Tommy John Surgery Epidemic

[AZGrizFan]

Literally, BACK-TO-BACK stories on ESPN....

Gee, I wonder what could be causing it?

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/10936 ... -bud-selig" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

NEW YORK -- Baseball commissioner Bud Selig said Thursday he's personally concerned about the recent spate of Tommy John surgeries and other injuries suffered by major league pitchers.

There's no denying the fact that the number of season-ending elbow injuries since the start of spring training is alarming, writes Stephania Bell.

MLB continues to consult with doctors and athletic trainers in an effort to address the problem. Baseball's medical advisory committee, which is headed by Dr. Gary Green, has been entrusted with trying to find some answers.

"I'm almost afraid to pick up the paper because of the bad news,'' Selig said. "I'm very worried over the fact that it's happening with so much regularity, over and over. We have some great young arms, and it's very sad.

"Let's see if we can find out some answers. Nobody has them, I'll tell you that -- including the doctors and trainers. Everybody you talk to has a different opinion.''

Miami Marlins right-hander Jose Fernandez this week became the latest pitcher to receive a diagnosis of a torn elbow ligament. The Marlins have recommended the 2013 National League Rookie of the Year undergo Tommy John surgery.

A bevy of pitchers has been diagnosed with torn elbow ligaments requiring the surgery since the start of spring training. They include Atlanta Braves right-handers Kris Medlen, Brandon Beachy and Cory Gearrin; Arizona Diamondbacks ace Patrick Corbin; Oakland Athletics starters Jarrod Parker and A.J. Griffin; Tampa Bay Rays All-Star Matt Moore; New York Yankees starter Ivan Nova; San Diego Padres starter Josh Johnson; New York Mets closer Bobby Parnell; Kansas City Royals setup man Luke Hochevar; Detroit Tigers reliever Bruce Rondon; Houston Astros reliever Jose Cisnero and top Pittsburgh Pirates prospect Jameson Taillon.

The Mets' Matt Harvey and Washington Nationals ace Stephen Strasburg are other All-Stars who have had the ligament-transplant operation, which can have a recovery time of 12 to 18 months.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/10935 ... 14-innings" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A high school baseball player in Washington State threw 194 pitches over 14 innings Tuesday before being removed in the 15th inning of his team's eventual 1-0 victory in its district tournament.

Rochester High School starting pitcher Dylan Fosnacht struck out 17 and was pulled in the top of the 15th after the first two batters reached base. Dustin Wilson, who had been playing catcher, finished the 17-inning win over La Center High School and then pitched all seven innings of Rochester's second game that day, a 5-3 victory over Elma High School.

Fosnacht posted a picture of himself and Wilson on his Twitter account.

"I have never seen two guys take the mound and dominate like that for that long," assistant coach Kyle Sprague told MaxPreps.com. "I have both of those guys in class, and they both said that their arms were fine today."

Many states impose innings or pitch limits on high school athletes. However, an official with the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association told ESPN.com that the only rule her organization has is that pitchers who throw four or more innings in a day must be given two days off before pitching again.

Fosnacht's eye-catching pitch count is in contrast to the current era of major league baseball, where pitch counts are closely monitored and teams seem to be overprotective of pitchers, removing them as soon as they pass 100 pitches. It also comes during a year when several MLB pitchers have had to undergo Tommy John surgery to repair elbow ligament tears, with the most recent casualty being Miami Marlins ace Jose Fernandez, who is expected to have the surgery later this week.

His outing even caught the eye of Tampa Bay Rays ace David Price, who gave him a shoutout on Twitter, while also slamming his coach.

Fosnacht defended his coach in his reply to Price.

Fosnacht said in another tweet that it's a moment he won't soon forget.

[DSUrocks07]

The negative side of the current trend of sports specialization for younger and younger children.

At this point, it may be the new standard for a pitcher to have Tommy John surgery as soon as they are drafted. Wasn't there a story a couple years back about a player who had it done voluntarily?

[dbackjon]

Speculation that I have read is that limiting pitch counts may do more harm than good.

[GannonFan]

Speculation that I have read is that limiting pitch counts may do more harm than good.

Maybe once they're older, but the problem is that kids at a young age are pitching way, way too much. You have travel baseball teams now for kids as young as 6, and often they'll just have 3 or 4 pitchers who log all the innings. Figure they play in about 5-6 tournaments each summer, and then these teams stay together and play fall ball, winter practice, spring stuff, and these kids are throwing all year. Kids start getting a little older and all you see them throw is junk. I was warming up a pitcher for a team I coach and a Dad and his son were just pitching on the practice mound next to me, and the Dad was literally calling every pitch and had him go through his arsenal of different breaking pitches. The kid had 4-5 different pitches that broke. Dad told him to stop throwing fastballs and stick with the breaking stuff. Interesting, the kid didn't even have a straight change.

Back in the day, kids would play maybe 30-40 games a year, tops, and that even included playing for a school team and a league team (Babe Ruth, Connie Mack, Legion, etc). Now kids are playing well over 100 games a year in some cases. And, like the other poster said, they're specializing in baseball - all they play is baseball, some starting as young as 7 or 8. So it's not shocking when you consider that kids are pitching a lot more at an earlier age and throwing junk way too much that by the time they are 20 or 21, their arms are shot. One of the worst things you can do to your kid anymore is to make him a pitcher at an early age - coaches will throw them until their arms fall off.

[AZGrizFan]

Speculation that I have read is that limiting pitch counts may do more harm than good.

