Why don't we do more to protect our pitchers?

Originally Posted by 2020dad:

…As for wood/bbcor keep in mind those of us with some years on us swung wood.  And plenty guys hit the ball out of the infield.  Difference is with the big money now involved in youth sports we want every little whipper snapper to be able to hit the ball out of the infield.  In our day if you stunk you stunk and that was the end of it.  That is unacceptable now.  …

 

I was one of those guys who never used anything but wood, and you’re correct that there were more than a few guys who hit the ball out of the infield, but “plenty” is something of a mischaracterization. Yes, there were enough players who made it through to HS so every ML team had a full roster, but that doesn’t equate to the best possible players making it there.

 

Many people believe as I do, that the object should be to keep as many kids playing the game as possible until they reach physical and mental maturity so they can be judged much more accurately. Forcing a 10yo kid to quit because he can’t hit a ball through the IF is a lot of things, but it isn’t very smart when it comes to trying to keep the best talent in the game.

 

We all accept the risk of injury that comes with sports.  What I am more concerned about is catastrophic injury.  Now catastrophic injury by its very nature is very rare.  I get that.  Odds are very long.  But here is the thing.  You break a leg you break a leg.  Nobody wants it to happen but you will recover.  Head injuries, though rare, are much more serious and have long term impact.  All I am saying is if we can fix it why would we not?  You can put all the equipment in the world on football players but it won't make it safe.  This IS something we can fix.

In my opinion, we should be debating risk-minimization and levels of risk rather than "safety", because "safety" in sports is unachievable and, further, a "safe" sport would be a boring sport.

 

For the first 150 years of baseball, wood bats represented the traditional level of risk of injury for pitchers.   BBCOR has re-established that traditional level of risk in teenaged baseball.  The new youth bat standard (which is called USABat) will re-establish that traditional level of risk for younger youths in 2018.

 

 

 

 

As I said, there are products out there to at least attempt to fix this.  The link in this thread for the Kevlar hat insert is one of them.  If a pitcher's parent wants to protect their kid's head, they can make him wear it.  It really is as simple as that.  Why does there have to be a "law" that says you have to?  

 

Why do we need to depend on some higher authority to make us do something when we can easily make the choice if that's what we want to do?  Why can't we as parents take responsibility for our decisions instead of depending on someone else to make those decisions for us?  

 

Sorry, but I am tired of the intervention of outside sources telling me what I need to do to keep myself or my family"safe" or tell me what is better for me.  Those are decisions we can make in a free society...  

 

The products are there.  There is no rule AGAINST using them.  So, if a parent wants to have their child use them, they can.  It's a simple decision.

Such a massive gray area, and I see both sides. I'm looking at offering those carbon fiber linings to our pitchers this year. Seems like a very unobtrusive way to protect them some.

 

This year I'm actually wearing a helmet in the 3B box like college coaches, even though it's not mandated (yet). But I ave kids, so the risk vs. inconvenience of wearing a helmet is a no brainer.

 

But I don't think we can simply say "protect your kid, just don't regulate it." What if I don't want my kid wearing a helmet because that's how Ted Williams hit? A lot of the rules in HS ball are there for safety, as in regulations of sort. Seems once people get used to the "new" regulations it's much ado about nothing.

 

And I don't think you can equate the injuries from sliding to the injuries from a line drive off the temple. I'm not sure how I'll sleep if I lose a kid knowing there might have been something I could've done or offered to save him. Not saying new regulations are the answer or needs to happen, but the discussion occurring is a positive.

I don't have any data, but my gut tells me that the biggest source of catastrophic risk from batted-ball impacts is when HS players throw short-toss to each other from behind an L-screen.

 

But even though I consider this specific level of risk to be unacceptable, I won't require our front-toss pitchers to wear helmets and/or facemasks when I supervise our HS winter workouts that begin after Thanksgiving.  Why not?  Because I lack the courage of my convictions, that's why.

