Post by Lark11 on Jul 4, 2017 10:54:33 GMT -5
www.wsj.com/articles/throwing-too-hard-is-killing-baseballs-best-pitchers-1499171380?mod=e2tws
Throwing Too Hard Is Killing Baseball’s Best Pitchers
It turns out that throwing as hard as you can may not be a safe or effective way to pitch
By Michael Salfino and Andrew Beaton
July 4, 2017 8:29 a.m. ET
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Major League Baseball pitchers have been an evolutionary marvel in recent seasons. They’re throwing the ball harder than ever. Pitches at 100 miles per hour, once an extraordinary feat that left smoke trails across the sport, are now routine.
But there’s a problem as the sport’s velocity obsession grows. Pitchers are getting hurt more than ever, with the latest research indicating that this trend is a primary culprit. And it turns out that throwing as hard as you can may not even be the most effective way to pitch.
That’s why there’s a new thought surfacing in baseball: that the next step in the evolution on the mound won’t be pitches whizzing by batters even faster. It will be throwing slower—more frequently taking the edge off a pitcher’s top fastball to fool hitters and stay healthier.
Pitchers, according to some, are simply overtaxing themselves, averaging a record-high 92.3 mph. Meanwhile, starters are managing a record-low 17 outs per game this year, with many good outings ending early to protect them from injury.
“I call it caveman baseball,” says former pitcher Ron Darling, now an analyst with SNY and TBS. “See ball. Throw ball hard.”
But the disabled list shows this isn’t working. There have been a record 243 injury trips by pitchers this year, according to Stats LLC, an increase of nearly 20% from the next highest year since 2000. And it’s not just because of the new 10-day DL, either—they’ve spent about 25% more days on the shelf through June than the average since 2000.
Former MLB pitching coach Rick Peterson looks at the pitchers pushing these bounds, sees the injuries, and wonders why. “I would say to pitchers who constantly over throw: Are you trying to win stuffed animals at a circus?’”
There’s no magic number on the radar gun that puts a pitcher at risk. It varies case by case. The real issue is pitchers throwing their hardest. “If a guy tops off at 96 and pitches the whole game (there), he’s adding a lot more stress on his elbow than if he varies his velocity,” says Dr. Glenn Fleisig, research director of the American Sports Medicine Institute.
Fleisig compares the body’s ligaments—like the one in the elbow that tears and requires pitchers to miss a season recovering from Tommy John surgery—to a rubber band. Pull it back as hard as you can and it will start to tear. Pull it less, he says, and “you’d never tear the rubber band.”
ASMI researchers recently placed biomechanical markers on 64 professional pitchers that tracked the torque in their elbows as they threw a ball. Throws at a given pitcher’s max velocity produced high levels of stress in the elbow, the type that puts a player at high risk for an injury. But when they threw their fastballs just a shade below their peak velocity, the data revealed a dramatic reduction—just a couple miles per hour slower could be the equivalent of the gentler pulling of the rubber band.
It’s a tough sell to convince pitchers to ease up, even just a bit, for the vague promise of health benefits. But research has shown a weak correlation, if there is one at all, between velocity and run prevention, Fleisig says. And varying fastball velocity may actually make hurlers tougher to hit.
Some of the game’s best and healthiest pitchers have shown a keen grasp of just this. And that’s no surprise to Darling, who said he was able to thwart the game’s best hitters in his prime by saving his best fastball for when it was most needed. “I’d throw 92 but had 95 when I needed it.” He said hitters would kick themselves for missing a fastball, “but they didn’t miss it. They were expecting 92.”
So it’s no coincidence that the two pitchers who vary their fastball velocities the most are also two of the best pitchers in baseball. Cardinals ace Carlos Martinez and Boston’s Chris Sale, a leading Cy Young contender, throw over 50% of their pitches at least 2 mph faster or slower than their average velocity. Those are the highest rates in the game, and about twice as often as the average starter. It has helped Sale defy widespread expectations that his velocity and mechanics would cause him to break down by now.
Don Cooper, Sale’s former pitching coach with the White Sox, said their epiphany came in 2015 when Sale set the team’s single-season strikeout record but rarely pitched deep into games. Then they discovered he could be just as good, for longer, by taking just a touch off his heater.
“It was a risky thing, to tell you the truth, to do it with Sale,” Cooper said. “Because if it didn’t succeed, they’d say, ‘Why are you messing with the best guy in baseball?”
Mets fireballers Steven Matz and Noah Syndergaard, the game’s hardest throwing starter last year, struggle with injuries. Syndergaard is currently on the 60-day DL with a torn lat and has said in the past he’s not interested in slowing things down. Both he and Matz have relatively little fastball variance (15.7% and 18.1%, respectively).
“Pitchers are told to pitch to the gun to get money so they’re trying to hit a number knowing millions of dollars are waiting,” Darling says. “Noah and Steven, really most pitchers generally, are from the school that when you have your mechanics firing perfectly the ball will come out at the same speed.”
This group that tends to not vary fastball speed significantly includes Michael Fulmer (Tigers, 18.9%), Stephen Strasburg (Nationals, 18.2%) and James Taillon (Pirates, 15.8%).
All three also score poorly in another metric: maximum velocity (an average of their 10 fastest pitches) minus average velocity. The MLB-wide variance is just 3.2 mph, but Sale and Martinez clock in at 4.8 and 4.2, respectively. Sale averages just 93.2 mph but clearly can throw 98 mph when the need arises. Martinez, if he chose to, could regularly crack triple digits.
The question is whether exceptions like Sale and Martinez can become the rule. Cardinals pitcher Adam Wainwright, struggling this year at the age of 35, and coming off a nine-run shellacking in June in which he only recorded five outs, said he studied the film and realized he was working too hard. He followed that up with just one earned run over seven innings, saying afterwards his goal was to “throw two, maybe three balls hard all day.”
—Jared Diamond contributed to this article.
