Velocity vs. accuracy for young pitchers.

quote:

Originally posted by TPM:
What is meant by proper training as a youth pitcher?

Do you still advocate after pitching that a young pitcher go home and throw more against the wall?

You seem to have made a 360 degree turn since you came here many years ago. If I recall you also felt it was ok to pitch on consecutive days.

Certainly your kidding? You train youth at their level. Its not much different to speak about teaching them how to hit, how to steal bases, how to pick off runners, etc. Training at the youth level is about teaching them the proper basic mechanics coupled with strength training for their age. Its really a no-brainer.

If you had been paying attention I did mention that son did throw quite a lot when he was younger and that each consecutive year I clamped down more and more about how much he did pitch. The main factor here is that he was never pitching with elbow or shoulder pain. He still throws a lot which is wholly different than " pitching".

quote:

Originally posted by Skylark:
Clean mechanics can be described as pitching without pain.

So you're saying that every single pitcher that hurts their arm has bad mechanics, and every single pitcher that doesn't hurt their arm has clean mechanics?

I pitched from age 9 to age 21 without arm pain. Never hurt. Always fresh. Always felt good.

Now, I have a scar.

Does that mean that during all those innings I threw from 9-21 I had perfect mechanics, and when I hurt my arm my mechanics turned bad?

Dr. Andrews disagrees with you. He wants pitch count limitations on youth pitchers and lays out guidelines for days of rest. He understands that it is dangerous for youth pitchers to pitch and he understands that pitching as a youth can cause damage going into the future. You ask for evidence? Watch the Little League World Series every year on ESPN. They have rules about this. Dr. Andrews created them.

So here's how I'm interpreting this thus far: you say there's no evidence that pitching a lot as a youth causes injury over the years. Dr. Andrews says you're wrong. You say that if a kid's arm isn't bothering him when he's pitching then he's fine and he won't get hurt in the future. My scar says you're wrong.

Any other personal beliefs and theories that you have that you'd like to share? Evidence and research isn't necessary, since you've never cited anything to prove your opinions in the past. You just try to buck the trend of the scientific community and then proceed to belittle other posters like myself, Bum and TPM when we argue your point with facts.

I will give you one brownie point, however. I'm impressed that it took you a whole year since you got suspended posting under a different name to restart your outlandish statements. I thought maybe you'd learned and listened throughout that year, and was pleased to see some beneficial contribution to the boards.

quote:

Originally posted by Swampboy:
Stats,
You totally missed my point.
I was teasing you for making:
a) a ridiculous assertion: namely, that it would simple to compile a useful database on pitch counts; and

Obviously you don’t know a great deal about data bases. I assure you, I could create such a database in less than 1 minute, and I’m not in the business any longer. The trick isn’t in creating the data base, finding the space to store it, or even in accessing it for updates, and the trick isn’t even getting people to use it. What most people don’t get is, the chances their kid’s pitch counts and dates are already in one database or another, is probably well over 90% right now. The trick is getting everyone to use the same database.

quote:

b) a slander on the motives of everyone who isn't taking your advice to stop the world and fetch you some numbers to play with.

What is so wrong with wanting facts? Who could it possibly hurt other than those who are endangering pitchers?

quote:

As far as all that stuff you say you didn't mention: yeah, that's sort of my point. A database full of pitch count info is useless without all that other stuff you need to identify the independent variables. That's why your simple solution is unworkable. It has nothing to do with unwillingness to face the truth and everything about understanding how hard it would be to act on your advice.

Why would it be useless? If anything, it would put to rest all the individual anecdotal evidence. For all I know, there is no abuse/overuse problem in today’s amateur game, and for all you know the abuse/overuse is widespread and growing. Why wouldn’t you want to know? I’m sure willing to admit I’ve been wrong all these years, so why aren’t you?

quote:

For now, I think the best we can do in the absence of large, controlled longitudinal studies that regress out the other variables is about what Dr. Andrews seems to advocate, which is prudent caution based on the qualified observations and associations he can make, and what PGStaff advocates, which is more attention to development over competition in the early years.

I’ve never said anything different, other than to advocate for those studies.

quote:

I will grant you one important point. You are correct that there is a vocal minority that doesn't want to face the truth. There are people here who protest that because we can't double-blind prove that x number of pitches or curve balls before y years of age will cause a catastrophic injury in this child this weekend we should just ignore all the tentative insights people like Dr. Andrews have carefully drawn, resist pitch limits for youth pitchers, and generally let prepubescent boys throw as many curves as it takes to win a trophy now. Often, the coaches who most stridently protest that we can't know the limit for any one pitcher are also the ones who insist they do know their ace has a "rubber arm" and is immune from the risks. I am not one of those people.