TRUE STORY:

2004 Goodwill Series/Japan game 6 at USC.

Tanaka pitching for Japan National HS team, Matt Harvey, Mike Moustakes, Jonathan Singleton, Aaron Hicks, playing for our American National Team. A young LHP from Texas pitching. 40 million watching on TV in Japan.

 

The Japanese HS hitter practices 4 hours each day for the "efficient" swing with metal bats.

"I can visualize to this day the swing and the impact of the baseball as it sped to the head of our pitcher" Suddenly, the pitcher threw his glove in front of his face and deflected the baseball to Moustakes [now Royals 3b].

This young man was fraction of seconds of a serious injury.

"I said to the Japanese officials, no metal bats, wood only!!!

 

We play in Australia each December with wood SSK bats.

 

Bob

<www.goodwillseries.org>

 

 

 

       
       
Freddy I love your honesty.  So as long as you were brave enough to say it I will join you and take the heat.  Yes I don't want to be 'that guy' or my kid to be 'that kid'.  Yes I am cowardly and would rather have it mandated so there would be no choice.

The broken nose suffered by my son that I mentioned earlier happened when a ball tore through the netting on an L-screen while he was front tossing for a teammate. Although in this case a helmet wouldn't have made a difference.

 

I used to think it was overkill myself. Our park requires anyone in the cage to wear a helmet, even coaches. I took a strange ricochet to the head off a support pole this season that knocked me to my knees. I was real thankful I was wearing a skullcap.

We "need" outside bodies regulating some of this stuff because individuals are notoriously terrible at understanding, among other things, math, risk, and cost-benefit analysis.

 

There's a reason no one mandates heart-guard shirts, the cost-benefit isn't there, and hence the liability issues aren't there.  People are then free to "over-protect" as they see fit, and if there's a demand for it the market provides.

 

On the batted ball to the pitcher, there's a more significant risk, to the extent that there actually are liability issues involved, and various organizational bodies are setting minimum standards for what the acceptable cost-benefit analysis is. People are still free to "over-protect", but the organizations are incentivized to meet a reasonable base-line through self-regulation or outside regulation.  That it's taken such a long time for these risks to be regulated by the system is evidence that people have been systematically underestimating the risks (not unlikely, given human nature) and/or that the risks aren't generally all that great to begin with but are more easily addressed now than in the past (probably a big part of it, IMO).

NOOOOO. DO IT DO IT DO IT NOW! Not kidding.

 

We make all of our kids wear helmets in the cage, the hitter and the thrower. There was push back at first but we were hard line about it.

 

True story: Our biggest stud, who pushed back the most when I first got here about wearing one in Texas heat, reminded the kid that was front-tossing him to go get a helmet to wear. He then proceeded to hit the next ball literally through the L-screen and of the "forehead" area of the helmet. Kid hitting was a beast, and I sincerely believe that I would have had a kid die if we had not been so fanatical about helmets, and if that kid hadn't been so awesome to force his partner to wear one. That small decision has literally impacted multiple lives in just that one instance.

 

I'm not one for "puusifying" our kids, but I refuse to bury someone else's child because I didn't do something I should have. Helmets in all cages all the time.

How about rather than having protective gear out to wazoo we use some common sense?

 

1. Train youth pitchers to land in the fielding ready position.

2. Don't put kids on the mound that have slow reflexes, it isn't just how hard can you throw, it's how fast can you defend?

3.  Instead of just rules on birthdays how about we have limits on size?  Parents, don't let your kid be the HUGE stud at 12u, or 13u; if he's 6 inches taller than the other kids and 30 pounds heavier play him up!  If he can swing 30mph faster than most kids play him up so he's challenged.

4. In close quarters, like a batting cage, everyone wears a helmet

5. Coaches on the sidelines wear a helmet too

 

Freak accidents are just that FREAK accidents.  However, there is something to be said about playing equal competition and that is something the parents and coaches have to get together on. 

