Thought I'd share an interesting article from D1Baseball.com. The early results of a study from the Andrews Clinic suggest that surgeries would decline if the college baseball season were to begin a month later, as recommended in the "New Baseball Model."
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It's unfortunate that the pandemic has disrupted his study, but I also wonder if the pandemic offers researchers new natural experiments to look at. What does a year without a Spring season do for or to a pitcher's arm, for example.
What does the NCAA have to lose...nothing. At the end of the day, the NCAA is still collecting their money to feed the battery of lawyers they employ. If enough P5 schools push for this, they will get it. That would be a good thing.
JMO.
I wonder if the number of injuries this spring will go up because many pitchers did not get the conditioning in this year that their arm is used to and then will be stressed next year if they play. But maybe the year off helps their arms. I reckon we will find out.
South Carolina HS is considering going to fall baseball and one of the winningest coaches is opposed to it. Says the kids coming in after summer ball will put too much stress on their arms. But I believe since he is loaded with lots of ranked talent, he is worried that guys will choose to play the big showcase stuff and not high school ball this fall if that is an option. I was thinking I'm sure my son would have chosen the large PG tournaments his senior year, especially going to Jupiter, over HS ball. Could be interesting.
@PitchingFan posted:I wonder if the number of injuries this spring will go up because many pitchers did not get the conditioning in this year that their arm is used to and then will be stressed next year if they play. But maybe the year off helps their arms. I reckon we will find out.
South Carolina HS is considering going to fall baseball and one of the winningest coaches is opposed to it. Says the kids coming in after summer ball will put too much stress on their arms. But I believe since he is loaded with lots of ranked talent, he is worried that guys will choose to play the big showcase stuff and not high school ball this fall if that is an option. I was thinking I'm sure my son would have chosen the large PG tournaments his senior year, especially going to Jupiter, over HS ball. Could be interesting.
I was wondering if the fall HS baseball thing would catch on in FL. There are a few tournaments in September and October, but nothing a coach couldn't carefully schedule around. If it were up to me though, I'd rather my son play for his travel team than the school team.
I think you will see more arm injuries in the next year. Kids rest periods and ramp up periods are all thrown off. Usually there are no tournaments in August. My son is scheduled for 2 right now and I bet at least one more is added.
Why aren't they just ending college fall baseball earlier and then start to ramp on earlier?
That would basically have the same effect, right?
Depends of course a bit on the weather and indoor facilities.
Im in SC and I'm not really in favor of the proposed season switch. A lot of the coaches that I have seen comment on it are from bigger/better programs that likely won't have many problems adapting to it, personally I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum in that I'm not sure what our team would even look like if we were to switch seasons. From my understanding of the proposal we would only get 2 weeks prior to the start of the season to work with our kids which leads me to worry about whether it will be enough to get our kids ready when most of our kids don't play travel ball or anything outside the high school season and probably haven't picked up a ball since things got shut down in March. The single elimination playoff proposal also sucks and while I'm not a huge fan of the proposed shrinking of the number of teams in the playoffs I have long thought that too many teams make the playoffs in every sport here. The reduction in the number of games allowed also bothers me particularly for a sport that has already had one season halted (we were 6 days into the regular season when things go shut down this spring) and now they are cutting the number of allowed games by 40%, I think, for another season.
Another concern of mine is what happens moving forward, IF things go as planned and we play this spring then we face the possibility of going from November of 2020 (possibly earlier for teams that don't make the playoffs) until December/January of 2021 before being able to get our kids on the field.
I have concerns over not only being able to play this fall due to the virus but also due to the weather. I believe the last 3 or 4 years we have lost time during football season due to hurricanes so I worry about what the contingency plan will be for that this year.
