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2024 MLB Season: Pitchers' Elbows Are Blowing Up...

In our area, everyone still plays little league, but the best pitchers don't throw (and often skip games) until LL all-stars as they play travel during the season (mostly on Sundays). Yes, the best pitchers throw year round at indoor facilities and play travel all-summer and fall. The indoor facilities have velo boards, and it's a huge deal when a player hits a new velo record. It's all about velocity; getting outs is secondary. So ass-backwards.
 
It's sad to read the past few posts. Too bad adults can't stay away from the kids and let them PLAY baseball. It's a game that is meant to be fun, to be played.
 
Yeah so this is not cool.

I saw a family coming back yesterday, dad and son, from some sort of weekend tournament.

At first I was like how sweet, father and son travel and spending some QT.

Then I noticed they had some sort of pitching charts and the dad had a super creepy can't see the whites of your eyes obsessive look and was basically hyper active on his phone.

Yuck.
 
All of this talk of kids pitching is distracting from the fact that the PITTSBURGH PIRATES have the best record / run differential in Major League Baseball.

Raise the Jolly Roger!
 
I thought soccer parents were fucking crazy but these stories of baseball parents/coaches just abusing children's arms is something else....

Yikes.
 
Some thoughts from JV on the injury issues and the trickle down effect from MLB all the way down to youth baseball



 
2&2 Slider To Leyritz said:
That dude's reasoning ignores the obvious. I've said it for the past few years, Perfect Game is killing baseball for the upcoming generation. Kids are pitching primarily to a radar gun and spin rate starting at 11 and 12 years old, instead of simply worrying about balls, strikes, and getting batters out. It's just a numbers game of how many arm blowouts that ultimately causes as pitchers get into their late teens and twenties. It used to be that TJ surgery was dominated by MLB; now, youth baseball makes up the highest percentage of TJ surgeries by far. Obviously, a lot of that is due to the lopsided numbers, but nobody had heard of a kid even needing TJ surgery until a few years ago. Velo (both pitching and exit) is the only thing that matters now.

I have a kid on my middle school team who is throwing 85 at 14 years old. It is cool to watch, but his arm will be done in a few years. But hey he got some cool PG hats and in a bunch of social media posts. My hardest task is getting him to throw in the 70s so he can throw strikes and actually get some outs if kids aren't just chasing him. I have another kid who has already had 2 arm surgeries at 14 from travel ball, so he can't pitch any more at all. But he got those cool plastic trophies, and PG made a shitton of money.
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Pretty much sums up my thoughts exactly. PG and showcase ball may have irreparably fucked baseball. The culture of pitching has changed so much that it doesn't matter how accurate you throw as long as it's fast as all hell, and unfortunately that mindset has seeped into college recruiting too. Doesn't matter if you hit the backstop every other pitch, as long as there's a cool number on the radar gun that's all anyone cares about.

The philosophy that you can teach accuracy but not velocity is also horseshit too. Hate it hate it hate it.

The arm pain and overuse, especially among high school athletes (between showcase and high school ball), is also something that really isn't talked about more either and it's a damn shame. I remember watching some of our pitchers take literal handfuls of Advil before starts while JV games were wrapping up. How their livers and kidneys are intact, I don't know. I don't fault them for it because they were doing what they needed to do to get eyes on them, it's just a shame that that's what they needed to do.
 
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I am in my 11th year of coaching high school baseball. We have had so many kids that have taken outside lessons for both hitting and pitching. Often times, the players and parents feel that since they are paying large dollars for "quality instruction" that our words have less value. The parents see their kids hitting arbitrary markers with pitch velo, exit velo, launch angle, etc. but at this level none of that means shit if you can't simply throw strikes or touch a pitch over 85 mph. You can look like an All Star in your lessons, and show measurable growth on velo charts, but if you can't play the game of baseball what have you spent your money on? I played at Wake until injuries derailed me. I have a solid foundation from Coach Greer and other coaches in my past. But my words do not show up on measurable charts. Coaching is becoming tough to do with so many self-proclaimed All Stars out there. Travel ball is killing the sport.
 
york1313 said:
I am in my 11th year of coaching high school baseball. We have had so many kids that have taken outside lessons for both hitting and pitching. Often times, the players and parents feel that since they are paying large dollars for "quality instruction" that our words have less value. The parents see their kids hitting arbitrary markers with pitch velo, exit velo, launch angle, etc. but at this level none of that means shit if you can't simply throw strikes or touch a pitch over 85 mph. You can look like an All Star in your lessons, and show measurable growth on velo charts, but if you can't play the game of baseball what have you spent your money on? I played at Wake until injuries derailed me. I have a solid foundation from Coach Greer and other coaches in my past. But my words do not show up on measurable charts. Coaching is becoming tough to do with so many self-proclaimed All Stars out there. Travel ball is killing the sport.
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I agree completely. There is so much money in youth baseball, and it is easy to monetize the Velo aspects, whether it is lessons, radar equipment, bats, and of course PG facilitating it all via their tournaments, web interface, and player profiles. It is a great business model, but it is killing the game and more importantly causing a significant number of serious injuries to kids and young adults. Those injuries to this generation are really starting to manifest themselves at the MLB level.