 

From what I have seen Coach A is giddy that Player B can hit the snot out of the ball 25% harder than any other player. Parent C prefers to watch their kid being a stud on 13u rather than being average to slightly above average on 14u.  How about we stop having tryouts based on age and put a cap for age but also test for ability to determine where a kid should play?  If you are 6'3 and throwing 80+ you don't get to play on 12u for "safety reasons", and of you have an exit speed of 100+ you don't get to play below 14u?

 

These conditions would help to protect the youth players, but as for the 17u kid....I would say that is just part of the game.

 

 

Here is where I disagree.  We don't "NEED" someone to tell us how to live our lives.  Why is the assumption that government or some regulating body knows better what I want than I do?

 

I know we don't get into politics here, but this is the basis of socialism...  The government knows better what is best for me.  So take all my money and distribute it in the way they think is best.  I know it's not exactly the same, but it is the underlying principle.  

 

There's nothing wrong with taking responsibility for yourself and those around you.  If you know you aren't doing something because you are afraid of the social repercussions, then shame on you.  Stick with your convictions and do what you think is right, regardless of what others may think of you.  Leaving it for others to MAKE you do it is a cop-out.  And do it for yourself.  You should not be pushing your convictions on everyone else.  Set the example for others to follow.  Be the trendsetter by example.

 

Sorry to detract, but in this climate today in society, I'm a little more sensitive to this way of thinking.

Socialism......really?  Let's just say some major governing body mandate head protection for all pitchers 2 years out.  I'd bet within 12 months there would be lots of new products at reasonable prices and they would siply get better and cheaper over time.  If there is no mandate, than you have a handful of parents that seek out these products and a few niche manufacturers selling at very high prices.  If you want to rail against socialism, please go find somewhere else.  If you want to discuss the merits and costs of head protection, please state your case - facts appreciated.  I'm personally on the fence as far as my kids' protection today but think that one reason there is not a superior product is that there is simply insufficient demand for the product/price currently available.  I'd be happy with a mandate and end up with a far superior product that is both unobtrusive and cheap.  I assume you were against BBCOR also - that didn't come about because a bunch of individuals called up the manufacturers and asked for dead bats.  

 

On a side note, need to keep metal in the picture for LL, no wood.  Cheap metal bats make the sport affordable.  Baum bats ($200?) are just too expensive and who's gonna share their wood bat?

If there is no market for it, it is because people don't want to use it.  Why artificially create a market?  People already complain about the costs involved with baseball.  Add in mandatory protection equipment and the cost artificially goes up.  People can make their own decisions based on the risk involved.  IMO, the chance of getting hit in the head from a batted ball, the risk is not worth the protection.  Someone else might think the the risk is worth purchasing protection.  That is their choice as well.  If it is mandated, the cost per individual might go down, but the overall cost to the baseball community is exponentially higher, not to mention it is a higher cost to those individuals who would not have purchased it in the first place.

 

Is that a better argument?

Have to say, having personally seen a pitcher come an inch away from major dental work or maybe killed by an absolute crushed line shot to his head, I'm a supporter of doing more to protect our pitchers. The hitter, a D1 recruit from my son's HS was built like a brick house and hit 15 HRs his senior year. The pitcher BARELY got his glove up and got a little leather on it, then it crushed the bill of his hat, and hit him in the forehead. He staggered off the mound and picked the ball up and just looked at it. No idea what his name was or what day it was. Very, very scary. My son was with me and he was maybe 12-13. 

In a nutshell, and I'm going to blunt, because people are generally idiots when it comes to numbers.  People as a whole are terrible at assessing risk and weighing cost/benefit analyses. Witness everyone who's afraid of terrorist attacks or flying and still drives to work every day. Or the number of people who buy heart guard shirts but don't get their kids vaccinated, or require them to wear seatbelts.  Or any of a zillion other similar discrepancies.

 

And I'm not singling out anyone here specifically, and this has nothing to do with socialism.  In fact, the baseball marketplace does a pretty decent job of policing this stuff, primarily through the people who do, at least implicitly, understand the math, like the liability lawyers for most of the companies and organizations involved.

