Tommy John says pitching injuries up due to arm overuse in younger years

[KingKat]

It seems to me like there are far more latinos that make the majors as position players than as pitchers although I don't know the exact numbers. The pitching position just seem more white overall than other positions (again I don't know the numbers). That would explain why Tommy John surgery seems to mostly affect North American players.

[TheHurl]

Non North Americans (that I know are not North Americans) that have had the surgery.

 

2014

Nova (DR)

Morillo (Ven)

Moylan (Aus)

Rondon (Ven)

Sano (DR)

2013

Betancourt (Ven)

Stuifbergen (NL)

Osuna (Mex)

Paulino (DR)

Silverio (DR)

Norberto (DR)

Fujikawa (Jap)

Furcal (DR)

Liriano (DR)

 

2012

 

Banuelos (Mex)

Ovideo (DR)

Oliveros (Ven)

Feliz (DR)

Perez (DR)

Paulino (DR)

Lim (Kor)

Oranmas (Mex)

Mateo (DR)

Contreas (Cuba)

Ni (Taiwan)

Wada (Jap)

Jimenez (PR)

Lee (Taiwan)

Ceda (DR)

Soria (Mex)

Escalona (Ven)

Vizcaino (DR)

 

Since the beginning of 2012 there have been 138 Tommy John Surgeries 32 have been to players born outside of NA.

[TheHurl]

Does anyone have any statistics on the number of latino players who undergo this surgery compared to those born in US/Canada?

 

Off the top of my head, it seems like far more American/Canadian pitchers come down with serious arm injuries compared to the Dominicans/Cubans, etc.

 

Also, back in the 80's, starters seemed to routinely be able to throw 250 - 300 IP effectively. And they didn't care about pitch counts. Why are pitchers getting hurt more today than 30 years ago?

 

I have my own theory, and it goes against what the popular opinion is. Babying pitchers from a young age is actually causing these injuries.

 

Think about it. Dominican/Cuban kids growing up are less likely to have restrictions placed on them... They probably throw a lot more pitches at a young age than their North American counterparts. Also, they probably start throwing curves/sliders at a young age, and with less restrictions as well.

 

The result of this is their arm develops strength in the required ligaments/muscles at a young age, when they are throwing much slower and less torque. Then as they slowly grow, mature and throw faster, their arm can slowly develop and adapt and strengthen to handle the increased stressed from increased speeds. Then add in the fact they probably throw far more pitches with no restrictions - this develops the strength and endurance even more. The elbow/shoulder is able to handle the gradual ramp up in torques, and the result is they can handle throwing major league pitches with minimal wear/tear.

 

On the flip side of the coin, North American pitchers growing up and taught to not throw curves/sliders/cutters at a young age and are babied with pitch counts. As a result their arms don't develop the strength in the key areas required for throwing those pitches when they are young. Then they grow, hit puberty, are eventually able to throw much harder, and then suddenly at age 16 they are told to start throwing curves/sliders etc. End result is their arm hasn't developed the strength in the required areas like the latin players have from a young age, they start doing damage as the ligaments have never been used in that way before and now they are being torqued much harder than the latin players were when they started throwing at a younger age.

 

I think its better to learn to throw a slider when you are throwing 60mph (does less damage, allows you to slowly build strength in the arm for future higher speeds/torques) than to suddenly learn how to throw it and use those motions when you are throwing 85mph later on. Thats just too much torque for an arm to take when it never had a chance to grow into it.

 

A spin off of my theory is that when pitchers in the majors start adding pitches to their repertoire...e.g. you hear of someone adding a cutter at the big league level. They never learned to throw it back when they were a kid tossing 60mph and strengthened the required ligaments, now all of a sudden they are going to start throwing it at 90+ in the bigs? Thats a recipe for disaster and often seems to lead to injury.

 

Call me crazy, but it seems like there are far more North Americans falling victim to these injuries. Obviously latin players are still going to get hurt in freak injuries, but not as often.

