Interesting pitching article on Grantland

thanks for posting,   missed that one.  a great point that could work against UNC in tough recruiting battles.     Im amazed a top 10 pick would choose college over pros with this money. 

I hope you took the time to read the article on the “actual research” the author refers to. That article pretty much shows the main problem with trying to use nothing but gross pitch counts to try to determine the likelihood of pitching injuries.

However, while its impossible to take into account every factor that COULD affect a pitcher’s health, there should be little doubt in anyone’s mind that taking into account as many factors as possible is certainly better than ignoring them. The easiest and likely most important factor to take into account is certainly rest, but I have yet to see any study that takes rest into account.

Here’s something Baumann mentions that he seemed to ignore later on. While there’s a general consensus that overuse — pitching too often, for too long, under too much stress — wears out developing arms, there’s really no way to identify the breaking point until it has passed.

The only thing his reference looks at is the “for too long” part. Nothing I can see looks at the “too often” part, which is rest, and is a major component of the pitch count limitations advocated by ASMI. The other one he mentions, “under too much stress”, is the one that sent me off in a new direction just over a month ago.

Stress keeps being talked about, but no one wants to define it in a way that can be measured, and that’s what I’ve been working on lately, rather than just ignore it.