Is the arm injury epidemic threatening baseball?

You ask a lot of good questions here, I don't know the answers.

I do know that some people are just wired to be pitchers.  They love it.  The most talented pitcher at my kid's HS is a multiple sport athlete: QB on the football team, shooting forward in hoops, a really great golfer.... But you ask him what he likes most in life, not just in sports but in life itself and he says "pitching".  I would imagine he's not alone that way.

The emphasis on the radar gun and the early recruiting combined with indoor facilities allowing year round Baseball even in colder climates has created somewhat of a "superstorm" where kids are pushing it too hard too young.  I don't think that is going to change.

Survival of the fittest

The Wall Street Journal just did an article about high school football, and one of the charts showed that high school baseball participation was up by about 3% since 2006, despite a 4% drop in the number of high-school aged boys. https://t.co/uHPQHCyAxJ

I think talented young pitchers could learn a lot from the story of Riley Pint.  Said "no" to a lot of invites, didn't pitch year round, took several months off from throwing every year, only played four Perfect Game events in his life, kept his 97+ arm healthy prior to the draft.

https://www.perfectgame.org/Pl...vents.aspx?ID=396857

Please don't take that the wrong way.  I'm a huge fan of Perfect Game, and am increasingly appreciating the value of PBR too (Prep Baseball Report) but you don't have to play 15-20 PG events to get noticed.

For position players?  Yes, you need to be seen more frequently. But great young pitchers would be wise to limit their appearances.

If you throw 95 in hs you only need to go to one  showcase but pitchers that throw 87 probably need to be seen just as much as hitters.

I agree however that many pitcher pitch too many months a year instead of rest and condition the body.

However I'm not sure if less throwing solves that. All the things that mlb tried have failed so far (less innings, better conditioning - the arms still break down). There are many theories like thowing less, throwing more, take rest, long toss all year, stay flexible, get strong, different mechanics, use the legs and all of that sounds great in theory but arms still break down.

Are the pro arms breaking down because of what they are doing as pros or (what I suspect) because of what they did between ages 9 and 17?

There is a good Podcast on Baseball America with Eric Cressey on this subject.

Keep in mind that although it's most common amongst pitchers, position players get tommy john as well. Catchers throw more than pitchers with a different arm motion.

mechanics are key. I went from constant pain to pain free with a little tweaking of my throwing motion.

i loved baseball and the arm pain was just always part of it. I knew something was wrong but would rather play than sit out. Tommy John is a terrible time, however if you love baseball it's just part of the game

I often read that catchers throw more than pitchers but aren't most of those thows easy low intensity tosses back to the pitcher?

Position player TJ seems to be on the rise though although in the overall picture it still is a very small percentage compared to the pitchers.

In youth ball two way players probably do have an increased risk though.