Tommy John's advice to baseball parents

I know pitchers who did not pitch year round, and they still broke their UCL.

Maybe, one day, we'll find out what's really causing it.

Of course, for adults, Tommy has long held the opinion that, when it comes to pitching, "more is better." He thinks major league clubs baby their pitchers and hates pitch counts. He constantly points to the heavy workload pitchers "back in the day" carried without needing surgery and cites the change to pitch limits as the reason for more injuries.

Interesting quotes from John in 2014.

http://www.nydailynews.com/spo...rk-article-1.1730546

“First of all, one of the biggest reasons for all the arm injuries in baseball today is the way young kids are handled by their coaches in grade school and high school, pitching them year-round,” said John by phone from his home in Syracuse.

“Years ago, I’d have gone along with the thinking that there’s only so many bullets in your arm. But we’ve ‘dumbed down’ our thinking today to believing that pitch counts and innings limitations are the way to go to preserve arms. Starting in 1975 with the White Sox, when Johnny Sain was my pitching coach, I would throw six days a week out of seven and it was the best my arm ever felt. For the next 13 years, I never missed a start, except once when I had the flu. Sain believed in throwing between starts and it’s no coincidence that one of his disciples, Leo Mazzone, subscribed to that same philosophy, practicing and throwing every day, as pitching coach for the Braves. The Braves had the best pitching staffs in baseball in the ’90s and all guys like (Greg) Maddux and (Tom) Glavine did was pitch and win and never got hurt.”

I also have to ask, is pitching year 'round really a problem? I know hundreds of top pitching prospects and can't think of any who actually do this. they may have throwing programs for the whole year, but they don't pitch competitively , without a break, year 'round. Anyone on here have a kid who pitches year 'round?

Tons of kids pitch all year round in these parts.

Tons of travel teams spread their play over almost the entire year.

Check out the schedule of tournaments for after Thanksgiving through end of January that I posted on a different thread.  

In these parts there are tournaments basically 52 weeks a year.  And there are always teams to play in said tournaments.  There is often a waiting list for the more popular ones.  

Somebody has to pitch in them.

http://community.hsbaseballweb...28#26637713869991128

There is no doubt there are tourneys 52 weeks a year in the south. However, in my experience, those rosters turn over within the season and a lot of those pitchers, even in the organizations that play all year, don't necessarily pitch the whole year. My own son is on a team that plays all year. However, he still takes time off and will even play as a position-only player part of the year.

Again, though, I'm asking if anyone here personally has a kid that pitches 52 weeks per year or very close to it.

Following up SluggerDad's post, if you are playing high level travel ball here in So. Cal the only time off is really the three weeks of Xmas break, and 3-4 weeks (max) late May / early June after the high school season ends. As he notes - someone has to pitch. We know several kids who shut things down after the AZ Classic in October, but we know far more who are still throwing in games this weekend and will continue to throw. 

January-February = High School pre-season, pitchers generally limited to 2 innings, fastballs only, until mid Feb when they will start ramping it up for the formal season. 

March-May = High School season, pitchers go as long as they can. 

June = somewhat quiet for 2-3 weeks, but high school summer league and travel ball both start by mid-month. 

July-August = high school summer league, 1-2 games per week. Informal.  

July-November = travel ball & showcase season - this is the best level of actual competition all year. 

October-December = high school winter ball schedule through 12/19. Pitchers limited to two innings max, fastballs only. 1-2 games per week. Informal. 

Some kids may also continue in travel tournaments into January, but our travel program pretty much shuts down next week.

As much as it pains me to say - the kids around here who take time off, shut it down, or go into other sports absolutely fall behind the ones that stay with it.  

My S threw all year long until soph year in college. He didn't pitch all year long, but threw basically every day - either long toss, lessons, bull pens, and in season (fall, summer, spring) games.

Once he reached soph year in college, he took September and October off while he concentrated on conditioning. He now takes mid October through end of December off.

FWIW - I listened to a speech Tom Seaver was making on this issue and I found his perspective very valuable.  He believes that overuse injuries are being caused, NOT by throwing on too many days, but by throwing too hard, too often.  He had a father that had him pitch all year.  But, he claims to have thrown his hardest only "5 or 6 times" in each appearance.  He believes we should ban the radar gun which he calls "The root of all evil".  Good points.

This isn't about adults this is about youth pitchers and preventing major surgery at a young age.

In the southeast youth baseball is played year round. And when they have a few weeks off maybe late fall, they are attending camps and showcases when they should be in shut down mode.

