Wikipedia has Lincecum at 5′11, 172.
Doesn’t list anything for King Felix.
Fangraphs has Lince at 5′11″ 170
Felix at 6′3″ 230.
I dunno, I guess they are close.
Close, but not the same.
No way to prove this either way, but I’m pretty sure those height/weight numbers have a rep for being inaccurate.
RANDAL: Hey, can’t we do something about those two stoners hanging around outside all the time?
DANTE: Why? What’d they do now?
RANDAL: I’m trying to watch Clash of the Titans, and all I can hear is the two them screaming about Morris Day at the top of their lungs.
DANTE: I thought the fat one didn’t really talk much.
RANDAL: What, am I producing an A&E Biography about ‘em?
what a great movie.
Jay: I don’t care if she’s my cousin or not…I’m gonna knock those boots again tonight.
Just spread my cheeks a little and you can see the f$%#in’ STINK NUGGETS!!!
Not to mention Felix is 2 years younger and is putting up similar numbers to Timmy but in the big boys league.
Well, that too.
I just wanted to add style points.
You’re angling for an RAB Home Game, aren’t you?
Do we get to meet on River Ave?
only if you set up a hat and play the blues while soliciting donations
What else is there to solicit on river ave?
i can think of a couple things…
One problem is that pitchers develop their deliveries in Little League and High School, before stepping foot near a professional mound. It’s easy to say that bad mechanics can lead to injuries, but if a pitcher has been throwing the same way for many years they’ve likely built up the strength in the muscles and connective tissue to support that delivery. Lincecum is a great example of this. If another pitcher tried to emulate his delivery, they’d probably pull a muscle or blow out a shoulder very quickly. He’s able to do it because he’s been throwing exactly the same way since he was in Little League.
Saying someone has good or bad mechanics is somewhat of a misnomer. While there are certainly things that a pitcher can do that are slightly better or worse, the biggest issue is repeating the delivery. Lincecum does an amazing job of this, so even though it’s unorthodox he may be at lower risk of injury because he repeats it so well.
Eh, I think you’re right, but only up to a certain point.
The pitching motion in general is a violent motion that causes stress on certain joints, ligaments, tendons, muscles, and bones. Some deliveries are more stressful, some are less.
I’ll agree that repeating the delivery strengthens the muscles and prevents injury, but repeating the delivery also likely stresses the ligaments and tendons and slowly wears them down. How much of each counteracting force happens each time probably is what causes some pitchers to be workhorses and some to be fragile.
Some deliveries ARE bad, though.
Also note Lincecum never ices after a start. Ever. Whatever his father figured out, seems to be working well.
It’s easy to say that bad mechanics can lead to injuries, but if a pitcher has been throwing the same way for many years they’ve likely built up the strength in the muscles and connective tissue to support that delivery.
Yes and no… muscles you can build up, sure. Connective tissue not so much. If you overwork connective tissue, it gets slight tears which heal with scar tissue, which isn’t as strong or flexible.
But yeah, if you take a guy who throws straight over the top and have him throw sidearm at a major league level, there’s a good chance he’ll get hurt.
We kind of fall into mindset of thinking we have a lot more injuries then other teams because all we look at it our team.
A few notes about that:
1. Take a look at other teams minors sites, do a little research, every team has a good amount of players going down every year with TJ, labrum injuries, elbow problems, etc.
2. Yes, the Yankees have slightly more, but there is a reason for that. We need the best arms. It sounds simple, but it is true, we can’t run the same rotation out as the Orioles and get the success that we are used to and all demand.
The only way to get the best arms is to sign them for ridiculous amounts in free agency, pay overslot for fallers, or take chances on injury risks.
We’ve done the first 2, but sometimes those aren’t available, and we draft it is either take a lower ceiling player or take a chance on that possible injury risk. Sometime we go with Kennedy, sometimes Brackman. A nice mix is good, but does make us more susceptible to injuries then other farm systems.
