Guns don't kill young pitchers.....
 

Dusty Baker does.

They can have my ulnar collateral ligament when they pry it from my cold dead arm.

Jesus... Dusty strikes again.

I don't really think this one can be pinned on Dusty.

Sure it can...pitching 8 innings late in the season last year when it didn't mean anything. Allowing him and Cueto then to go pitch winter ball. Cueto's next so be ready.

So does every team have like 3 guys a year that need Tommy John surgery? It seems very common these days and I wonder why. I mean, guys pitched much more in the 80s and early 90s then they do now.

As fun as it is to poke fun at Dusty and his history with injuries, this one isn't on him. Volquez threw 196 innings last year, never threw more than 121 pitches in a start, and was 18th in PAP per start. Keep in mind, 18th in PAP isn't what 18th used to be either since teams have overreacted in how they handle pitchers.

At 25 years old he should be able to handle that unless there's some mechanical issues that would prevent him from taking a full season's load regardless of who is handling him.

Only my opnion.....I wonder what the percentages of breaking balls today is compared to the percentages of breaking balls "then".

They're better at diagnosing the problems now. We have more pitchers able to pitch into their mid-late 30s because of it.

MLB Network had a story one time on how Volquez's mechanics are BAD. And from what I heard, I don't believe the Reds wanted Volquez to pitch winter ball.

So how long until Lincecum gets the ol' TJ?

I like his mechanics, but he's still throwing the ball 97MPH - it wouldn't shock me in the slightest if he ends up under the knife at some point.

I was reading an article years ago where Kerry Wood said that young pitchers should get the surgery before they get to the bigs. They'll have time to recover and won't need it later when their career is at its highest point.

I thought that was what HgH/Steroids were for....:confused:

The issue with that is that if the pitcher's motion is excessively stressful, they'll end up needing the surgery multiple times. It's not that the native tendon isn't strong enough - it's that the pitching motion is quite stressful under the best of circumstances, and a guy like Wood puts even more stress on his elbow with his mechanics.

There is new research showing that the curveball is actually less stressful on the arm than a fastball. New as in I just read about a few weeks ago. I know it came from Dr. James Andrews' research institute but I'm too lazy to look it up.

Actually it doesn't seem to be Andrews (he's still lobbying against curves but stopped short of trying to discredit the institute study) but another group in Alabama.
Keeping Score - Two Studies Show That the Curveball Isn’t Too Stressful for Young Arms - NYTimes.com

Thanks for the link. I thought I had read that it came from the Institute that Andrew had founded but Andrews wasn't involved with the research himself, if I remember correctly. Now I'm going to have to dig it up.

Dola

Yup, American Sports Medicine Institute was founded by Andrews.

HEATHEN BASTARD!

I thought the ligament they replace it with is much stronger and thus very unlikely to need a second surgery.

I love Lincecum. Dude is a monster and a top 3 pitcher in baseball, but it looks painful watching him pitch. Maybe he's a freak of nature but I feel like it'll get him eventually. I hope not though.

I dunno; I think he actually designed his motion with his dad to maximize efficiency. He never ices his arm, etc etc - it works very well for him. I think its a completely radical approach and while its scary, I believe he will be fine.

I stopped basing injuries on throwing motions years ago. I remember all the talk of Mark Prior being the perfect prototype with perfect form. I think a lot of it's just genetics and luck. Sure some motions will have a bad impact, but it's tough to tell what players will be able to overcome them.

All the talk about Prior's "perfect mechanics" came from his pitching coach, Tom House; hardly an impartial judge. There is a growing field of people analyzing pitching mechanics, and a number of them seem to think that Prior has perfect mechanics - perfectly bad that is.

Now, this field is pretty new, and not everyone in the field agrees with each other. But the points that people like Chris O'Leary and Kyle Boddy make about pitchers like Mark Prior make a lot of sense. Boddy is supposedly working on a database to track his analysis and see how accurate his assessments are, though it will take quite a few years before it would have any statistical significance.

Obviously individual genetics are a big part of determining whether a pitcher will get injured, but I think we can all agree that it's highly likely that certain types of pitching mechanics are more stressful on elbows and/or shoulders than others - the question is figuring out what those really are.

I haven't seen anything that indicates this is the case. There may be that misconception because the replacement ligament has no pitching wear and tear on it, whereas the replaced ligament has been undergoing pitching stress for a number of years and has been degrading for a while. But there are players that have had multiple TJ surgery.

Yeah, Prior had the now infamous inverted W mechanics (FWIW, Strasburg is also mentioned as having these) and Lincecum's was designed by his dad who worked at NASA - something about how much longer his stride was then any other pitcher 6' tall.

I'm having a hard time believing that - most pitchers throw their curveball with a supinated release which over time will cause problems in the elbow, whereas most pitchers throw their fastball with a pronated release which avoids the problems a supinated release introduces to the elbow.

If I were coaching young pitchers, I'd advise them to throw pronated fastballs and changeups; if they really want to throw a breaking ball, teach them a pronated release on the breaking ball rather than a supinated one.

The funny thing about people talking about how "radical" Lincecum's mechanics are is that when you break it down, they really aren't that radical. Probably the most notable thing is the length of his stride, but Seaver and Koufax had very long strides too. Lincecum also has more side tilt in his torso than most pitchers which, in addition to his incredible hip/shoulder twist gives him a great deal of upper body torque as his upper body comes around and brings his arm with it. But the basics of it are actually pretty similar to many pitchers - it's just that most can't get as much hips/shoulder twist as he can.

What's really remarkable about his mechanics is the number of moving parts involved - to stride that far and with that much twist in his body and have consistency in his delivery is a testament to his great athleticism. Even so, I'm still surprised at how good his control has been in professional baseball - coming out of Washington, that was my biggest concern with him, that he walked too many people, but that hasn't been an issue so far in the minors or with the Giants.

