Smoltz 1st TJ HOFr

That is a great article!  Who am I to disagree with John Smoltz?  I think all of his points are true and valid, but unfortunately it's not a "one-size fits all" situation. This coming from a dad of a pitcher that has had 2 arm "issues" in the past 4 years. My son was told he had a torn UCL at 16 and would need TJ surgery. We were fortunate to see Dr Andrews and he recommended a more conservative approach. Again, this past spring, son noticed discomfort in elbow after an outing. After rest a MRI was performed. It showed no structural damage. We were relieved. After conversations with Dr Andrews, we never could determine why the injury occurred. Obviously it is from pitching a baseball, but my son never was abused or overused. He has never had a pitching lesson, so mechanical flaws certainly could be a contributing factor. An interesting comment Dr Andrews made. Any pitch above 85 mph has the potential to blow up the elbow. There is only so much structural force the ligament can withstand. I certainly don't have the answer, but I wish I knew. We have skirted with trouble twice, but have escaped without need for surgery both times. I just fear it's only a matter of time. I hope I'm wrong.

"Smoltz says kids pitch too much, but don't throw enough."

This says it all.

Originally Posted by Billy19:

"Smoltz says kids pitch too much, but don't throw enough."

This says it all.

 

If they were taught to pitch first rather than to throw hard first, there wouldn’t be as many problems coming from pitching too much.

I believe pitchers are being encouraged to throw too hard too early.  Velocity is sexy.  

 

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=be1A13i_FmY

About a 20 interview with Smoltz, great stuff if you have the time to watch. Some entertainment thrown in but he touches on his beliefs of arm injury causes. Loved to watch this guy pitch, one of my all time favorites.

Everyone's replaceable, that's what I take from it. These P are used/abused, then the next group comes In. Long term is not expected.

It's all about velocity, throwing cb by age 10, when they r too young imo to learn to throw right way each pitch. 

As long as we have good dr. To get most back on mound, even for short term it's all good w the system. It's a business.

Originally Posted by playball2011:

Everyone's replaceable, that's what I take from it. These P are used/abused, then the next group comes In. Long term is not expected.

 

Cynical, but a lot of truth to that.

 

It's all about velocity, throwing cb by age 10, when they r too young imo to learn to throw right way each pitch. 

 

I’m to the point where I’m thinking people are pretty much in two different corners philosophy-wise. In one corner are those who honestly believe the only road to pitching success is velocity, and the only way to gain velocity is throw as hard as possible to “learn” how to throw hard. Then at some point later in time and at some higher level, some wise guru will teach them control, how to pace themselves to go deeper into games, how to throw various pitches that will help them, and how to execute everything correctly.

 

In the other corner are those who honestly believe there can be a great deal of pitcher success without being able to throw a strawberry through the side of a battleship. We tend not to think of what’s 2 or more years down the road and a level or two higher, but rather about the now and how the pitchers can help their teams now rather than what they’ll be doing for some other team in the future.

 

The 1^st time I heard about something similar was in conjunction with Jack Nicklaus. He’s long been credited with the golf teaching philosophy; Hit it hard. We'll worry about straight later, but the truth is, that came from his 1^st golf teacher, Jack Grout. What’s funny is, he was talking about getting distance off the tee with a driver, which at most is about 20% of all shots on a course with 4 par 3 holes. The rest of the shots in a given round are seldom gone at 100%, so we’re talking about once every 15-20 minutes, a far cry for a pitcher throwing a pitch twice a minute.

 

My point is, starting pitchers at least don’t need to throw high velocities in order to have a lot of success. The way things are now, along with size they certainly need it to have a real shot at professional ball, but that’s entirely different than having pitching success for your LL or HS team.

 

As long as we have good dr. To get most back on mound, even for short term it's all good w the system. It's a business.

 

It’s sad that you’re prolly right on the $$$$ for the higher levels of the game. There’s always another crop of arms to pick.

I saw him a few months ago on MLBTV round table discussion and posted some of his points here.

I agree with what he has said about year round baseball. Or too much baseball, or just baseball all of the time.

John argues that as a kid they played less organized games which was safer on the arm.  Yet he needed TJ surgery! 

Can't we just admit that throwing can cause injury and just move on.  Today we just have more ways to communicate and diagnose problems. 

I truly don't think much has changed over the years.  There is just more doctors capable of the surgery. 

When I grew up playing in the 70's by the end of the season MANY arms were hanging.   

I believe Smoltz played around 14 years of professional ball prior to TJ surgery. He was a hard thrower and that's a lot of miles on an arm. That being said I don't think the fact that he had the surgery makes his views any less than signicant. What I've taken from what Smoltz has said is kids pitch too much and throw too little; I agree. I think knowing in advance one would need surgery after 14 years of professional ball they'd take it if given the opportnity. Not to mention the guy had some pretty dang good years after the surgery.

Things are BETTER now than they used to be. Our kids don't go out and throw every day. LL teams don't rely on one pitcher to throw every game like they did when I was a kid. Also, pitchers have always thrown as hard as they can, even before anyone was putting numbers on those throws. We always threw as hard as we could in pick up games, as well. We often threw all day. We always knew which pitchers threw the hardest without a gun. Throwing hard was just as impressive in 1975 (or 1925 for that matter) as it is in 2015. Pitchers blew out there arms just as often. Scratch that - probably more often than today.  Today, though, we understand more about the craft of pitching. I think much has been done to minimize injury in the last twenty years. Pitching is safer today than it has ever been. However, throwing a baseball hard for a living is risky on the arm - always was and always will be.