My final and biggest concern is what happens if/when we are unable to play this fall. Supposedly the plan is to move back the the "spring 2" season but there are over laps between the seasons which leads me to worry about what happens at small schools where not only do the various sports share athletes but they also share coaches. Our head coach also coaches football so he could potentially be unavailable not only for the first week or so of the season but but also for the 2 weeks that we actually do get to work with the kids before the season starts. The mix up of the seasons also has me worried about what multi sport athletes are going to do, if we played in the fall it wouldn't be much of a concern but playing in the spring would cause a problem for our program in particular as we would be playing right after football season and at the same time as wrestling. We have several guys who play football and I wonder how many would skip baseball and opt to prepare for the following football season. We also have 4 or 5 wrestlers on our team which typically goes deep into the playoffs and 3 I believe who qualified for the individual championships this year (1 who won his weight class and the other 2 placed in the top 4 I believe) and I would be surprised if they chose baseball over wrestling.
@gamecock303 posted:Im in SC and I'm not really in favor of the proposed season switch. A lot of the coaches that I have seen comment on it are from bigger/better programs that likely won't have many problems adapting to it, personally I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum in that I'm not sure what our team would even look like if we were to switch seasons. From my understanding of the proposal we would only get 2 weeks prior to the start of the season to work with our kids which leads me to worry about whether it will be enough to get our kids ready when most of our kids don't play travel ball or anything outside the high school season and probably haven't picked up a ball since things got shut down in March. The single elimination playoff proposal also sucks and while I'm not a huge fan of the proposed shrinking of the number of teams in the playoffs I have long thought that too many teams make the playoffs in every sport here. The reduction in the number of games allowed also bothers me particularly for a sport that has already had one season halted (we were 6 days into the regular season when things go shut down this spring) and now they are cutting the number of allowed games by 40%, I think, for another season.
Another concern of mine is what happens moving forward, IF things go as planned and we play this spring then we face the possibility of going from November of 2020 (possibly earlier for teams that don't make the playoffs) until December/January of 2021 before being able to get our kids on the field.
I have concerns over not only being able to play this fall due to the virus but also due to the weather. I believe the last 3 or 4 years we have lost time during football season due to hurricanes so I worry about what the contingency plan will be for that this year.
My final and biggest concern is what happens if/when we are unable to play this fall. Supposedly the plan is to move back the the "spring 2" season but there are over laps between the seasons which leads me to worry about what happens at small schools where not only do the various sports share athletes but they also share coaches. Our head coach also coaches football so he could potentially be unavailable not only for the first week or so of the season but but also for the 2 weeks that we actually do get to work with the kids before the season starts. The mix up of the seasons also has me worried about what multi sport athletes are going to do, if we played in the fall it wouldn't be much of a concern but playing in the spring would cause a problem for our program in particular as we would be playing right after football season and at the same time as wrestling. We have several guys who play football and I wonder how many would skip baseball and opt to prepare for the following football season. We also have 4 or 5 wrestlers on our team which typically goes deep into the playoffs and 3 I believe who qualified for the individual championships this year (1 who won his weight class and the other 2 placed in the top 4 I believe) and I would be surprised if they chose baseball over wrestling.
Very surprised to hear you have dual sport baseball players and wrestlers. One of my sons wrestled through college and the other stopped earlier in HS to focus on baseball. He was concerned, rightly imo, that injury risk (particularly to shoulder/arm/wrist) was too prevalent.
As for the study, seems pretty clear even without the data from lost year that the NCAA would benefit from some kind of adjustment. I don’t favor the swapping of seasons but do think pushing it back a month for longer on-ramping would make sense.
@gamecock303 posted:Im in SC and I'm not really in favor of the proposed season switch. A lot of the coaches that I have seen comment on it are from bigger/better programs that likely won't have many problems adapting to it, personally I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum in that I'm not sure what our team would even look like if we were to switch seasons. From my understanding of the proposal we would only get 2 weeks prior to the start of the season to work with our kids which leads me to worry about whether it will be enough to get our kids ready when most of our kids don't play travel ball or anything outside the high school season and probably haven't picked up a ball since things got shut down in March. The single elimination playoff proposal also sucks and while I'm not a huge fan of the proposed shrinking of the number of teams in the playoffs I have long thought that too many teams make the playoffs in every sport here. The reduction in the number of games allowed also bothers me particularly for a sport that has already had one season halted (we were 6 days into the regular season when things go shut down this spring) and now they are cutting the number of allowed games by 40%, I think, for another season.