Again, something I’ve never disagreed with.

quote:

I'm in the camp that says pitching carries inherent risks that are generally understood but unknown for individual pitchers; we should apply the general knowledge that is available and manage that risk cautiously for all pitchers and very cautiously for young and immature pitchers. As pitchers get older, they can participate more actively in deciding how to manage their individual risk in the context of their goals.

And there’s where it all falls apart. “Generally understood” means not everyone understands those risks. The problem is, does it mean 95% know or 95% don’t know? That’s why pitch counts gained such a strong foothold. All knowledge means is, having understanding. You’ll notice I never suggested any limits, but rather simply just getting the information so people much smarter than I would be able to draw conclusions based on fact rather than perception.

Interesting article, which I have cited before:

The New York Times, October 28, 2011

Sports Medicine Said to Overuse M.R.I.’s

By GINA KOLATA

Dr. James Andrews, a widely known sports medicine orthopedist in Gulf Breeze, Fla., wanted to test his suspicion that M.R.I.’s, the scans given to almost every injured athlete or casual exerciser, might be a bit misleading. So he scanned the shoulders of 31 perfectly healthy professional baseball pitchers.

The pitchers were not injured and had no pain. But the M.R.I.’s found abnormal shoulder cartilage in 90 percent of them and abnormal rotator cuff tendons in 87 percent. “If you want an excuse to operate on a pitcher’s throwing shoulder, just get an M.R.I.,” Dr. Andrews says.

He and other eminent sports medicine specialists are taking a stand against what they see as the vast overuse of magnetic resonance imaging in their specialty.

M.R.I.’s can be invaluable in certain situations — finding serious problems like tumors or helping distinguish between competing diagnoses that fit a patient’s history and symptoms. They also can make money for doctors who own their own machines. And they can please sports medicine patients, who often expect a scan.

But scans are easily misinterpreted and can result in misdiagnoses leading to unnecessary or even harmful treatments.

For example, said Dr. Bruce Sangeorzan, professor and vice chairman of the department of orthopedics and sports medicine at the University of Washington, if a healthy, uninjured person goes out for a run, a scan afterward will show fluid in the knee bone. It is inconsequential. But in an injured person, fluid can be a sign of a bone that is stressed or even has a crack and is trying to heal.

“An M.R.I. is unlike any other imaging tool we use,” Dr. Sangeorzan said. “It is a very sensitive tool, but it is not very specific. That’s the problem.” And scans almost always find something abnormal, although most abnormalities are of no consequence.

“It is very rare for an M.R.I. to come back with the words ‘normal study,’ “ said Dr. Christopher DiGiovanni, a professor of orthopedics and a sports medicine specialist at Brown University. “I can’t tell you the last time I’ve seen it.”

In sports medicine, where injuries are typically torn muscles or tendons or narrow cracks in bones, specialists like Dr. Andrews and Dr. DiGiovanni say M.R.I.’s often are not needed…


Here's a link to the entire article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10....html?pagewanted=all

I find this interesting. When son was drafted and had an mri before he signed they told him his shoulder showed he had wear and tear.

He never had an issue in HS or college.

tpm is he still pitching ?

quote:

Originally posted by Stats4Gnats:


Obviously you don’t know a great deal about data bases.

Obviously you don't know a great deal about experimental design. I assure you that any database you constructed in less than a minute would not satisfactorily test a research hypothesis.

Shoulder MRI's are simply not that accurate because the shoulder is so hard to image. During his junior year of college my son developed a shoulder issue. The orthopedic's diagnosis, based on his symptomatology, was posterior labral fraying. An MRI was done in the doctor's office which the radiologist INTERPRETED as showing fraying/wear and tear in several areas. MRI's in doctors' offices are often low power. I insisted on a second MRI, which was INTERPRETED to show much less than the first one. Son gutted it out and had shoulder scoped during the summer. During surgery the doctor found the labral fraying he expected, plus some minor rotator cuff fraying. The rest of his shoulder was pretty much pristine. All of the rest of the artifacts/irregularities they THOUGHT they had seen on the MRIs proved to be nothing.

The orthopedic, who did a fellowship with Andrews, told us that probably every player on the team, especially the pitchers, had some degree of fraying/wear and tear in their shoulders. He also claimed that Andrews bases his diagnoses of labral problems much more on sympamatology than MRI findings.

I understand that false positive in MRI is common. In the NY article, it takes a high power MRI to invalidate a previous MRI that shown sign of torn ACL.

How about false negative, is it common, ie. the MRI shows nothing is damage but it turns out that there are demages?

quote:

osti

quote:

Originally posted by Swampboy:
Obviously you don't know a great deal about experimental design. I assure you that any database you constructed in less than a minute would not satisfactorily test a research hypothesis.

Your position is, there’s nothing that can be learned from only having a player ID, a date, and the number of pitches, and I’m telling you that’s a heck of a lot of data that anyone caring to investigate it would find a great deal of information. If nothing else, knowing how many pitches were thrown by every pitcher and how much rest he had would certainly interest a lot of people I know because it would establish once and for all if there really was a lot of overuse/abuse.

