Saturday, May 17, 2014

MLB's Cure to Arm Injuries is Throw more and harder?

Arm injuries have plagued Major League Baseball, and I mean plagued. With some of the best pitchers going down to injury (Fernandez, Moore, Strasburg, Sale just to name a few), there seems like no end to the problem. On average 40 percent of major league pitchers will be on the disabled list to some extent in their career.
Being a power pitcher now means one pitches for a couple years and then their arm falls off. But does this have to happen?
In an article I read in Sports Illustrated magazine, it discussed pitcher Masahiro Tanaka and his ability to pitch endlessly in Japan. It coincided with how Japanese pitchers never go through arm injuries like how American pitchers go through. It describes how Japanese pitchers constantly pitch from a small age, way more than American pitchers do. At the ages of 10-12 they will throw every day endlessly. They will throw hundreds of pitches everyday in little league and pitch every inning of every game. In high school they will pitch every game as well, if they get that far.
What the article also described is how japanese pitchers will face arm injuries at as early as 12 years old. In Japan, their pitchers do not "never face arm injuries." but they just speed up the process. In Japan, only the best arms and the most fit arms will make it to their version of major league baseball. They dwindle out all of those unequipped to pitch fade out before they get to this stage, and sometimes before they even get to high school.
In America, it is different. Americans like to preserve everything they can in their pitchers. They limit the amount a child can throw in little league. They don't pitch everyday, and american little leaguers are to refrain from throwing curveballs and splitters where in Japan they allow the kids to throw them. In high school, America has pitching rotations and pitchers will throw in game once a week, maybe twice a week. In Japan, they will throw three to four times a week excluding any pitching outside of games.
The result is that pitchers in America suffer arm injuries later in life.
Instead of facing arm injuries at 12 or 13, Americans face arm injuries at 24 or 25. All of the pitchers I previously mentioned fall roughly into this age group. In the MLB, it is more common to see a 25 year old face Tommy John surgery for elbow stiffness than a 33 year old. Savoring these pitchers' arms might be causing these arm injuries early in the pitchers' careers.
Is there a way to fix this?
I am unsure. But I have some suggestions to aid it. First one is to stop bullpen sessions. Pitchers do not need to be throwing 50 pitches or more every off day for them, 50 pitches in pregame warm ups, then over 100 pitches in game. Six men rotations might help as well. In Japan, they use six men rotations. This allows for more rest and less starts expected out of pitchers. In Japan, they pitch roughly 26-28 starts. In America, if you make every start, it is roughly 30-32. That is between 40-50 more innings out of American Pitchers.
Arm injuries will always occur when people are super humanly throwing baseballs as hard as they can day in and day out. But it can be curbed. If the MLB wants to start protecting their pitchers, they need to implement more pitcher friendly regulations.

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