Another concern of mine is what happens moving forward, IF things go as planned and we play this spring then we face the possibility of going from November of 2020 (possibly earlier for teams that don't make the playoffs) until December/January of 2021 before being able to get our kids on the field.
I have concerns over not only being able to play this fall due to the virus but also due to the weather. I believe the last 3 or 4 years we have lost time during football season due to hurricanes so I worry about what the contingency plan will be for that this year.
My final and biggest concern is what happens if/when we are unable to play this fall. Supposedly the plan is to move back the the "spring 2" season but there are over laps between the seasons which leads me to worry about what happens at small schools where not only do the various sports share athletes but they also share coaches. Our head coach also coaches football so he could potentially be unavailable not only for the first week or so of the season but but also for the 2 weeks that we actually do get to work with the kids before the season starts. The mix up of the seasons also has me worried about what multi sport athletes are going to do, if we played in the fall it wouldn't be much of a concern but playing in the spring would cause a problem for our program in particular as we would be playing right after football season and at the same time as wrestling. We have several guys who play football and I wonder how many would skip baseball and opt to prepare for the following football season. We also have 4 or 5 wrestlers on our team which typically goes deep into the playoffs and 3 I believe who qualified for the individual championships this year (1 who won his weight class and the other 2 placed in the top 4 I believe) and I would be surprised if they chose baseball over wrestling.
If you have most of your guys who are not playing anything after school ball then the playoffs are probably not a concern. That is hard to believe in today's world. Every player on our varsity here in SC plays summer ball on different levels and we are 2A. All you normally get in a regular spring to get ready for ball is 1 week before scrimmages and 3/4 weeks before games so nothing is different. The season would only go from September 1 until the end of October so weather would not be a problem here except it would start warm and end cooler rather than the opposite in the spring.
The biggest hurdle is the big dog coaches are not in support of this. They are the ones whining because they say their pitchers have been throwing all summer which is not true because no one here started playing until mid June. Their biggest complaint is their best players will have to choose between playing school ball and the showcases in the fall and they know that their best players will choose showcase on the weekends over school ball during the week. They are not proposing limiting games by 40%. You can get up to 26 games in regular season and they are proposing 20 games but allowing Saturday DH's to only count as 1 which is like softball so you could get 23/24 according to what they decide.
I have not heard anything in their proposal of a Spring 2 season other than they are proposing the ability to play games in the spring of next year just like they do in the fall with a limit of 80% of returning varsity players. The schools that do this now use a combination of school coaches and parents/outside people. So if your school does not do it now why would they do it in 2021. If they have been doing it, then they will do it the same way. I don't see that changing anything.
The coaches that understand this will get their players ready starting in a few weeks with someone outside their coaching staff running outside practices VOLUNTARILY. The biggest downfall to this happening is that you have to be in school to practice or play. Our school system's plan is to start online and move to face to face or have alternating days where kids go to school. We could not practice until the first day the kids went into the classroom. If a kid chose online school as an option then they would not be eligible for sports is the interpretation I am hearing from school officials. Which does not make sense since homeschool kids can play sports in SC.
@PitchingFan posted:If you have most of your guys who are not playing anything after school ball then the playoffs are probably not a concern. That is hard to believe in today's world. Every player on our varsity here in SC plays summer ball on different levels and we are 2A. All you normally get in a regular spring to get ready for ball is 1 week before scrimmages and 3/4 weeks before games so nothing is different. The season would only go from September 1 until the end of October so weather would not be a problem here except it would start warm and end cooler rather than the opposite in the spring.