I’ve been thinking point 2 above might be the culprit for a while now, as far as it discusses the types of guys the Yankees draft. The Yanks have tended to take chances on guys with a lot of talent in the draft the last few years, and more than a few of them have come with injury-risks attached (which is likely a good part of the reason they might have fallen to the Yanks in the first place). I like that the Yanks play this game, but this is probably one of the necessary by-products. You draft a few guys who are injury risks but have a lot of talent, chances are pretty decent a higher percentage of them are going to deal with health issues in the future.
You wrote this whole post in ten minutes, didn’t you Pawlikowski?
I’m not sure if this is supposed to be a compliment or an insult.
Heh.
I left it deliciously ambiguous. Enjoy.
So it’s not a reference to anything I missed, then?
No, just a Rick Peterson joke.
I’m fucking dense.
Don’t be too hard on yourself, JoePow. You guys are hexed. It’s Ed from SF’s revenge.
It’s just like Montezuma’s Revenge, but with more irritable bowel syndrome.
I lol’d.
Poor Ed from SF.
I believe you mean Pawlikawski. I’m changing a vowel in everyone’s name today. Mike Axesa will show up later.
/Kabek’d
I’ll take The Rapists for $400, Kabek.
TCWA to both Ben and TSJC
I started laughing out load at work and everyone around me started staring. Oh well, they both are fucking funny.
I wonder how much of the concern over mechanics has contributed to some of the changes we have seen in Joba since his injury last year. It seems he is not the max effort guy he was out of the bullpen or even in the rotation last year and he and the organization might have noticed something about his mechanics. They might fear that that kind of delivery and intensity of delivery would ultimately increase his likelihood of injury. That would explain the drop in velocity as well as his inconsistency in velocity. I ultimately think that he can still be successful, it is just interesting to consider Joba pre-injury 2008 vs. post-injury 2008, especially in light of AJ’s career injuries pitching max effort and the light of Mark Prior.
Didnt Wang have shoulder issues before his foot? Also isnt the cause of that because of the way he throws the sinker? I thought thats what I heard/read somewhere but I cant find it this moment. Has anyone heard anything similar?
The only issue I remember with his sinker was his nail.
He had shoulder surgery in 2001, I believe, but that’s before he became a sinkerballer.
that was the reason they had him scrap the slider right?
Umm… ~15% of Wang’s pitches in the majors have been sliders. Including this year.
when he was in the minors pre shoulder injury i believe his k numbers were higher and then they had him scale back the slider after the shoulder injury…i could be wrong but i remember seeing this…
“Wang came to the Yanks as “Tiger” Wang, a fireballing Taiwanese player who’d drawn the attention of scouts from several teams for his 96 MPH fastball and wicked slider.
They signed him to a $1.9M deal in 2000 and Wang began to climb the organizational ladder. Then he blew out his shoulder in only his fourteenth start, putting him out for the entire 2001 season, and convincing the Yanks he had to change his pitching repertoire.
Neil Allen, his pitching coach at AAA Columbus, taught him to pitch a sinker—and the rest is Yankees history.
The sinker is a devastating pitch, particularly when accompanied by with his still-impressive fastball. It looks like a low fastball until the batter’s already committed to his swing, at which point it drops and becomes incredibly heavy, so that batters who manage to make contact either top it off into the dirt, or can’t get enough muscle behind it for the ball to travel far.”
link this is from:
http://www.examiner.com/x-739-.....nMing-Wang
so after the shoulder injury he went from a wicked slider pitcher to a wicked sinkerballer with a complementary slider to be used occasionally
He went from someone like Joba (fastball/slider) to someone like Lowe(sinker/slider). Joba throws a slider 20-25% of the time. Lowe throws a slider roughly 25% of the time.