Everyone is anatomically different. The whole idea is prevention from major surgery.

This article reminds me of why I was so disappointed to see Perfect Game make the move into the younger ages. Between USSSA, Super Series, Triple Crown and all the others - it's just too much. 

PG has 12U and 13U tournaments in JANUARY.

If boys aren't resting in January, it's a darned good bet they're not resting at all.

And while I know PGStaff is sincere when he says he's not a business man (it's not about money, money, money -- as Tommy John says it is), let's face it, Mom and Dad:

There's pressure to be at all these 'prestigious' events.

Even at 12. 

It's up to parents to protect their sons -- and just say no.

Keep in mind that in some places (well, mainly Arizona where a lot of these January tourneys are located) it's customary to shut down from mid-June to November due to the oppressive heat. Of course, that's changed a little in the past ten years.

One problem is colleges. Because it's their off-season, they push more fall and winter camps and events.

Colleges have always had camps.  That's not an issue. Its everyone else trying to get a piece of the pie.  I know of some people who have ruined their sons careers because in HS it was one event after another, by college they were done due to major injuries.

Just reading posts here, its November and parents have their kids playing tournies, camps and showcases.

The problem is money -- plain and simple -- and lack of enough buyer beware savvy on the part of many parents.

Speaking mainly for Northern California and not the entire country, a parent has to exercise EXTREME caution when choosing a place for their kid to play baseball.  The problem is that It is most definitely  possible to play competitive baseball  52 weeks a year. Granted no one does play every single weekend of the year, but there are definitely many  travel teams that do indeed spread the play  out over the entire year, taking no more than a few weeks off here and there.  

The financial incentives are relatively large in a class where it is possible to field tournaments basically t 52 weekends out of the year.   What drives the number of tournaments are  not deep thoughts about how to develop healthy and skilled players.  Far from it.   It's the plain and simple fact that there is  major money to be made by the venues, the tournament organizers, and the travel team coaches,   Very, very few of them have any real financial incentive to call a halt and tell parents and kids the truth about the potential downside of all this year round chase of mostly meaningless trinkets. 

I will admit that there are a few "elite"  organizations around here that have a somewhat different business model.  Some of them have actually staked their reputations on helping get guys ready for the next level.  All the travel coaches say that sort of thing, of course,  But only a few of them actually walk the walk in addition to talking the talk.   Those organizations don't play nearly as many these all year round local tournaments as the guys merely out for a buck do.  Not that they don't their share.  But their focus is more getting their players ready for  big deal national tournaments and the like.  

These organizations  do tend to shut competition down at some point in the year -- usually November or so --  and focus on off season training and conditioning.  But even they even they tend to compete over something like a  9 month span. Which is still a lot.

A complicating factor is that some of them actually run  college exposure events of various sorts during their off seasons (both for their members and for other comers as well).  That adds to the  competition in another way and keeps players out of full shut down mode.  So they are not completely pure either.  

These "elite"   organizations, by the way,  tend to be both more selective and more expensive and are consequently harder to break into.   They have to be for the sake of their "brands." 

Another big divide is that some of these organizations  own their own indoor facilities and can make a lot of money off their players (and others) through facilities charges. They aren't as completely  financially incentivized for constant competition.

One of the main things that seems to me to keep most the travel teams that play all year round playing all ready round are coaches that make most of their money  off tournament fees and have few other ways to leverage their baseball knowledge for profit. 

All in all, parents really really need to watch out for these sharks.  They especially need to inform themselves about the proper care and feeding of young arms.   The sharks cannot be trusted to do that on their behalf.  Not to be crass about it, but from the coach's perspective there is ALWAYS another kid willing to step in when another kid falters or goes down with an injury.  

Can't imagine why he tore his UCL in the first place.

This is interesting to me. It seems to me that pitching while tired is probably a risk factor in injuries.

2019Son has been pitching this fall -- after not pitching (though he did throw -- long toss, playing catch, etc.) from July 4th until the second week of Sept. However, he has thrown a total of 16 and 2/3 innings this Fall, with never more than 35 pitches in an outing (longest outing was 3 innings), each outing spaced out by at least a week, no breaking balls at all in September and October, and something like 10 or 12 breaking balls thrown in November. If the kids pitching year-round were being used like that, I think the problems would be greatly lessened, but unfortunately at many youth tournaments there are no pitch counts, and power pitchers who are 12 or 13 are asked to throw 100 or more pitches in an outing, pitch twice in three days, etc.