The biggest hurdle is the big dog coaches are not in support of this. They are the ones whining because they say their pitchers have been throwing all summer which is not true because no one here started playing until mid June. Their biggest complaint is their best players will have to choose between playing school ball and the showcases in the fall and they know that their best players will choose showcase on the weekends over school ball during the week. They are not proposing limiting games by 40%. You can get up to 26 games in regular season and they are proposing 20 games but allowing Saturday DH's to only count as 1 which is like softball so you could get 23/24 according to what they decide.
I have not heard anything in their proposal of a Spring 2 season other than they are proposing the ability to play games in the spring of next year just like they do in the fall with a limit of 80% of returning varsity players. The schools that do this now use a combination of school coaches and parents/outside people. So if your school does not do it now why would they do it in 2021. If they have been doing it, then they will do it the same way. I don't see that changing anything.
The coaches that understand this will get their players ready starting in a few weeks with someone outside their coaching staff running outside practices VOLUNTARILY. The biggest downfall to this happening is that you have to be in school to practice or play. Our school system's plan is to start online and move to face to face or have alternating days where kids go to school. We could not practice until the first day the kids went into the classroom. If a kid chose online school as an option then they would not be eligible for sports is the interpretation I am hearing from school officials. Which does not make sense since homeschool kids can play sports in SC.
I guess it is all a moot point now that the high school league voted down the proposal today opting instead to just push back the start of football season for the moment, but the proposal that I saw floating around called for only 16 varsity games and 10 subvarsity games (as opposed to the usual 26 and I think 22 (not really an issue for us as our schedule this year had less than 26 total games scheduled for Varsity and JV.
With 4 region qualifiers from each region as it usually is with what was our region makeup it was pretty hard to not make the playoffs, granted I'm not sure the last time we actually won a playoff game was. Two of the schools in our region struggle heavily in all sports outside of basketball (I'm not even sure if they have a JV team in baseball at the very least we weren't scheduled to play them) and this year we only had 5 schools in the region to begin with.
We are in a low income area (Title 1 school) where most people with the means or motivation find a way to get their kids (athletes in particular) into other schools whether it be the nearby AAAAA high school that typically has success in most sports or a private school. Between the financial and time aspects of it and kids leaving the school/area that is why we have so many kids that don't play travel ball in our program, in fact we had a couple of kids this year that I honestly wonder if they had ever played any baseball (they were great kids but there is a long long way to go on the field).
We definitely have an uphill climb to improve our program, everything from facilities and resources to simple organization seems to be an issue across the board in all of our athletic programs at the high school and youth sports. I am hoping that the local rec department is able to continue with fall ball this fall (which has only existed for 4 or 5 years I believe) and maybe get involved with that and hopefully next summer figure out a way to give our high school guys an opportunity to keep playing and get some more experience.
@LuckyCat posted:It's unfortunate that the pandemic has disrupted his study, but I also wonder if the pandemic offers researchers new natural experiments to look at. What does a year without a Spring season do for or to a pitcher's arm, for example.
My son and a former teammate are testing this theory out right now, though in both cases they were shutdown by injury right before they were shut down by the pandemic. Teammate has apparently been pitching well in the Northwoods, and for son we may not really know until club ball picks up in grad school (if it does).
If I were a high school coach I’d be fighting this. Normally I’d be fine with it, but you’re coming off losing your spring season I would be doing everything I could to prevent that from happening again. By switching with football you have a greater chance of losing the fall as well. Hate to not be a team player with other sports, but if I were a coach I’d be thinking about my own athletes and the need to get them games and get them recruited.
@TerribleBPthrower posted:If I were a high school coach I’d be fighting this. Normally I’d be fine with it, but you’re coming off losing your spring season I would be doing everything I could to prevent that from happening again. By switching with football you have a greater chance of losing the fall as well. Hate to not be a team player with other sports, but if I were a coach I’d be thinking about my own athletes and the need to get them games and get them recruited.