While I've always respected Smoltz, much of what he says is just common rhetoric:

 

"It's getting worse. Ever since we discussed and became focused with the pitch count, it's been worse."

 

How exactly is it worse? While it is true that there have been more TJ surgeries, that is not a reliable indicator of injury rate increases/decreases. The surgery is much more available now than it was in the past. In addition, we are more health conscious than we were in the past. twenty years ago, if Johnny's elbow was hurting, Johnny just stopped pitching. We didn't take him to an ortho or even a family doctor. We called it "Little League elbow" or "tennis elbow," at which point you either pitched through the pain or quit pitching. Today we take care of these problems and TJ surgery has been a miracle for hundreds of pitchers that, in the past, simply would have been done as a pitcher.

 

"Smoltz says kids pitch too much, but don't throw enough."

 

Heard this before, but what does it mean, exactly? Every day, I deal with kids with parents and coaches who are so strict about pitch counts, but somehow think those 40 250' long toss throws don't put any additional stress on the arm. How is that possibly true?

Originally Posted by roothog66:

Heard this before, but what does it mean, exactly? Every day, I deal with kids with parents and coaches who are so strict about pitch counts, but somehow think those 40 250' long toss throws don't put any additional stress on the arm. How is that possibly true?

 

I can’t say what everyone thinks when they say that, but I can sure speak for myself. When someone say ‘pitching”, I’m thinking of the entire pitching motion from beginning to end with the changing mechanics of different pitches and having a batter trying to smack the snot out anything he can and all the ancillary pressures. Throw in the additional pressures of base runners, coaches and fans screaming out instructions and platitudes, and trying to execute every pitch and movement perfectly, you’ve got how I see pitching. When’s the last time there was any pressure at all during warmups or that you heard anyone hollering instructions when players were just playing catch?

"Smoltz says kids pitch too much, but don't throw enough."

Heard this before, but what does it mean, exactly? Every day, I deal with kids with parents and coaches who are so strict about pitch counts, but somehow think those 40 250' long toss throws don't put any additional stress on the arm. How is that possibly true?

Pitching puts more stress on the arm than throwing. Hard to argue kids don't get out and throw like they did when we were kids. Can't speak for Smoltz but what I believe he's saying is kids don't condition their arms for pitching. I can speak for myself though & its my belief. No doubt pitchers in early years were washed up where today surgery gives a second (and sometimes third) chance. Don't know that we'll ever be able to compare apples to apples but this guy put a lot of miles on his arm before it required major maintaince. Don't think he represents himself to be an expert but I do respect his views.

I knew of more kids who blew their arms out and careers were over in hs when I played 25 years ago than kid did the last couple of years. 

I don't buy the junk theory kids are damaging arms more now than they use to.  What science do we have? We have more kids getting TJ surgery now, no freaking kidding.  We have the surgery now to fix it.  When I was in hs; kid blows out his arm he was done. There was no tj surgery for the kid to get fixed.

Please quit with the sky is falling doom days scenario and provide some facts.

Just because he pitched for MLB has zero credibility on how to keep his arm healthy.  If you ask 20 veteran MLB pitchers what it takes to keep your arm healthy how many different answers would you get? 

Agree 100%.  We all knew kids growing up that threw out their arms.  Every kid I knew tried throwing as hard as they could.  We played burn out all the time in HS etc... 

It seems your argument is that mental stress creates stress on the arm? 

 

Agree 100%. 

Real Green, You say just because Smoltz pitched in the MLB he has zero credibility on how to keep an arm healthy. Not trying to be a smart***, but what are your credentials?

I am not claiming to know.  Smoltz is, and his argument doesn't pass my bs meter just because he is Smoltz. 

It doesn't add up.  Throw more, pitch less???? 

Smoltz comes across to me as a pretty humble guy, don't think he claims to an expert on the subject. People ask his opinion and he gives it. I believe he is speaking in the context of kids getting out and throwing in the yard in the past and no longer doing. I believe the "less pitching" has to do more with year round Baseball which was not prevelant when he grew up. Lots of studies & opinions out there. I do believe pitching causes more stress on the arm than throwing in general.

Originally Posted by real green:

It seems your argument is that mental stress creates stress on the arm? 

 

Well, that is PART of my argument, but actually it’s more that mental stress causes problems on all parts of the body. Here’s a bit of why I feel that way. Let’s put the same pitcher into two different scenarios.

 

Scenario 1 – Starting pitcher is having a good home outing. It’s the top of the 5^th, his offense gave him a 6-0 lead in the 1^st inning and it’s held up, all of his pitches are working well, he hasn’t allowed a runner with less than two outs, no runner has gotten past 2^nd, and he’s thrown 60 pitches.

 

Scenario 2 – Starting pitcher is having a lousy home outing. It’s the top of the 5^th, his offense hasn’t given him a run and he’s given up 4, only a couple of his pitches are working well, every inning the leadoff batter has reached, every inning there’s been a runner on 3^rd with less than 2 outs, and he’s only 60 pitches.

 

Which of those scenarios would likely cause the pitcher to do something that causes a physical problem? It’s not that I think mental stress directly causes an arm injury, but I think it can cause a change in mechanics that does lead to arm injury.