Maybe once they're older, but the problem is that kids at a young age are pitching way, way too much. You have travel baseball teams now for kids as young as 6, and often they'll just have 3 or 4 pitchers who log all the innings. Figure they play in about 5-6 tournaments each summer, and then these teams stay together and play fall ball, winter practice, spring stuff, and these kids are throwing all year. Kids start getting a little older and all you see them throw is junk. I was warming up a pitcher for a team I coach and a Dad and his son were just pitching on the practice mound next to me, and the Dad was literally calling every pitch and had him go through his arsenal of different breaking pitches. The kid had 4-5 different pitches that broke. Dad told him to stop throwing fastballs and stick with the breaking stuff. Interesting, the kid didn't even have a straight change.

Back in the day, kids would play maybe 30-40 games a year, tops, and that even included playing for a school team and a league team (Babe Ruth, Connie Mack, Legion, etc). Now kids are playing well over 100 games a year in some cases. And, like the other poster said, they're specializing in baseball - all they play is baseball, some starting as young as 7 or 8. So it's not shocking when you consider that kids are pitching a lot more at an earlier age and throwing junk way too much that by the time they are 20 or 21, their arms are shot. One of the worst things you can do to your kid anymore is to make him a pitcher at an early age - coaches will throw them until their arms fall off.

Interesting. In Arizona, it's machine-pitch until they're 9. But for the early teen traveling teams, 100 games might be an understatement.

[GannonFan]

Maybe once they're older, but the problem is that kids at a young age are pitching way, way too much. You have travel baseball teams now for kids as young as 6, and often they'll just have 3 or 4 pitchers who log all the innings. Figure they play in about 5-6 tournaments each summer, and then these teams stay together and play fall ball, winter practice, spring stuff, and these kids are throwing all year. Kids start getting a little older and all you see them throw is junk. I was warming up a pitcher for a team I coach and a Dad and his son were just pitching on the practice mound next to me, and the Dad was literally calling every pitch and had him go through his arsenal of different breaking pitches. The kid had 4-5 different pitches that broke. Dad told him to stop throwing fastballs and stick with the breaking stuff. Interesting, the kid didn't even have a straight change.

Back in the day, kids would play maybe 30-40 games a year, tops, and that even included playing for a school team and a league team (Babe Ruth, Connie Mack, Legion, etc). Now kids are playing well over 100 games a year in some cases. And, like the other poster said, they're specializing in baseball - all they play is baseball, some starting as young as 7 or 8. So it's not shocking when you consider that kids are pitching a lot more at an earlier age and throwing junk way too much that by the time they are 20 or 21, their arms are shot. One of the worst things you can do to your kid anymore is to make him a pitcher at an early age - coaches will throw them until their arms fall off.

Interesting. In Arizona, it's machine-pitch until they're 9. But for the early teen traveling teams, 100 games might be an understatement.

Even in PA it varies at the younger ages and which organization is running the tournaments, but by at least 8 year old travel (tournament team travel) it is kid pitch. And yes, 100 games is likely an understatement, that's what is was 10 years ago and that was just up north here. I'm sure the more South you go and the better the weather is year round it's even more so.

And the other thing - who's tracking the innings pitched by these kids when they play in different leagues for different teams? I have kids who pitch for us now who I know also pitch in their travel teams. There are league rules that govern how much they pitch inside the league (typically a rule like no more than 6 innings in any rolling 7 day period), but they could pitch those 6 innings and then turn around and pitch another 6 innings for their travel team. And that doesn't include all the pitching they do on the side or in practice or scrimmages. They typically won't have arm trouble as a 9 or 10 year old, but later on, after many years of this, they do develop arm trouble.

And that's definitely a big difference between now and 20 or 30 years ago - kids at the young ages never pitched as much as they do now. Forget trying to fix things once they get to the pros as 18-23 year olds - the damage to their arms, during their growth years, is already there. It's just a matter of time for most pitchers.

[Seahawks08]

Interesting. In Arizona, it's machine-pitch until they're 9. But for the early teen traveling teams, 100 games might be an understatement.

Even in PA it varies at the younger ages and which organization is running the tournaments, but by at least 8 year old travel (tournament team travel) it is kid pitch. And yes, 100 games is likely an understatement, that's what is was 10 years ago and that was just up north here. I'm sure the more South you go and the better the weather is year round it's even more so.

And the other thing - who's tracking the innings pitched by these kids when they play in different leagues for different teams? I have kids who pitch for us now who I know also pitch in their travel teams. There are league rules that govern how much they pitch inside the league (typically a rule like no more than 6 innings in any rolling 7 day period), but they could pitch those 6 innings and then turn around and pitch another 6 innings for their travel team. And that doesn't include all the pitching they do on the side or in practice or scrimmages. They typically won't have arm trouble as a 9 or 10 year old, but later on, after many years of this, they do develop arm trouble.

And that's definitely a big difference between now and 20 or 30 years ago - kids at the young ages never pitched as much as they do now. Forget trying to fix things once they get to the pros as 18-23 year olds - the damage to their arms, during their growth years, is already there. It's just a matter of time for most pitchers.

Yep, I agree. But I think it's more to do with junk pitches than anything. It would be interesting to see how many TJ surgeries pitchers who never throw a curve or slider have. Those are the pitches that put the most stress on the elbow and that's where all the injuries are happening. It used to be the shoulder that had the most injuries, but with better mechanics nowadays, shoulder injuries are rare. I would tell kids to limit the amount of curveballs rather than total pitches during the teenage years.

[clenz]

This could just be a one year thing.

I'll see if I can't find the graphic on Twitter back but the numbers for the past couple years were something like 4, 10, 3, 2, 3, 4 compared to the roughly 15-20 this season, through the same time

Seems like a one off based on that.


However, the in the long haul the number of them needed is WAY up...

https://twitter.com/seanlahman/status/4 ... 57/photo/1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[clenz]

Also, interesting to wonder how many careers just ended because of "Dead arm" prior to the surgery getting as perfected as it is.