As I said before, all those other factors would be wonderful to have, but until its established once and for all that there is a problem, getting people to submit the data would be sketchy at best. Heck, I can think of 15-20 other factors I like to have in addition to the big 3, but that’s wishing for a Bugatti Veyron on a Nissan Versa budget. One step at a time with things like this would give researchers time to think about what other info would be of the most benefit.

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by Stats4Gnats:


Obviously you don’t know a great deal about data bases.



Obviously you don't know a great deal about experimental design. I assure you that any database you constructed in less than a minute would not satisfactorily test a research hypothesis.

Experimental life science is a very complex and complicated discipline. You can deduce almost anything you want based on false premises and assumptions from a set of data. Is wine good for the health? Regular aspirin intake good for your health? How about regular long distance running? Fish oils good for you (scientists have been flip-flopping on this)? What causes cancer - stress, lack of vitamin C, D, E, B's, or compromised immune system or genes?

quote:

Originally posted by J H:

quote:

Originally posted by Skylark:
Clean mechanics can be described as pitching without pain.

So you're saying that every single pitcher that hurts their arm has bad mechanics, and every single pitcher that doesn't hurt their arm has clean mechanics?

I pitched from age 9 to age 21 without arm pain. Never hurt. Always fresh. Always felt good.

Now, I have a scar.

Does that mean that during all those innings I threw from 9-21 I had perfect mechanics, and when I hurt my arm my mechanics turned bad?

Dr. Andrews disagrees with you. He wants pitch count limitations on youth pitchers and lays out guidelines for days of rest. He understands that it is dangerous for youth pitchers to pitch and he understands that pitching as a youth can cause damage going into the future. You ask for evidence? Watch the Little League World Series every year on ESPN. They have rules about this. Dr. Andrews created them.

So here's how I'm interpreting this thus far: you say there's no evidence that pitching a lot as a youth causes injury over the years. Dr. Andrews says you're wrong. You say that if a kid's arm isn't bothering him when he's pitching then he's fine and he won't get hurt in the future. My scar says you're wrong.

Any other personal beliefs and theories that you have that you'd like to share? Evidence and research isn't necessary, since you've never cited anything to prove your opinions in the past. You just try to buck the trend of the scientific community and then proceed to belittle other posters like myself, Bum and TPM when we argue your point with facts.

I will give you one brownie point, however. I'm impressed that it took you a whole year since you got suspended posting under a different name to restart your outlandish statements. I thought maybe you'd learned and listened throughout that year, and was pleased to see some beneficial contribution to the boards.

I never said that pitching a lot at the youth level would never lead to injury. You misinterpreted what I was getting at. We all agree that pitching a lot, to the point of overuse leads to injuries. Dr. Andrews also agrees otherwise he wouldn't of got involved with the Little Leauge association to implement pitch counts for youth age pitchers. But note- He never said "not to pitch" at the youth level. He realizes as well as all of us that overuse is the cause of ucl injury needing surgery.

In my opinion the pitchers with bad mechanics are more prone to pain and injury. I don't know your individual case, what your mechanics are like, etc. to give my opinion on the matter.

I have known kids with bad mechanics who have gone out game after game and finish each game with a sore elbow or shoulder. They are more than likely going to get seriously injured if they continue to pitch as their velocity increases. For them its a simple case of "overuse" because of their bad mechanics. Anytime you get abnormal pain such as in your elbow or shoulder that is "overuse".

I don't really believe you that you pitched all those years with absolutely no pain. Your ucl dont just tear on one pitch. So either a freak thing happened to you or you have no pain receptors in your arm.

Besides all that, you have already admitted that your injury was caused by "overuse". Even Dr. Andrews says that is why your ucl tore.

quote:

Originally posted by MTH:
Shoulder MRI's are simply not that accurate because the shoulder is so hard to image. During his junior year of college my son developed a shoulder issue. The orthopedic's diagnosis, based on his symptomatology, was posterior labral fraying. An MRI was done in the doctor's office which the radiologist INTERPRETED as showing fraying/wear and tear in several areas. MRI's in doctors' offices are often low power. I insisted on a second MRI, which was INTERPRETED to show much less than the first one. Son gutted it out and had shoulder scoped during the summer. During surgery the doctor found the labral fraying he expected, plus some minor rotator cuff fraying. The rest of his shoulder was pretty much pristine. All of the rest of the artifacts/irregularities they THOUGHT they had seen on the MRIs proved to be nothing.

The orthopedic, who did a fellowship with Andrews, told us that probably every player on the team, especially the pitchers, had some degree of fraying/wear and tear in their shoulders. He also claimed that Andrews bases his diagnoses of labral problems much more on sympamatology than MRI findings.