The change was not a change to his slider, it was a change to his fastball. He went from a swing and miss fastball to a pitch-to-contact sinker.
he went from being a primarily slider guy to toning it down and throwing it much much less. this is why his strikeouts dwindled as well once he went to the sinker. because he wasnt using the slider as regularly if at all
he then went back to using th slider more recently:
Wang is utilizing his slider more often: a pitch I mentioned in my 2007 Yankees preview that I thought would generate more Ks. In 2006, Wang threw 74.2% fastballs, more than anyone in the American League. Ever since Wang’s start again Boston on May 26th, he has been mixing in his change up and slider.
http://baseballevolution.com/tony/wanglogic.html
And:
Certainly his adding the slider back into the mix didn’t help things either, as he had suffered a shoulder injury in 2005.
The result of the ‘05 injury led to the Yankees telling Wang “NOT TO THROW anymore sliders.” (note to Joba Chamberlain )
Instead, they taught him his highly touted sinker-ball.
In Sports Illustrated article dated April 2008, Wang said, “If I want to be a Tier One pitcher, then I’ll have to add my slider back.”
He added it back before last year’s season; but suffered a fluke foot injury icing his season. And he hasn’t been the same since re-adding the slider.
Perhaps the Yankees will re-visit the slider issue with him again.
http://bleacherreport.com/arti.....ds-surgery
Yeah, he made his team debut in 2000, had shoulder surgery in 2001, and learned the sinker while at AAA in 2005.
It seems that the majority of the injuries are down on the farm. The positive I see in that is that these players are young and can possibly rebound and go on to have a successful career. Another thing it tells me is that, since we don’t overwork our young pitchers, these injuries have probably been brewing as a result of their delivery or previous workloads.
That’s why I don’t think these injuries are only happening in abundance in our system but no others.
There are loads of athletes that haven’t made it because of injuries. Personally I view having an arm that stands up to the violence and unnatural nature of a pitching motion as a blessing. So, not only do you need an incredibly gifted ability to pitch you, need to be one of the lucky ones who’s body is just built a little stronger, and that’s even before you get the chance to be overused, develop bad mechanics, take poor care of yourself.
I’m willing to bet in little towns all across the USA there’s some character straight out of a tv movie welding a muffler with a mouthful of chew while his old coach tells him “yep, I remember that state championship of 81. That was the best game I ever seen pitched.If it wasnt for you blowing out your arm I swear you coulda been a pro.”
Then they do some other redneck shit and it’s over.
Then they do some other redneck shit and it’s over.
this made me laugh
http://retiredredneck.com/wp-c.....5;1024.jpg (safe)
i’ll see you, and raise you this
http://www.peopleofwalmart.com (safe-ish depending)
oh its down! damn
and it’s back! huzzah!
http://themishmash.typepad.com.....lboard.jpg (safe)
wow.
http://www.phawker.com/wp-cont.....ROPPED.jpg
http://www.redneck-humor.com/f.....983724.jpg (NSFW)
Nice piece, covers the idea well.
One nitpick though – Wang’s got a long history of shoulder issues. He had shoulder surgery in the minors, missed several months of his rookie season with what was rumored to be a rotator cuff tear, and now this. The guy has a history of issues with it, which is probably at least as much to blame for the latest problems as the cascade from the foot injury is. It’s not fair to ignore Wang in a discussion like this.
I wonder how the Jays and Reds feel about the Yankees pitcher injuries?
Hmm…
Perhaps it was stated somewhere in the thread, so sorry if repeating, but the Yankees have also adopted a high risk, high reward approach to draft to get better arms that other teams have passed on. It’s one way they can get access to potential impact arms despire the fact that they draft later. Betances and Brackman are two that were projected to need surgery from the start.
It’s a nonsense article.
Perhaps it was stated somewhere in the thread,
It was. There’s only 65 comments, and many of them are one sentence or less. Shouldn’t be that hard to read them all.
so sorry if repeating,
You are.
but the Yankees have also adopted a high risk, high reward approach to draft to get better arms that other teams have passed on. It’s one way they can get access to potential impact arms despire the fact that they draft later. Betances and Brackman are two that were projected to need surgery from the start.