Yesterday PG suspended/banned the -5 Easton Hype Fire, which they should have done last year for safety reasons, and it has sent the 11-13 year old travel baseball community into a frenzy. Parents can't make their kid actually hit better, so they are pissed they can't use a juiced bat to make the ball go over the fence to throw an inflated exit velo up on the PG profile and in their social media posts.

Little League has gotten a lot of things wrong as it has tried to fend off impending doom from the travel industry, but the one thing they got right, though hurt itself in the process, was moving to the USA bat standard a few years ago and away from USSSA. The USA bats are so bad that exit velo is pretty worthless. But unfortunately by contrast travel ball slurps all over the USSSA composite bats so that 12 year old McJunior Diabetus gets his one shining moment cranking a ball 350 on a 50/70 field and Mama Grimmace can plaster it all over Facebook.

But I don't think there is any way to reign back in the pitching aspects. It is easy to see, aim for, and post about the velo numbers when pitching. Hell, even fielders care about it now on their assists. Like you said, it isn't easy to quantify the ultimate effect of Greg Maddux's two seamer and control in a practice setting.
 
Last summer I was at the Rockers stadium in High Point and I saw a few innings of "perfect game" ball while checking out the food hall outside the ballpark. I don't think I've ever seen baseball games with less fun and enthusiasm. And I know the parents paid big bucks for their kids to play in that park and spend a weekend in High Point NC. Its very scary to think that my grandson (a dirt playing t baller) might one day play in these "showcases".
 
tvcigar said:
Last summer I was at the Rockers stadium in High Point and I saw a few innings of "perfect game" ball while checking out the food hall outside the ballpark. I don't think I've ever seen baseball games with less fun and enthusiasm. And I know the parents paid big bucks for their kids to play in that park and spend a weekend in High Point NC. Its very scary to think that my grandson (a dirt playing t baller) might one day play in these "showcases".
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Thought JV was on the mark. It does trickle down from MLB, and with pitchers getting injured, clubs will look to remedy that quickly. But, it will take years to get down to the youth level, if ever. I'm coaching in the babe ruth pony league (13-15). I'm only having my pitchers through 2 or 4 seamers, with a change up, working on placement and throwing strikes, with a fairly low pitch count.
 
is there anybody that's done a look at how american baseball development compares to other baseball playing countries? do japanese kids have the same overtraining problems?

i'm guessing that based on economics that a lot of the carribean players don't engage in anything close to what is seen in the US, yet good players seem to emerge at a pretty good rate
 
JuiceCrewAllStar said:
is there anybody that's done a look at how american baseball development compares to other baseball playing countries? do japanese kids have the same overtraining problems?

i'm guessing that based on economics that a lot of the carribean players don't engage in anything close to what is seen in the US, yet good players seem to emerge at a pretty good rate
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Some people definitely purport to, but as with anything these days, it is tough to tell what is legitimate data and what is bullshit.

I think what everyone can agree on is that the style of training is different. American kids who are "serious" about baseball don't play pickup/sandlot baseball anymore during the week like they used to. They don't play rec ball spread throughout the week like they used to. Playing pickup baseball with their friends is no longer seen as practice; it has to be a formal, structured, paid-for training session / practice to be beneficial. They have lessons and practice and "strength and agility" throughout the week, then on the weekends they go play 5 games in the span of 18 hours. To someone's point above, "strength and agility" used to come from playing basketball or soccer or football instead of baseball, that gave whole body fitness and worked other athletic attributes. Now, it is baseball-specific movements that mostly tax the body the same way the games do and, in my opinion, are leading to the higher injury rate.

Mostly due to resources as you mention, I think Caribbean players still play much more sandlot games spread throughout the week than isolated training followed by a frenetic cluster of games. Whether that leads to less injury, I don't know. They are still subject to the same focus on velo when they get here.

There is a group going around now saying that the TJ ligament does not fully mature until generally about age 26. So whereas, to JV's point, even great pitchers wouldn't tax it that often previously by throwing as hard as they could, now you have 14-15-16 year old kids trying to constantly max out on an unmatured ligament, and that is what is causing the eventual rupture. I'm not a doctor and have no idea whether or not that maturation aspect is true, but it at least makes sense if it is.
 
we played tennis ball baseball, or very modified softball with a soccer ball. anything to be out of the house and touching grass as the kids say.
 
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