Freshman pitcher Oregon State overused to win championship needs Tommy John surgery

At some point the technology will catch up and then there will be better data on what the limit is before a pitcher is going to need TJ.  It seems number of pitches thrown over a short period of time is the best indicator we have now, so the rules requiring rest that have been implemented in most youth baseball should be coming to college baseball before too long. 

And just like youth coaches had to adjust, college coaches need to expand the number of pitchers they rely on.  Really, there is no excuse why with most college rosters having 15-17 pitchers that coaches don't dig deeper into their roster to spread out the pitches and innings during the regular season.  If the NCAA truly cares, they should require that all 35 man rosters be active for home series and then when games turn into blowouts either way, go down further on the depth chart and have other kids take on some pitches and innings.  Save your horses for the CWS and maybe they can survive increased use during that period if better rested during the season.

bacdorslider posted:

My son does not and will not sacrifice his body and or future until he is being paid to play... not for the College World Series not for anyone. Player is to blame.  Coach is paid to win. 

The player is to blame?  Part of the coach's responsibility is to be the adult in the dugout and make the tough decisions.  The players are competitors, they are going to want the ball every chance they get.  Someone has to be the grown up and tell them no.  That's the head coach's job. 

As a parent now, there are certain that I'd shut down with my sons' that I went through. But the reality is that we still don't know a lot about preventing Tommy John surgeries. The only strong correlation seems to be that when you throw hard, your likelihood increases.  

Backstop22 posted:

At some point the technology will catch up and then there will be better data on what the limit is before a pitcher is going to need TJ.  It seems number of pitches thrown over a short period of time is the best indicator we have now, so the rules requiring rest that have been implemented in most youth baseball should be coming to college baseball before too long. 

And just like youth coaches had to adjust, college coaches need to expand the number of pitchers they rely on.  Really, there is no excuse why with most college rosters having 15-17 pitchers that coaches don't dig deeper into their roster to spread out the pitches and innings during the regular season.  If the NCAA truly cares, they should require that all 35 man rosters be active for home series and then when games turn into blowouts either way, go down further on the depth chart and have other kids take on some pitches and innings.  Save your horses for the CWS and maybe they can survive increased use during that period if better rested during the season.

bolded, the NCAA doesn't care at all, neither do the coaches. You are tossed onto the scrap heap the second you can't do it anymore regardless of anything. Please get over the "coaches care" crap, they don't, they don't care at D1, D2 or D3. You need to wrap your brain around that before anything else. 

PABaseball posted:

Tough spot, but with some minor tweaks (90 instead of 95, 20 instead of 23) this all would've been perfectly legal for even HS.

Is it a heavy workload? Yes. Is it too much? Probably. Did it cause TJ? Can't say 

Before we put all the blame on the coach, he has a relationship with his players. He has to trust them when they say they're good to go the same way they have to trust him not to go overboard. Maybe the kid felt fine. Maybe he was sore, but thought he could push thru it to win a national championship. I know if mine were in the same situation, he would probably be out on the mound as well. Don't forget this isn't a Central High vs North High non conference HS game. You're talking Arkansas, MS State and the CWS. This is what the kids live for

Most competitive kids would take the rock just as yours would.  No matter how they felt.  This is precisely why the players' judgement can not be trusted in these situations.  Just as they've implemented concussion protocols in football, it's time to protect baseball players from over zealous or careless coaching staffs.

d-mac posted:

bacdorslider posted:

My son does not and will not sacrifice his body and or future until he is being paid to play... not for the College World Series not for anyone. Player is to blame.  Coach is paid to win. 

The player is to blame?  Part of the coach's responsibility is to be the adult in the dugout and make the tough decisions.  The players are competitors, they are going to want the ball every chance they get.  Someone has to be the grown up and tell them no.  That's the head coach's job. 

Well, I can agree they are both to blame,  but the player has to be responsible for his own arm . The coach Should know better, but obviously they do not, so the player has to take care of himself. 

I wonder if being an 18 year old freshman instead of a more physicaly mature 22 year old senior was a factor in the injury? I don't believe most coaches even take that into consideration in potential overuse situations. 

Part of the due diligence of the recruiting process is looking at the reputation of how programs use, or abuse pitchers. There are winning coaches with reputations for burning out pitchers.

I talked with a poster on this board who told their son, “You’re not pitching there.” It was a ranked program. The kid was a legit prospect (high draft pick out of college). The program’s head coach had a bad rep with pitchers. 

So I will ask the question again.  How does a freshman college player tell a coach he refuses to pitch in the CWS Championship game?  Do you go to the coach in the fifth inning and say I'm done I have a pitch count and I have exceeded it.   (If you are not smart enough to pull me I will pull myself.)  Any kid who does this will be sent packing I would say. 

d-mac posted:

bacdorslider posted:

My son does not and will not sacrifice his body and or future until he is being paid to play... not for the College World Series not for anyone. Player is to blame.  Coach is paid to win. 

The player is to blame?  Part of the coach's responsibility is to be the adult in the dugout and make the tough decisions.  The players are competitors, they are going to want the ball every chance they get.  Someone has to be the grown up and tell them no.  That's the head coach's job. 

It's like saying - Don't go to the bad part of town at 2am, bad things happen. 

People shouldn't rob you, but you shouldn't have been in the bad part of town at 2am either. Is it the victim's fault? Not entirely. Could it have been avoided? Probably. 

Same thing here and don't forget that these kids have parents. They talk to them after each start, ask how they're feeling and what's next. There is more than one person at fault here. 

I just came across this thread. What other commenters ignored is that Abel had thrown only 16.1 innings all season and hadn’t pitched in a game in over 2 months. Anyone who understands pitching knows you have to work up to a pitch count (and maintain it by pitching regularly). Throwing him as much as they did in the CWS was unconscionable. Period.

I get the concerns...and the numbers look bad....BUT I can guarantee you that most any kid in that situation would have wanted to do it....and it would take one really, really good guy of a coach to tell the kid no.  I don't know the coach or the kid...so I won't comment any further....but I can guarantee you my son would have done the exact same thing if he was in that situation.  You grow up wanting to be in that position....I would think there are an awful lot of kids who would have done it if they had the chance

Buckeye 2015, I totally agree that most kids would've wanted to do the same thing. My son is a competitor and never wants to hand over the ball in a close game. That said, the coach needs to be the adult in the room. As i said in my last post, the most criminal thing about how Abel was used was the fact that he hadn't even pitched in a game in over two months. Throwing 95 pitches or 120+ shouldn't have even been on the table, much less doing both in such a short span, with relief appearances mixed in. I get that college coaches are paid to win games, and they will do what it takes to achieve that. But potentially costing a promising young pitcher his future in order to hang a banner should weigh heavy on a coach's conscience.