I don’t pretend to be a doctor, a scientist, or anyone who might have any clue as to why there have been so many occurrences of Tommy John Surgery in recent years. But, I decided to do a study to see if there are any correlations between velocity and incidents, and I found some interesting data.
Here are the top 35 starting pitchers ranked by average fastball velocity since 2012 who are aged 26 and younger with a minimum of 100 innings:
The most glaring takeaway from this depiction is 16 of these 35 starting pitchers have undergone Tommy John Surgery since 2012 or at some point early during their professional careers.
Interestingly enough, nine of these 16 pitchers who underwent Tommy John Surgery ranked in the top 18 in pitches per inning since 2012 – also spoken about as “efficiency” – the highest number belonging to Zack Wheeler at 17.66 pitches per inning since his debut in mid-2013:
I don’t know if specific conclusions can be drawn from this data. Again, I am not a scientist or a doctor and I am sure every club and the league has evaluated this information. The only thing we can say really is throwing a baseball very hard at a high rate is incredibly bad for a pitcher’s arm.
There could be a correlation to these statistics, but as I wrote yesterday, I believe the foundation of the issue could be in the amateur ranks where young pitchers are throwing too many breaking balls too early and improperly. It could also be these amateurs are not being regulated and conditioned properly, nor are they afforded appropriate rest for their arms, especially in high school when a kid might pitch a complete game today, and play shortstop tomorrow.
Major League Baseball apparently feels the same way.
In November, Major League Baseball announced the launch of the, “Pitch Smart” program which, “will strive to provide a comprehensive resource for safe pitching practices” for youth amateurs alongside USA Baseball. Several notable orthopedic surgeons, including Dr’s. Ahmad, Andrews, and ElAttrache are on this advisory board.
“Pitch Smart is our game’s most extensive and unified endeavor on the issue of arm safety and reducing the incidence rate of Tommy John surgery,” MLB’s EVP Joe Torre said in November. “Pitch Smart combines the best expertise in the hopes of educating players, coaches and parents at every level of the game. Ultimately, we believe this program is a long-term step toward keeping present and future pitchers healthy as they progress through all levels of baseball.”
I hope they find some answers soon.
Update, 7:14 PM: In the case of Wheeler, while he has been dubbed with a free and easy delivery, he is the most inefficient pitcher among the top 35 in average fastball velocity since 2012. As such, I wonder if that combination might have contributed to this eventuality. It would certainly indicate he’s throwing a high number of high velocity pitches under duress over a shorter span in-game, leading to quicker physical fatigue and stress on the joint.
I also wonder if the problem could be related to pitchers now throwing at maximum effort in too high of a percentage of their pitches. That’s more of a question for the pitchers themselves but, as I said, throwing a baseball very hard all of the time is not good for an arm.
Again, this is just a correlation of an observation with statistics. The team often talks about pitching under duress and efficiency for all of their pitchers, and so its worth noting as a possible causes for these kinds of structural problems.
You can learn more about PitchSmart.org here.
Just Mets 