This is exactly right, though I'd add that August is a relatively quiet month for baseball, pre-high school. I remember talking to some dads from Minnesota at a 13U tournament, and they were amazed that August -- prime season for them -- was the only month 2019Son's 13U team didn't practice or play in at all.

Similar to your son's team, 2019Son's travel program will shut down mid-December. 

Goosegg,

I'm curious how this schedule worked with college team' schedule.  Seems like this would conflict. 

For college pitchers, once the coach has a handle on what the coach believes the pitcher brings to the team, there is no real need to pitch during the fall. This is particularly true for pitchers who throw during summer ball.

After freshman season (a disaster), S threw during the summer (actually logging double the number of innings he threw during the season). So he was shut down from end of August until the beginning of November. He still attended all practices - despite not throwing - and conditioned. The same pattern repeated after soph year (including the disastrous season). After junior year (same result), he was totally burnt out on baseball (said the ball didn't even feel round anymore in his hand) and only resumed throwing a few weeks before scout day (very late in the fall since his team did it indoors and underground).

The programs I follow also follow the same pattern. Once a pitcher establishes his role, unless he is coming back from an injury and needs to throw in the fall, many times (not always, however) he takes the fall as his break. Sometimes, it could be that a pitcher maxes out during the season and must take the summer off. In those cases, it is not unusual for the pitcher to resume throwing during fall ball.

College coaches - for the most part - want a pitcher to have a break from all throwing; so, timing is really the issue. 

I would add add this as an unusual aside: S's team didn't even have a pitching coach.

I guess mid january to mid November would also qualify as "year round". I don't think any guys pitch in december but there are plenty of guys doing their first Showcase in january and the last in November.

that would be almost 11 months a year, which certainly would qualify as "year round" too.

non year round I would call march to october or so (like MLB Players).

ASMI recommends NOT THROWING at all for 3 months for youth pitchers. if you follow that Guideline you can't really pitch more than 7-8 months a year (asuming you Need at least 6 weeks to get back to pitching shape).

Not sure what you're after here, but I'd say in college it can be what I would consider 'year around.'

Practice begins 1st day of Fall term.  Bullpens in front of PC transitioning to scrimmages that include 2-4 innings every 4 or 5 days.  Followed by 1-on-1 drills which often include trying to get a batter out (sometimes in a cage).  These can last until finals week in December.

Bullpens on Christmas break to try and stay sharp for January practice.

Back to school in early January, practice is "on" again, pretty quickly including live scrimmages or 1-on-1's and continues right up until opening day and through the season.  Then the boys ship out for summer ball that runs until early August and the cycle starts all over again with Fall term.

Is it every week?  No.  But quite often there is no sustained break.

As for kids getting the Fall off once the coach knows you - well, maybe?  There's always the fire burning for all but 1 or 2 pitchers trying to increase their role (back of bullpen to front, bullpen to starter, borderline starter to weekend starter, etc..., etc...).  In my experience through 2 sons (8 years of college ball), one of them got one Fall off following a 2nd team All American season.  The only other guys I saw get "off" were injured or #1/#2 starters coming back for another season.

So in my book I'd have to say they threw 'year-around' for most of their college careers.

So, it's ok for colleges to have camps (and many are little more than fundraisers), but when organizations like PG set up events where hundreds of coaches can go and see a thousand kids in one spot, it's "getting a piece of the pie" and part of the problem?

Also, everyone seems to know of kids that pitched "year around" and ruined their careers with college injuries that they seem to know were caused by their youth pitching schedule and have no other causes. I just don't think it happens in numbers that are as high as many here intimate. So, again, does anyone here have a kid pitching "year 'round?"

I think we also need a definition of what pitching year around means. If you pitch on a regular rotation February through September and then take October off, pitch once in November at a showcase, once again in December at a college camp and then take January off, is this "year 'round?" How much time off can you take and still be a "year 'round" pitcher?

Yeah. Throwing year 'round I see. My kid does it. I don't see the benefit of completely taking a significant time off of throwing. We don't do that for any other body part when it comes to conditioning. I just keep hearing people mention throwing competitively year around and I don't see it - and I see a lot of stuff. I'm sure it happens. I just don't think there is an epidemic of it.

Does anybody log all of their son's innings and pitches by date?  and have a record for several years of pitching?  Just curious.