No, Brackman was projected to need surgery. Betances was healthy and presented no injury risk beyond that of any other pitcher. He fell not because he was an injury risk, but because he was wickedly raw and had a large bonus demand.
It’s a nonsense article.
What’s a nonsense article? What are you referring to and where did this non sequitur come from?
you’re a dominant started
heh, well played
haha
I agree overall, but on the third point… Betances may not have been injured in high school prior to being drafted by the Yankees, but he was a 6′8″ man-child with mechanical issues when he was drafted. It’s not too much of a stretch to say that, at the time he was drafted, he was viewed as a possible future injury risk.
PS: MikeD must have been referring to the Brescia article that Joe cited above in his post, right?
most definitely
that’s what i went with, because it’s not worth assuming the other and calling him out regardless
But only because he was tall.
Not because he was actually injured at the time, like Brackman. We drafted Brackman knowing that we’d have to cut and rebuild him immediately. Betances has had some nicks and scrapes, but he was a basically healthy pitcher who needed to have his delivery tinkered with, not his ELBOW tinkered with.
You’re right, I think I’m just trying to be as charitable as possible to MikeD here. Was Dellin an injury risk in the common sense of the term? No. Was he more of an injury risk than a 6′1″ pitcher with smooth mechanics? Probably.
Exactly.
But, as Kumar and I say, just because you’re hung like a moose doesn’t mean you have to do porn.
First off, pitching is a very high stress, plyometric exercise, and the number of human beings on the planet capable of doing it at the major league level for any length of time is probably very small, and probably a finite number that isn’t going to increase much over time. It’s just rough on the body.
Second, how do you really know what ‘correct’ mechanics are?
Think of Michael Phelps. He has the legs of someone under 6 feet tall, but arms and a torso that would “fit” someone close to 7 feet tall. The result is the perfect body for swimming. So not every body is the same. Our proportions can be all over the map. In a complex motion like pitching, the length of the two segments of the arm relative to each other…relative to the width of the shoulders, height, etc., all cause variation on the degree of stress produced. Not everyone has the same natural posture, in any limb, so no single “arm slot” would necessarily be correct for everyone.
Proper mechanics for pitchers probably have to be individually determined, by trial and error, at least to a degree.
Conditioning? Pitchers can’t consume as many innings as in the past. Why? Yes, overtraining is a concern, but on the other hand, the only way to condition your body to pitch lots of innings is to…pitch lots of innings. At some point, they have to figure out either how to condition the body and develop longterm training regimes that will allow pitchers to consume more innings, or they have to radically alter something else. Such as, the ball, the mound, the strike zone, the bats, etc. Pitching is a bit too ineffective today, and hitters are too smart, such that games are too long and too boring. Hitting is great, but we have too much of a good thing right now.
In short, I doubt the Yankees are doing anything wrong, at least not anything that every other team is also doing ‘wrong.’ In the present climate, we will always think injuries are on the rise, because minor injuries that would have been ignored in the past are landing pitchers on the DL today to protect them.
Or, it could be this: They’re all just pussies.
Sincerely,
Nolan Ryan
nolan ryan:rangers::hank:yankees
he is the manliness head honcho who talks a big game then imposes joba rules on neftali and hopes no one notices.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go beat the shit out of Robin Ventura.
crazy kids GET OFF MY LAWN!
Nolan Ryan actually stars in Gran Torino.
Nolan Ryan can still pitch 250 innings.
A day.
Put Nolan Ryan in his prime in a game against the 2009 Yankees….or put him in the AL East for a season in 2009, and watch what happens. He’d be on the DL half way through the season.
Watch a rerun of a 1970s baseball game. It’s like watching an old film of Babe Ruth where it looks like he’s trotting really fast around the bases…only the film isn’t sped up. The pitchers just pitch the freaking ball, and the batters are actually trying to hit it, rather than step out and lay off any pitch 7 microns out of the strike zone. Nolan would throw 174 pitches in each of three straight complete games and is arm would go Dravecky.
