Baseball...Struggling Again with UCL Injuries
What's Changed?
Why all the UCL injuries?
It seems that baseball is struggling again, with serious arm injuries becoming far more normal than they have been in the past. Maybe, this isn’t the case actually, however it seems that we have gotten to a point where it is expected that at some time a pitcher will injure their arm seriously, rather than it being an outlier within the population. This is a pretty scary proposition and one that has gotten to this point rather quickly.
One of the big questions that is repeatedly being asked is why? Why are there so many young and seemingly healthy arms that are breaking down?
Over a decade ago, at the last peak of elbow injuries, or at least the last time they garnered so much media attention, there was much scientific investigation as to the possible reasons why there was so much stress being placed on the elbow. Factors such as, pitching mechanics, fastball velocity, volume of throwing, and the throwing of breaking balls early in adolescence were all investigated and were suggested to have some influence on the upward trend of elbow injuries.
Now, in 2024, the game is different. Velocity is still a factor, as current pitchers throw the ball with much more velocity than pitchers previously. Analytics have a much bigger presence in the game now than ever before. This dictates pitchers' outputs, decisions, and gameplay, which may be a contributing factor to the current rise in injury rates.
It’s interesting to hear from pitchers who have pitched at the highest level of performance in MLB.
Justin Verlander:
John Smoltz:
We would love to hear your thoughts on MLB pitchers' current injury rates in the comments section below.
I completely agree with 2 of my favorite pitchers. The conversations I have had with the pitchers at many levels all lead into needing to up the velocity and arm angles. Having pressure from coaches or worried that since their velocity dropped a little for a few games they were going to hurt their draft stock or contracts. Throw in places that these players pay a lot of money to go to that use video capture and tracking systems that decide to alter biomechanics and arm positions/angles without any form of evaluation of players shoulder/elbow/or anything for that matter and just prescribe weighted ball progressions or coaches having access to this tech and doing the same thing mid-season and then a few games later a UCL tear occurs. I feel it is like many other sports where bigger, faster, explosive are all valued high and the back-end training, maintenance and care of the athletes at all levels isn't where it should be. Hopefully with big names speaking out there can spark some change or at least conversations and acoountability being taken.
I think it stems from a combination of 2 things: a lack of being at point B and a lack of special work capacity. For a while, the thought has been that players threw too much, and we overcorrected. Now, guys need to throw more baseballs at various distances and intensities. More and more players only throw at max intent. Which means that they can only produce their skill at maximum intensity. This inability to operate at a variety of ranges inhibits the ability to create a level of special work capacity. This could be where your previous discussion on Prilepin's chart fits in with preparing pitchers. Pitchers need to spend more time working 70-85 percent of their skill, where they can build the volume of their skill. This would also allow more resources to get the player to point B.
Is this inability to operate at different intensities caused internally by the failure to operate in different fascial gearing positions?
Also, I mean baseball, not plyo balls or weighted balls. Those are different means that are being applied poorly, mainly causing pitchers to start throwing unwanted cutters, in my experience.