Overuse of young pitchers fueling MLBs "Tommy John" surgery problems

[AggiesAreWe]

http://m.si.com/4130468/overuse-of-young-pitchers-fueling-mlbs-tommy-john-surgery-problem/

 

Part of the reason why I am not too big a fan of "select" or year around baseball.

[Dayton Transplant]

Must find the proper select team. Someone that monitors pitch count and no curve balls until HS. Two seam, Four seam and change up is all they need. 30-50 pitches per week. 

[Peppermint Patty]

Select baseball provides an easy target. I would bet that Nolan Ryan pithced more innings in his career that most of these young pitchers do today. It was not uncommon for a pitcher to throw both ends of a double header way back when,

 

It's more about conditioning and proper mechanics.

[Ultimatefan]

http://m.si.com/4130468/overuse-of-young-pitchers-fueling-mlbs-tommy-john-surgery-problem/

Part of the reason why I am not too big a fan of "select" or year around baseball.

I think select ball can be great depending on the coaching. It's very natural and easy to continue to hand the ball to your best pitching prospect but I've read numerous articles about protecting kids arms written from scouts and physicians.

Thx for sharing as it is important also to listen to your players. They know how their arm is feeling and shouldn't be pressured by any coach, period!

[AHUDDLESTON]

I like what I have been hearing from the big time pitchers.( Nolan Ryan) They believe that the biggest problem is a pitch count that babies the pitchers.

[AHUDDLESTON]

Something that I learned about pitching a long time ago was to watch for when the mechanics started getting altered due to fatigue.  At the first sign of fatigue I would replace the pitcher.  I have been coaching for 22 years now and have only had one arm issue from a pitcher. (he didn't take my advice and sit out summer after having pitched in fall and the high school season)

[chukslegacy]

Arm problems are never a good thing, my son hyper-extended his throwing arm during football and an mri was done and the report was a tear in his ucl. Surgeon in PA referred us to Litner in Houston who does all the tj surgeries. This came about at the beginning of baseball this year so he was devestated, that he would have surgery and miss his senior year. I took the advice of a good friend and sent him to performance sports medicine in lake Charles La. and they said it was inflamed and rehab was done for 5 to 6 weeks and he is at 90% now.  I guess what i am trying to say is always check your options out! Too many doctors are willing to put kids under the knife!

[Dayton Transplant]

Lintner did surgery on a friends sons elbow and in 6 weeks was throwing and pitching in another 2 weeks. Pitched 3 years on varsity and summers with no problems. On his way to college now.

[WTB]

Select baseball is overrated,  these kids need rest and do not need to play year around, the last 8-10 years you are hearing about more TJ surgeries from young college players, high school players, and young pro players, back in the early 90s and 00s we didn't hear about TJ back then now you are hearing it more and more because these kids are playing year around, you need 2-3 months of rest!!!

 

 

 

http://www.cleveland.com/dman/index.ssf/2013/02/noted_surgeon_dr_james_andrews.html

 

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/12/sports/baseball/debate-grows-over-how-to-protect-young-pitching-arms.html?pagewanted=all

 

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/mlb/news/20140513/jose-fernandez-miami-marlins-injury/

[TradinUp BH]

I don't necassarily believe select ball is the cause of arm problems. I do think kids that are the "Ace" pitchers that throw for league games and select tournaments are the main one's hurting arms. That's way too much pitching. Now, one thing I don't like about select ball is the amount of games you play in one weekend. Teams that don't have much pitching do use kids way too much in a weekend. There's times where teams are playing 2 on Saturday and up to 3 to 4 games on Sunday. If you don't have 10-12 kids that can pitch on a team then someone is going to be pitching alot! They go by innings or outs depending on Nations or USSSA, but that could mean a kids threw 150 pitches that weekend, and if they play league ball too and pitched that week, now your talking 200+ pitches in a week. When my kid decided to play select, I told him to chose league or select, but not both for that very reason. JMO

 

I would like to add, I like how 19-4a does the district schedule where they play the same team twice in one week. I think it makes the high school teams use more then one or two pitchers and helps protect arms.

[texas13]

Select doeant hurt kids arms most travel teams have pitching staffs of 8-10 players like the banditos, heat, evo canes, etc. Only things is that the arm needs rest sometime!

[WTB]

Lol arms need 2-3 months every year, not just sometime!!! Like I said select ball is hurting all these kids right now!! Then why are these players getting hurt and high school kids having Tj?

[Rake1]

Whoa! Hold on just a minute before we put all the blame on Select ball or anything else. One thing nobody has addressed yet is the arm care issue, specifically before and after a kid pitches. This is a huge contributing factor to injuries. The lack of adequate warm up/stretching before most guys pitch along with how they care for their arms when they are done is terribly insufficient. Guys try to do too much too fast to get started and then not nearly enough when they finish or on their off days. You watch most guys, a little 3-5 minutes of stretching then they grab a baseball and start throwing rather than going through an adequate warm up period. Check out a professional pitcher and how long it takes them to get ready to pitch, it will blow your mind. It will also blow your mind to see what these pitchers do when they are done. The amount of running, stretching, icing, and so on is incredible. The off day work outs are often more intense than the actual game day throwing the pitcher goes through. It's basically the same concept as starting your car and going straight to 100 without allowing the car to warm up sufficiently, it causes damage. Now I agree pitch counts are needed and common sense should be applied as to what pitches a young player throws and at what age they begin throwing them, no dispute here. I just think more attention needs to be placed on how these young arms are cared for as well.