Sabermetrics has taught us the value of on base percentage, and the value of drawing walks.
The sabermetric revolution is upon us. The sabermetricians have won, baseball has lost.
The sabermetric revolution is upon us. The sabermetricians have won, baseball has lost.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbole
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative
No, seriously, Tank. You have a great point.
No need to ruin it with a hyperbolic throwaway line about how sabermetrics is killing baseball. It’s not. No need for Obama’s Death Panels inflammatory falsehood talk poisoning the well.
You came so close to a big point, and just missed it.
It’s not a new appreciation of a walk that changed. It was the realization that making the pitcher work harder had strategic value.
Even the best pitcher makes mistakes sometimes. Wait for the mistakes rather try to be beat his best pitch. If you can’t beat him, wear him out and beat the lesser pitcher that relieves him.
Walks being valuable just makes that strategy even more effective. Guys aren’t going up to the plate thinking “I hope I get a walk”.
In the present climate, we will always think injuries are on the rise, because minor injuries that would have been ignored in the past are landing pitchers on the DL today to protect them.
Simpler answer than that. Information is far more readily available today than it used to be. We’ve got tons of information on the high minors, but it decreases as you get lower. I’m sure that will change, and what we see now as mystery periods where someone doesn’t play for a while without an explanation will turn out to be minor injury concerns.
Good point. We may feel like there’s more injuries today because we know who Alan Horne and Christian Garcia and Humberto Sanchez are before they ever have a chance to do anything.
The Hornes, Garcias, and Sanchezes of 10, 20, 30+ years ago would have gotten injured and flamed out before ever entering our consciousnesses.
This particular part of the thread is 100% awesome. I enjoyed every part of it. Thanks guys.
Well, genius is a pretty strong term, but if you insist on using it, I can handle it.
“We may feel like there’s more injuries today because we know who Alan Horne and Christian Garcia and Humberto Sanchez are before they ever have a chance to do anything. The Hornes, Garcias, and Sanchezes of 10, 20, 30+ years ago would have gotten injured and flamed out before ever entering our consciousnesses.”
I get frustrated just thinking about how many times I’ve had to try to explain this to someone who’s telling me that young players today shouldn’t have inning/pitch limits because Bob Gibson and Nolan Ryan threw 300 innings a year and didn’t get hurt.
I remember my dad telling me about how he fell in love with baseball when he used to sit on my grandpa’s lap back in 1956 and listen to the radio announcer talk about the linear pitch weights and inverted W’s of the Yankees DSL 2 team pitching staff into the wee hours of the night.
DSL. Heh.
“Three areas that can cause injured arms are a poor delivery, poor conditioning and overuse.” – Rick Peterson”
This from a guy who claimed he could fix Carlos Zambrano in 15 minutes.
You’re late, and your punchline is wrong.
http://riveraveblues.com/2009/.....ent-573716
Doubly wrong, by the way.
VICTOR ZAMBRANO ftw!
The Hornes, Garcias, and Sanchezes of 10, 20, 30+ years ago would have gotten injured and flamed out before ever entering our consciousnesses.
Or, they never would have made it past A ball, since there were about half as many teams up to 1961, and about 20% less until I guess the 90s.
What makes the whole pitching fiasco even worse is that MLB needs waaaaaaay more pitchers than it did in the past. We’re talking serious dilution. Perhaps some of that is compensated for by a bigger pool to draw from (Latin America, the Far East), but on the other hand, the number of African Americans pursuing baseball seems to be dropping considerably…
Anyway:
1. 1900-1960: 16 teams, times maybe 8 pitchers/team = 108 pitchers league wide. Let’s round up to an even 125.
2. 1961-1975/6: 24 teams, times maybe 10 pitchers/team = 240 pitchers.
3. Today: 30 teams, times 12-13 pitchers/team = 360-390 pitchers.
Oy.
…an even 125…
Duh.