MTH,
As I had mentioned son had an MRI when he signed and they told him it looked like a normal shoulder from a pitcher who had been pitching since 8,9. Showed fraying, wear and tear as well but the structure was solid and showed no tears or anything of concern.

The following spring son developed pain in shoulder area (around the pit area), another mri revealed nothing, had an injection. Mid summer he had arthoscopic procedure to look to see what was going on, nothing significant, had a clean up.
The following season, experienced the same issue, but this time he could barely lift arm, went to see Dave Alchek in NYC. He was diagnosed with cortacoid impingement, very hard to diagnose, this impingement was causing the fraying. Just like Andrews, he based his suspicions on the problem through symtoms not so much an MRI. Doc said years of pitching just wore down the area. Shaved bone.

Skylark,
You await the day that everyone has access to a cheap portable MRI for a "check" up? How does that eliminate injuries? It took 2 years and two fine doctors to finally come to a conclusion.

Dr. Andrews and others of his calibur who have all worked together would NEVER come out publicly and say that a pitcher should not be pitching at 8,9.
but I would bet in private they endorse coach pitch at that age.

quote:

I started pitching at the age of 9. I have a four-inch scar on my left arm, which was incurred when I was 21. My doctor told me, "this injury was incurred over time. Its a result of overuse that starts at a young age, and eventually, the ligament couldn't withstand the beating over the years."

Overuse that started at a young age. Thats how Dr. Andrew put it eh? So you admit your arm took a beating over the many years of overuse. Thats what I been arguing all along.

I rest my case.

quote:

Originally posted by Skylark:

quote:

I started pitching at the age of 9. I have a four-inch scar on my left arm, which was incurred when I was 21. My doctor told me, "this injury was incurred over time. Its a result of overuse that starts at a young age, and eventually, the ligament couldn't withstand the beating over the years."

Overuse that started at a young age. Thats how Dr. Andrew put it eh? So you admit your arm took a beating over the many years of overuse. Thats what I been arguing all along.

I rest my case.

I don't think you get it. He is saying there are contributing factors to pitcher injury, pitching too early is just one of many.

quote:

Originally posted by TPM:

quote:

Originally posted by Skylark:

quote:

I started pitching at the age of 9. I have a four-inch scar on my left arm, which was incurred when I was 21. My doctor told me, "this injury was incurred over time. Its a result of overuse that starts at a young age, and eventually, the ligament couldn't withstand the beating over the years."

Overuse that started at a young age. Thats how Dr. Andrew put it eh? So you admit your arm took a beating over the many years of overuse. Thats what I been arguing all along.

I rest my case.

I don't think you get it. He is saying there are contributing factors to pitcher injury, pitching too early is just one of many.

JH admitted it was too many years of overuse.

Overuse just means used to much and that includes when a pitcher begins.
My son began, at 8, if he had started a bit later maybe at 12, that is 4 less years of non use on the mound.

We were very careful with son in his youth years, much more than most because he threw hard, yet IMO he was overused by starting on the mound too early .

Not sure why you keep arguing that point.

I believe both, TPM and Skylark (and others), are looking from different viewpoints. If a pitcher started at a young age 8,9 in LL or Pony and just play in Spring and observe all the pitch counts and limits, and compare to a pitcher that start pitching at 11,12 and play all year round, local league and travel balls, I believe the later one who started late may not fair any better or worse when both pitchers reach the age of say 17. Both might have thrown the same number of pitches thru their lifetime up of to 17 years' old. The former one over a longer period, the later one over a shorter period.

quote:

Originally posted by TPM:
Overuse just means used to much and that includes when a pitcher begins.
My son began, at 8, if he had started a bit later maybe at 12, that is 4 less years of non use on the mound.

We were very careful with son in his youth years, much more than most because he threw hard, yet IMO he was overused by starting on the mound too early .

Not sure why you keep arguing that point.

I dont agree with defining overuse as starting young. When my son started pitching at 9 he threw 4-5 innings a week over the coarae of about 3-4 months. That was all he pitched that first year. He didnt didnt start playing travel ball until he was 10 and that was over by July of that year. He had the next 8 months off from pitching in games. There is absolutely no way anyone could call that " overuse".

It wasnt until his next year that he played travel ball and they threw him quite a bit that year and we changed teams the next year.

Overuse is thus not defined by when a pitcher starts throwing but rather how much they throw in a given period of time.

Skylark- I had a nice, long response written out but I decided to delete it. I learned in the past that wasting my time with people who don't want to listen and learn is useless. And you very much proved to fall under the category of one of those people when you posted under Gingerbread Man, before you were suspended from the boards.

http://hsbaseballweb.com/eve/f...941/m/2787006216/p/1

Good luck to your son. I hope that he has a long, injury-free career in the game of baseball.