BTW, I believe his dad is/was a Boeing engineer; not sure if he worked on NASA projects or not. But he was also an amateur pitcher himself, and is passing along the motion he developed for himself.

This is correct. Its a myth based on the fact that pitchers who end up having Tommy John have had ligament damage for some time. The feeling of being stronger after the surgery comes from the fact that they're pitching healthy for the first time in years.

Would a supinated release be more of a slider release anyway? And would a pronated release be more of a pulling the lightswitch type curveball release?

Just trying to get some baseball context to your big words :)

But from a player's perspective, wouldn't it make sense to get it at 21-22? I mean you've probably had some damage done throughout your life and I'd argue that some pitchers probably do more damage in high school/college than the pros (Kerry Wood for example). So at 21, you get the surgery and are ready at 23-24 to hit the big leagues with a brand new ligament.

Doesn't make a ton of sense today with the long recovery time, but if that shortens dramatically and the surgery becomes more foolproof, I could see it happening. Every 5 years a pitcher goes in during the offseason to get a new ligament.

Sounds right on the Boeing instead of NASA claim - a rocket engineer here, a rocket engineer there. :)

And you're also right with the mechanics - it's not so much the motions themselves but the amount of torque he can generate with his body is unbelievable for such a short pitcher. It keeps much of the stress of throwing so hard off his arm. If he stays healthy through his 20's it will be interesting to see what happens later when he starts losing that flexibility.

If they can improve the success rate, then yes - the chances of this becoming something that pitchers elect to have increases. But currently the success rate is somewhere between 74% for high school pitchers vs. 85-92% for elite level pitchers. That's a pretty good rate for the elite, but still up to a 15% chance you don't recover. And add to that you lose basically a year, and you may not be fully up to speed for a couple of years. For a young pitcher, that's valuable development time lost and a potential hit to your earning power. It's still a risky move.

If the process improves a great deal, elective TJ surgery will have to be discussed along with steroids and HGH as a performance-enhancer.

Is the success rate at age do to physical differences or the fact that younger athletes are probably not having the surgery done by top surgeons like Andrews?

I'd imagine over time that the recovery rate and success rate would go up. From what I've gathered, they've already cut 6 months off the recovery rate from a decade ago.

Supinated release is one where the hand (and thus the forearm) rolls outward, i.e. to the right for a RHP. With a classic curveball, you're trying to put forward spin on the 4-seams; typically pitchers throw a supinated curveball where the hand rolls outward, with the fingers snapping the seams downward with a forward roll. This supinated release slams the elbow joint violently and leads to lengthening of the ulna bone and a loss of flexibility in the elbow.

A pronated release would be one where the hand (and thus the forearm) rolls inward, i.e. to the left for a RHP. For a curveball, you'd still roll the seams off the fingers, but the pressure would be more on the index finger than the middle finger and you snap the seems down with an inward roll of the wrist instead of an outward one.

To get an idea of why a pronated motion is easier on the elbow than a supinated one, try punching in front of you with your thumb pointing up - a supinated motion is one where you end the punch with your thumb still up, and you'll feel your elbow slam as you do it. Then punch normally - you're hand will roll inward with your thumb pointed ending up pointing horizontally instead of vertically, and the impact is far less on your elbow.

To see a supinated breaking ball motion in action, see below:

Clemens pronated slider

Here's Steve Carlton talking about how to throw the slider, and his instruction leads to a pronated release:

Steve Carlton on how to throw a slider

I'm not entirely sure, but I think it has more to do with the superior physiology of top level pitchers and/or a better work ethic in rehab. Here's where that data comes from:

The gory details of Tommy John surgery

I don't think you've gotten enough credit for the title and first post of this thread :D

SI

Eh. Just a play on the "Guns don't kill people, Lamar Woodley kills people" shirt I've seen before.

Cueto is next btw. Just a Matter of time.

Why don't you see the Forkball/splitter anymore? Arm stress or better hitters?

Supposedly puts a lot of stress on the elbow.

That said, a lot of pitchers throw their changeups with a forkball grip, though they typically don't spread their index and middle fingers quite as far apart. My understanding is that spreading those fingers far apart adds stress to the elbow. I know some clubs discourage their young pitchers from throwing splitters - the M's had Brandon Morrow scrap his splitter which was his secondary pitch in college, and he's had to work on his curveball to give him a solid breaking pitch.

I know, but it was still nicely done

I was thinking of Richard Kiel's character from Happy Gilmore and the shirt he was wearing, tho.

SI

Jordan Zimmerman has the inverted W too.

This apparently wasn't your typical Tommy John. According to Will Carroll he also had a "shredded" or "ruptured" (depending on the source) flexor mass which puts the minimum timetable at 12 months.

FWIW, in this case it appears to be mostly on pitching winter ball and the WBC and not Dusty, but yes, props on the title.

Washington Nationals' Jordan Zimmermann likely to need elbow surgery - ESPN

Looks like Zimmerman's going to be on the shelf for all of 2010.

I pitch for my beer league softball team and I got elective Tommy John surgery in 2006. I highly recommend it for all pitchers. I used to throw 21-23 MPH with a 9 foot arc, but now, I can get that bad boy up to 25 or 26 MPH. The movement I get on my "fake to the plate, fake behind my back, throw it through my legs" is just silly.

Cueto to the DL. Dunno what for though.

I'm not too worried. He did winter ball and the WBC so this is really a way to limit wear and tear instead of letting Dusty kill him in September.

Gotta get that push in for 70 wins!

(trust me, I know the feeling :( )