How about 120. Then it’s 120, 240, 360.
When Bud Selig finally fossilizes in his Commissioner’s chair in 2024, and the entire US little league enterprise has taught every kid how to play like Nick Swisher, we will have 40 MLB teams, each with 30 man rosters including 18 pitchers each, for a total of 720 pitchers.
Yeah… no.
and the entire US little league enterprise has taught every kid how to play like Nick Swisher,
Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll still be around to remind them to stay off the lawn …
Or, they never would have made it past A ball, since there were about half as many teams up to 1961, and about 20% less until I guess the 90s.
No, they wouldn’t have as their elbow injuries probably would have been career ending with 1960s medicine.
What makes the whole pitching fiasco even worse is that MLB needs waaaaaaay more pitchers than it did in the past.
Most of the first time period you listed had a player pool consisting solely of white, US players.
Today’s player pool is no longer segregated and includes a large population of players from all over the Americas. There’s also a significant and growing number of Asian born players. The US population has also grown by about 55% between 1960 and 2000.
Yes, there are less African-American players in the majors today than there used to be. A large part (but probably not all) of that is because there are less American players in the majors today. There’s been a huge influx of talent from other parts of the world. That has two effects – increases the size of the talent pool and decreases the percent of the talent pool represented by the previous pool of players.
You’re also ignoring the fact that before free agency, baseball players generally weren’t paid well. The risk/reward balance was shifted far more towards risk back then than it is now, which would have prevented a lot of people from ever entering the league.
Is the team monitoring diets? Work out regimens? They should be handing out work outs to their players….
Also Joe,
I don’t know how you simply shrug your shoulders at Kennedy’s injuries. The man pitched 164 innings in 2007. After topping out at 117 in college which is a totally different beast than minors/themajors.
Lets take into account that some people believe you can’t count minor league numbers because of the much less stressful atmosphere.
He had winter ball innings to increase that 117 total.
winterball?? reallyfam, thats all you got for me???
do we have a figure to work with??
did he pitch in winterball/fallball between 06-07
Ed explains below.
117 IP his sophmore year of college (2005)
101 IP his junior year + 2.2 IP in Staten Island + 30.1 IP in winter ball = 134 IP in 2006
Makes his 2007 total basically dead on target.
college really??????? shit is clown shoes….
Great way to back up your point. Glad you brought real data to the table instead of a bunch of pointless question marks and a throwaway line.
Word I already made my point about how pressure should affect the inturpitation of innings @ lower levels of play.
And You didn’t really come @ me with facts before when you simply stated he also pitched in winterball…
BUT BACK TO THE MATTER @ HAND.
You also have yet to respond to the comments i made earlier about joba chamberlain.
You have paraded around here the last couple of weeks acting like the yankees are being liberal with joba when they are being more oldschool/moderate.
Also if I could make a point about Phil Hughes.
Hughes made a large innings jump in 06 when he went from 85 IP to 146 IP a 61 IP increase.
While I am unaware and unable to find info on when the rule or disovery was made.
Shouldn’t the yankees be looking back @ how hughes responded in 07??
reguardless of if the rules where publicly known?? exp in light of couldbe recent discoveries?
This is the exact reason the Yankees have acted so strangely, by traditional standards, with Joba Chamberlain this season, and why they will likely act similarly with Phil Hughes next year.
????
They are not exactly acting like leftist crazed liberals. They are still pushing Joba over the 30+ IP limit.
And I can understand not living by the verducci rule but this isn’t a kid who has always been healthy and has been running through innings in the majors.
In fact he has been struggling all year which leads to a higher stress level so these innings are harder than his past efforts.
I think the team needs to stop half stepping with joba see if one inning stints can help him regain that ++ velocity, +control, w/ a + secondary pitch. IF NOT simply SHUT HIM DOWN and stretch out hughes.
This problem is a fact of life in the game. Every team has it. Young pitchers get hurt. Throwing a baseball is a violent action that isnt natural.