I have my doubts that the former catcher's injury was due to conversion as pitcher. Most likely the damage was done way before that accured, and without knowing what type of pitches he threw, how hard, his "style", it's hard to guess what really happened. It is easy to make assumptions. I know of one situation similar as the above, the catcher could not hit so he was converted and ended up with a diagnosis for TJS. I saw his mom this year and she told me he retired, he did not want surgery, and that his elbow had been a bit cranky before and since he lacked speed he had thrown a lot of off speed in HS when he WAS NOT catching. He was also pretty bulky as a catcher, could this have affected his range of motion as a pitcher? What really caused that injury? Overuse? Or changing "styles"? Or changing mechanics?
Once again, it's easy to make assumptions.
I am still confused as to what is meant by changing motion or style vs. slot. If you are talking about changing natural arm slot, I would agree it could happen. I am just not clear on what you mean, exactly.
FWIW, there are many position players that get converted to pitchers, some sustain injury and some do not. When this happens on the college or the professional level, it's a gradual learning process. Without us knowing all the details, again, hard to make assumptions.
DM, could you provide futher information on your son. First why did your son continue to pitch if it "hurt"? Was it a gradual process? When did your son begin to pitch, how old was he, did he play other positions after or before he pitched (SS coming into pitch, vice versa). Did he ever sustain an injury as a position player? Did he play year round, did he take time off during the year? When did he begin playing travel ball? What was his workload/positions in HS? What pitches did he throw as a beginning pitcher? Was he all muscle, I know you mentioned once that he threw hard.
Truman,
Can you explain style vs. mechanics at 13? Would the changes have involved changing arm slot?
I know that son had some sloppy mechanical issues when he was young, but everyone left him alone. It took his college pitching coach 3 years and the professional coaches more years of tweaking to refine, and it seems a constant thing that pitchers work on year in and year out. He would not have been able to pitch at the professional level without some of those fixes.
A conversation lately with someone in the professional world who works with pitchers, often times injury is caused because a pitcher tries to do too many things when they are just learning. We were talking about the conversations where parents of 10-14 year olds say they throw 4-6 pitches for strikes. Say what?
Can you throw all of those pitches for strikes and repeat the same good mechanics?Very well indeed that the above topic could be a cause, but not sure it would be considered the only cause, a lot of stuff goes on that causes pitcher injury, it's never one specific thing.
One more point to bring up, most pitchers play almost every position while growing up, so being converted, IMO has nothing to do with injury, unless the player never pitched and was not taught proper throwing mechanics. Changing natural arm slot, maybe.