Out of curiosity I'd like to know if pitchers in Japan have the same arm issues as guys in the USA? You always hear the stories about guys like "Dice-K" throwing both ends of double header when they were in high school or averaging 125-150 pitches per outing. It would be interesting to know if they have the same sort of problems.

Rake1

[Baba Ganoush]

League, Select, blah blah. Guns don't kill people, people do. Select ball doesn't hurt kids, dumb coaches and parents do. Don't blame a coach, the parent can not let the kid pick even if the coach wants him to. Mechanics, conditioning are important. I do not like pitch counts. I think throwing strengthens the arm. But there are stages for throwing. Don't go out day one and go crazy. Too easy to blame something or someone else. Young kids and high school kids should not be "pitchers only". Play another position, rest the arm when needed. Do the kids the don't pitch in select have TJ? Not sure how Select can be blamed. Goes back to parents

[WTB]

Then why are all these guys having Tj? Tons of them this year and hs kids around southeast texas??? Over use!!! Kids playing year around and not getting rest!!

[rounder17]

Whoa! Hold on just a minute before we put all the blame on Select ball or anything else. One thing nobody has addressed yet is the arm care issue, specifically before and after a kid pitches. This is a huge contributing factor to injuries. The lack of adequate warm up/stretching before most guys pitch along with how they care for their arms when they are done is terribly insufficient. Guys try to do too much too fast to get started and then not nearly enough when they finish or on their off days. You watch most guys, a little 3-5 minutes of stretching then they grab a baseball and start throwing rather than going through an adequate warm up period. Check out a professional pitcher and how long it takes them to get ready to pitch, it will blow your mind. It will also blow your mind to see what these pitchers do when they are done. The amount of running, stretching, icing, and so on is incredible. The off day work outs are often more intense than the actual game day throwing the pitcher goes through. It's basically the same concept as starting your car and going straight to 100 without allowing the car to warm up sufficiently, it causes damage. Now I agree pitch counts are needed and common sense should be applied as to what pitches a young player throws and at what age they begin throwing them, no dispute here. I just think more attention needs to be placed on how these young arms are cared for as well.
Out of curiosity I'd like to know if pitchers in Japan have the same arm issues as guys in the USA? You always hear the stories about guys like "Dice-K" throwing both ends of double header when they were in high school or averaging 125-150 pitches per outing. It would be interesting to know if they have the same sort of problems.
Rake1

I agree 100% with your post.

[TigerBaseball]

Why?... Kids are bigger and stronger. They train harder then years past. You can strengthen every muscle in the body but you cant strengthen ligaments. I have to agree with rake 100% and sometimes kids are just unlucky , bad mechanics , colder weather , not warming up properly. 

[TradinUp BH]

I'm not a guru on some of this, but I do remember as a kid, all of the pitchers would wrap their arms in ice after games. I'm 40 years old, so it was a while back. lol I don't ever see that nowadays. Do any of ya'll see that anymore? Just curious. Heck, we would put icy hot on our arms and it would numb the arm and we were good to go. No TJ during that time. Kids didn't warm up like Rake talked about either, kids threw curveballs in little league, etc.. Everything that we are all talking about was done in little league back in the 70's, and 80's with no issues. It was dad's coaching kids with minimal coaching experience or resume, but there no arm issues.  It's just interesting, the difference of today and yesterday and what the key element could be to the injuries.

[baseballmania]

I agree with Rake 1. There is not enough arm prep before and arm care after the game. I think that most kids try to throw harder than there arms are ready for. I think that good arm care, good mechanics and proper workouts to help develop the arm will help with injuries.

[WTB]

http://ftw.usatoday.com/2014/05/tommy-john-surgery-epidemic-jose-fernandez-miami-marlins-mlb

[rounder17]

http://www.topvelocity.net/jose-fernandezs-slider-may-have-ruined-his-arm/#more-8735

[Steven Avery]

first I agree that most kids do not take the time to properly warm up and stretch but pro pitchers do and obviously its happening more and more at that level.

 

I think year round baseball is bad for a pitcher, not so much select itself if you give yourself some time off. I think the rise in arm injuries is related to the number of kids specializing in baseball at a early age and giving up football, basketball etc in exchange for year round training. Think about it, you used to play baseball in the spring/summer, then football in the fall and basketball thru the winter...this gave your arm and body time to heal....I think one needs to look back and see where baseball really started becoming year round to deterimine the issue...to me its around the early 2000s.

[BlackShirts5]

Alot of things factor into these guys hurting their arms.  With the pitch counts that little league use today the kids get proper rest in between games. Now we have never played select live pitch so I dont know if they have pitch counts and all that good stuff. I remember back in the day of it was in the 90's but I pitched every game for my little league team. We didnt have pitch counts and stuff. 

[Steven Avery]

I don't pitch counts in season is the problem, I think common sense needs to be used as there is no magical number. The problem is the year around throwing without a period of 2-3 months of non throwing at a min...at least until they are 16+ in age. Personally I think its good for everyone but especially the young pre puberty arm.

[rounder17]

http://m.bleacherreport.com/articles/2064655-high-school-pitcher-throws-194-pitches-in-14-innings-loves-every-pitch?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=programming-national?is_shared=true

What about this?