Tommy John Surgeries are Down

[redseat]

Tommy John Surgeries Are Down, And Nobody Quite Knows Why

Last week, Yahoo’s Jeff Passan reported that Angels ace Garrett Richards would miss the rest of this season — and at least part of next year — after undergoing Tommy John surgery. The loss of a talented pitcher who was off to a promising start provided the usual alarming reminder that any arm could be days away from a season-ending diagnosis. But we can serve some chicken soup for the baseball fan’s soul:1 Compared with totals through the same date in recent seasons, 2016’s Tommy John toll has been mercifully light. (Knock on the nearest ulnar collateral ligament.)

Historically, March and April have been the peak periods for Tommy John-inducing injuries. Not only does ramping up from a winter’s inactivity put pitchers at increased risk, but spring is also when pitchers who felt a twinge at the end of the previous season can no longer pretend rest will restore them. From 2005-14, 44 percent of injuries that led to elbow ligament replacements occurred in March or April. The last two springs were particularly costly, yielding record Tommy John totals and depriving fans of full seasons from such prominent pitchers as Yu Darvish, Zack Wheeler and Brandon McCarthy in 2015, and Matt Moore, Patrick Corbin and Jarrod Parker in 2014.

In 2016, however, the parade of early-season elbow injuries has slowed, as evidenced by Hardball Times analyst Jon Roegele’s list of Tommy John patients.

 

[redseat]

Correct me if I am wrong but isn't this a GOOD thing? And perhaps players are actually becoming wiser on how to keep their arms healthy?

 

[redseat]

This year’s tally of 22 Tommy John surgeries through May 10 — across all professional levels — is the lowest since 2002.2 And that count includes very few prominent pitchers: Aside from Richards, the highest-profile big leaguer lost to the procedure in 2016 thus far3 is Carter Capps, the Miami Marlins reliever whose borderline-illegal deliverymade him an attraction mostly in a circus-freak sense. This year’s big-league Tommy John casualties were projected by Dan Szymborski’s preseason ZiPS algorithm to produce only 7.0 wins above replacement in 2016,4 compared with the 13.3 and 23.8 WAR projected for Tommy John victims by May 10 of the 2015 and 2014 seasons, respectively.

It would be pretty to think this means that teams have solved the UCL scourge. Unfortunately, though, there’s no real reason to believe they’ve addressed all of the underlying problems that contribute to ligament tears. Pitchers continue to throw harder than they have in the past, and higher pitch speeds are associated with higher risks of injury. And as Passan reported in his recent elbow-injury opus, “The Arm,” the odometers on amateur arms are still creeping up quickly, thanks to year-round competition and the pressure to appear — and throw as hard as possible — in scout-packed showcase events.

In other words, this year’s reduced injury toll may come down to timing and plain old good fortune. As Kyle Boddy, founder of the pitching performance and research facility Driveline Baseball, told us: “The easiest and most likely explanation is that Tommy John surgeries were abnormally high last year and are somewhat low this year.”

Not that MLB clubs aren’t altering pitcher usage in an attempt to preserve arms. Between 2008 and 2015, the average number of pitches per major league start fell from about 97 to 93. Some of this decrease owes to swelling bullpens and an increased recognition that putting in fresh pitchers is oftento teams’ benefit, but it also stems in part from an impulse Passan described to us in an email: “If throwing hurts pitchers, throwing less will hurt pitchers less.”

Tommy John Surgeries Are Down, And Nobody Quite Knows Why | FiveThirtyEight

 

[Sharkonabicycle]

Simply education of the sport and we're now seeing the ages (those born in the early-mid 90s when a lot of this information was becoming available) come into effect.

Tommy John is nearly 100% caused by younger players pitching WAY too often and WAY too hard. With the ever increasing demand for a 95+ MPH fastball, pitchers need more rest than ever. When High Schools/Colleges are asking you to pitch WAY more often than you should, it puts a ridiculous strain on those parts of the arm, thus resulting in Tommy John.

Many doctors and parents are now well aware of this and keeping kids in High School (and even Jr. leagues) from 2010+ to more limited rotations for this exact reason.

The medical history and studies back in 80s/90s (for those in High School) was simply not as refined.

I'm not sure why your post says, "Nobody knows why." Medical issues/injuries usually have a pretty clear cut cause/effect. Retire at 30 in the NFL as a RB and take about 400-1,000 less hits (of which prob. include 10-20% headshots) and you'll PROBABLY have less mental issues later in life.

???

 

[redseat]

I'm not sure why your post says, "Nobody knows why." Medical issues/injuries usually have a pretty clear cut cause/effect. Retire at 30 in the NFL as a RB and take about 400-1,000 less hits (of which prob. include 10-20% headshots) and you'll PROBABLY have less mental issues later in life.

I didn't write it... and it's pretty stupid for the writer to think that "no one knows why?"

 

[da55bums]

dumb luck, it will be right back up to average numbers next year. Pitchers have been blowing out arms since baseball started.

 

[redseat]

dumb luck, it will be right back up to average numbers next year. Pitchers have been blowing out arms since baseball started.

Next year my guesses are:

David Price
Aaron Nola
Scherzer
Kimbrel

 

[tducey]

It's good to see they're down, it was pretty scary there for a while.