I was screaming to the rooftops about that possibility here. On the high school side, the notion of swapping baseball for the fall was too risky. More than likely there will be another long shut down and the thought of my kid losing his junior AND Senior year is too much. Plus he did train for the spring so between the spring training and the summer ball, a full Fall ball season would be too much. A lot of the baseball parents let the AD and county commissioner know and it looks like it’s almost certainly going to remain in the spring now. In fact it looks like the plan is for EVERY sport to take place after Jan 1st.
Anybody who is not playing showcase this summer does not really want to play in college. They are signing just as many players as they have in the past and just as young. Somehow they are seeing players and getting commitments from players. I hope no one bought into the "can't recruit so don't play" on here and other places. The commitments are rolling in at most of the schools that I keep up with on all levels.
I think the fall was a better chance to play for SC schools because I don't think they will end up playing football. I think you can social distance in baseball a lot better and better chance of getting games in and also the fact that they were going to allow the leagues in the spring. I think they missed out on an opportunity but we will see.
@PitchingFan posted:Anybody who is not playing showcase this summer does not really want to play in college. They are signing just as many players as they have in the past and just as young. Somehow they are seeing players and getting commitments from players. I hope no one bought into the "can't recruit so don't play" on here and other places. The commitments are rolling in at most of the schools that I keep up with on all levels.
I think the fall was a better chance to play for SC schools because I don't think they will end up playing football. I think you can social distance in baseball a lot better and better chance of getting games in and also the fact that they were going to allow the leagues in the spring. I think they missed out on an opportunity but we will see.
I agree lots of recruiting. 2 of my son’s HS teammates have committed to ACC schools in the past couple weeks. A 2023 & 2022. Several of his 2023 friends are being pursued by ACC & SEC schools. It’s pretty cool to see these kids he’s grown up playing with getting offers and going through the overall process.
@PitchingFan posted:Anybody who is not playing showcase this summer does not really want to play in college. They are signing just as many players as they have in the past and just as young. Somehow they are seeing players and getting commitments from players. I hope no one bought into the "can't recruit so don't play" on here and other places. The commitments are rolling in at most of the schools that I keep up with on all levels.
I think the fall was a better chance to play for SC schools because I don't think they will end up playing football. I think you can social distance in baseball a lot better and better chance of getting games in and also the fact that they were going to allow the leagues in the spring. I think they missed out on an opportunity but we will see.
We did 16u WWBA last week in Georgia. Son played well and had three contacts this weekend. So yes, recruiting is somehow still happening.
I just got around to reading the article in the OP. This thread devolved into a discussion about high school seasons this year, but I wondered what people make of the following point from the article about the Andrews' study:
"Rothermich believes many players arrive at college as somewhat damaged goods. What they do in college might contribute to eventual arm surgery, but it wasn’t the tipping point in many cases. The average age of a player who needs arm surgery was 19.8 in 2019, which is a slight decrease from the 2018 figure of 20. That number was 19.7 in 2017. In terms of specific classifications, 39% of arm injuries occurred in college freshmen in 2019, that number up significantly from 27% in 2018 For sophomores, that number dropped from 29.1% in 2018 to 23.8% in 2019, while the number dropped from 33.5% to 24.7% in 2019 for juniors. Finally, for seniors, that number increased from 8.2% in 2017 to 12.6% in 2019. It’s evident there’s more wear and tear on players entering the college ranks."
Is that the right conclusion? I'm curious what people think.
Looks like the data is solid. Did he say it is too many innings or weighted balls or both. I’ve seen some 2023 kids with huge velo jumps and still pretty slim/small frames. Most are doing some variation of a weighted ball routine. Some just hit puberty. For some I can’t see how their bodies can withstand throwing that hard if they don’t add some mass.
If you are unfamiliar with the New Baseball Model, check out this special show we did a couple months back. I interviewed the architect & one of the top board members -- Coach Erik Bakich (Michigan) and Coach Cliff Godwin (East Carolina) -- and had them break it all down. The show includes visuals and the actual documents included in the proposal. Definitely an eye-opener.
Click the link below to watch:
New Baseball Model / College Roundtable / Michigan, East Carolina / @JRudd_Scout / Bakich & Godwin