 

Its why last year when a buddy asked me if I'd rather have Matt Harvey or Jose Fernandez, I said Fernandez, as in Cuba he probably grew up with far less pitching restrictions and his arm is capable of handling the major leagues for the long run. Hope I didn't just jinx Jose! But turns out shortly after Matt Harvey went down.

 

Harvey, Strasburg, hell pretty much every good pitcher ends up destroying his arm these days and that stuff just didn't seem to happen back when I was a kid and pitch counts didn't matter.

 

I'd be interested to see stats on the % of Dominican pitchers end up requiring TJ compared to American pitchers.

 

If there was info to support your theory (which I don't believe there is). I would say that your reasoning is completely wrong. It would because major league orgs get these players under their control at the age of 15 (I know it's supposed to be 16 but these kids are put on a major league program long before they are signed). Kids that play in NA, are playing club teams, summer leagues, high school and showcase right up until 18. They have so much money at stake basically on how hard they can throw.

 

Secondly, Jose Fernandez came to North American high school at 15...so your theory on what happened at Cuba probably isn't holding that much weight either.

 

Here is a nice interview on what he's seeing in high school arms.

 

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/04/10/dr-james-andrews-explains-why-tommy-john-surgery-is-on-the-rise/

[TheHurl]

It seems to me like there are far more latinos that make the majors as position players than as pitchers although I don't know the exact numbers. The pitching position just seem more white overall than other positions (again I don't know the numbers). That would explain why Tommy John surgery seems to mostly affect North American players.

 

10.2% of players in the majors are from the Dominican. 14 of 138 TJS in the past 3 years were from the DR (10.14%)

[John_Havok]

I don't give a s*** about the anecdotal opinion of some dinosaur mediocre pitcher. Injuries happen to pitchers because they perform an unnatural, forceful motion repeatedly. Injuries have always happened, they just didn't have MRIs to detect them and therefore injured pitchers probably just faded away into oblivion with little explanation or anybody who cared to remember them. This whole narrative that there's a TJS epidemic seems like a giant heap of horseshit to me.

 

I disagree. I think the line of thinking that young players that are stressing the s*** out of their ligaments in their formative years and thus having them break more often is a pretty logical thought.

 

Not sure how you'd prove it unless you followed a huge number of kids from the time they were 12 to 25 and compare the injury numbers on some kids who didn't throw the breaking stuff vs those who do.

 

Problem is, how are you ever going to find kids that exclusively throw fastballs before college... It's practically unheard of now.

[John_Havok]

If there was info to support your theory (which I don't believe there is). I would say that your reasoning is completely wrong. It would because major league orgs get these players under their control at the age of 15 (I know it's supposed to be 16 but these kids are put on a major league program long before they are signed). Kids that play in NA, are playing club teams, summer leagues, high school and showcase right up until 18. They have so much money at stake basically on how hard they can throw.

 

Secondly, Jose Fernandez came to North American high school at 15...so your theory on what happened at Cuba probably isn't holding that much weight either.

 

Here is a nice interview on what he's seeing in high school arms.

 

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/04/10/dr-james-andrews-explains-why-tommy-john-surgery-is-on-the-rise/

 

I posted something similar to this a while back, saying that young pitchers basically aren't allowed to give their arms a break anymore.

 

Of course, coming from Dr. Andrews it carries a lot more weight.

[DuckDuckGose]

It's worth repeating that Tommy John is not a doctor and the surgery is not named after the doctor. It's named after the first successful pitcher to be operated on.

 

His opinion is as worthless/meaningful from everyone and anyone from Brian Tallet to Steve Trachsel to Graeme Lloyd.

 

TJ has been around the block, he has talked to a lot of people and seen a lot of s***. I would want him to qualify the statement before I completely dismissed it.

[G-Snarls]

[G-Snarls]

Astros can't like that s***

[TheHurl]

Astros can't like that s***

 

Probably would be more concerned that it's the 7th time this year he's hit 120.

 

Through his 130th pitch 95MPH. I can't believe there is talk that he won't be 1.1