That was sort of my point about throwing an inning or two once per week. Hypothetically, if a kid pitches in every calendar month, but throws an inning or two at a time, and totals 40 or 50 innings per year, is that somehow worse than throwing 100+ innings in a three or four month window? 

It seems to me that the reason for months-long rest if because of overuse. I have a couple of kids who swim and run distance/cross-country and as far as I can tell the elite kids (i.e., not my kids) in that area do not take three or four months off. Why is pitching so different? Is it because of overuse?

I'm going to say that pitching overhand is a very unnatural thing to do, esp compared to swimming or running.  But I get your question.

Not completely. 2019Son's 12U and 13U teams had VERY detailed statistics with this info, which were make available to parents at the end of the year -- so I have it for that team, but not all combined (e.g., including little league).

Since then, I've kept a fairly close count of innings, but I don't have the pitch count stuff. I do know that his 14U team never pitched him more than 4 innings in an outing (and on only two occasions did any pitcher on the team throw more than 4 innings in an outing) -- they were very concerned about arm health. Though, as far as I can tell, they seemed to believe that pitching when tired was the main risk factor (hence the limited number of innings per outing), not playing baseball year-round. Have no idea if they are right about that, but it makes sense to me, intuitively.

I guess it depends on your definition of unnatural, but humans have been throwing stones and spears, and using slings for thousands of years. And positions players throw thousands of balls every year with very few arm problems. IMO, modern baseball pitching is in a category all its own.

Spear chucking caveman aside, I think slinging a baseball at 90+ mph thousands of times a year for many years where the only thing holding the arm together at the elbow is a ligament half the size of a pencil is unnatural.  JMO

Originally Posted by 2019Dad:

Not completely. 2019Son's 12U and 13U teams had VERY detailed statistics with this info, which were make available to parents at the end of the year -- so I have it for that team, but not all combined (e.g., including little league).

Since then, I've kept a fairly close count of innings, but I don't have the pitch count stuff. I do know that his 14U team never pitched him more than 4 innings in an outing (and on only two occasions did any pitcher on the team throw more than 4 innings in an outing) -- they were very concerned about arm health. Though, as far as I can tell, they seemed to believe that pitching when tired was the main risk factor (hence the limited number of innings per outing), not playing baseball year-round. Have no idea if they are right about that, but it makes sense to me, intuitively.

As someone who has kept stats for a fairly long time now, I can state positively that while what you say you’ve done is better than most, it isn’t by any stretch of the imagination a positive answer to the question log all of their son's innings and pitches by date?

Do you really believe that limiting innings is the best way to limit overuse risk? I believe it’s better than no limitations at all, but as far as being the best limitation, its far behind pitch counts.

I think most knowledgeable people would agree that pitching when tired was at a minimum “a” main risk factor if not “the” main risk factor. Accepting that as true, who do you believe would be “more” tired. A pitch who has thrown 4 innings of 15, 15, 15, and 15 pitches for 60 pitches total, or one who has thrown 3 innings of 25, 25, and 25 pitches for 75 pitches total?  

I remember a post from several months back that discussed a new approach towards pitching limits, incorporating both pitch count and innings along with some modifiers for high pitch count innings.  I doubt I could go find it, so am asking if anyone else can recall the specifics.  Pitch count is good and innings is decent, but I think using both and making some adjustments gets you a lot closer to actual wear and tear.  I've seen effortless 80+ outings as well as outings in the 50's where the pitcher looked worn out.  The former may have been 6/7 innings and all the accompanying warm up pitches whereas the latter might have only been 2/3 innings, but lots from the stretch and maybe a few too many throws to first.  The results may be due to better or worse competition, pitcher having good/bad day, or a combination of both.  Regardless, I'll take the 80 pitch count and 7 innings any day.

I'll go you one farther and say your 25-25-25 (75 pitch) kid is at more risk than one going 15-15-15-15-15-15-15 for 105 pitches.

I liken it to weight lifting. if I ask you to bench 200 lbs 20 times, you're going to fatigue out quicker if you try to do two sets of 10 than if you do 4 sets of 5.

You make a good point. At some point, whatever you use as a guideline, it has to be simple enough for you to use consistently.

2017LHPscrewball,

I don’t know the post you’re talking about, but for a couple years now I’ve been using a combination of factors to come up with what I call “stress”.

The final number is a combination of number of pitches, inning, score, runners and their positions, umpire’s count, and outs. It’s a number the computer comes up with based on various table values, and shows up after every pitch. Something called “additional pitches” is also simultaneously computed.