I am not trying to put words in 2017's mouth but what I think he is saying is because of the lack of legislation the products have not even been created let alone marketed.  My son does wear an evoshield chest guard.  I am perfectly fine with wasting that money should he never again be hit by a batted ball.  If they had some unobtrusive face guard for pitchers I would probanly buy that as well.  The softball facemask I am not sure is practical fir a baseball pitcher.  The gel cap or this new thing in this thread I will certainly be looking in to.  But yes as I said ti freddy I am willing to take my beatdown for not wanting to be a groundbreaker and rather have it legislates.  As for not putting kids on the mound with insufficient reflexes????  And landing in a fielding position in time to react to a hot line drive is basically impossible.

If the reason for aluminum bats was broken wood bats why not mandate a bat like the one listed below?

a composite type handle and wood barrel

 

http://www.justbats.com/produc...Q6Zzfy8WrBoCh4Tw_wcB

       
       
Exactly as I said earlier.  Son has one.  Not that one but a mizuno.  Cost us like $90.  Shows no signs of breaking after thousands of swings.

You can't tell me you haven't seen some HUGE kids with poor reflexes up on the mound for no other reason than they throw hard. 

 

Darn that philosophy class...I always have problems turning away from arguments like this.  You stated we needed to protect the pitchers from these line drives, then you states that these line drives are impossible to get out of the way of.  If those two things are true where are the baseball death reports?  I have head of 8 foot ball players dying in the last 3 months nation wide.  The only baseball death I have head of was not to a pitcher.

 

If we are going to talk politics can we talk about warmongering, or, er face shield mongering?

Sorry 2020dad I did not see your post, but at least two of us had the same idea

bballman - much better argument.  I am torn in that I would like for this type of protection to get development monies (there has to be a huge potential demand before that happens especially if you want a realistic price point), but I don't really feel the cap liners offer tremendous protection.  I'd assume the cap would maybe protect 20% of shots to the head as an even smaller number of shots hit those specific areas.  Do not see any type of mask being acceptable.  I would like to see a full cap designed so that you could order it alongside your team cap - when you go out to the field, don the regular cap.  when you head to the mound, don the pitching cap.  I also think you should mandate larger gloves for pitchers - those tiny 11.25's my 2017 wears looks like they'd better fit my 2024 (except wrong hand).  But realistically, matching up skills is important.  Everybody remembers hearing "back up, big hitter" only the pitcher has to stay put.  Best to teach your kid how to throw low and outside and maybe walk a few of these guys.

       
       
What's going on caco?  Can't remember this kind of exchange with you before.  I don't think there have to be deaths for it to be an issue.  But there have been some.  Very very few I get that.  But career enders absolutely.  And as I have admitted the odds are long.  The odds are long that my son will get hit in the heart by a vicious line drive and die.  But I am just fine wasting the money on an evoshield.  I think I will also buy this product we saw on this thread unless something better comes along before season.  Its insurance.  Hope you never need it but have it none the less.  As for the reflexes, I just don't even know where to go with that.  So if a kod throws 95 but has slower than average reaction time he shouldn't pitch?  Again all I am saying is if we have the ability to protect why would we not?

       
       
Just a thought 2017, low and away is a danger spot!  If you miss even a little those are the ones that come back at you.  Better in.  Worse case scenario they pull their hands in and take you deep!  But very little chance of a line drive coming back at you!

Just so I'm coming down on both sides of the math part of this discussion, this line of argument is just as bad as the do-nothing (possibly worse here, given the relative lack of risk).  We could protect pitchers better by putting an L-screen on the field, or a wall, and both of those are clearly non-sensical.  Similarly, if there was a $10,000 hat that was good for 100% protection and didn't have any negative impact on the players comfort/ability, it would be ridiculous to mandate that every pitcher own one as the costs would massively outweigh any benefits on the whole.

Maybe "very low" and "far away" would be better.  I'm was thinking about the skinny 12yo who might have zero chance of pitching inside.  Once you're able to really pitch inside, then I'd assume your ready for the come back shot.  But, point well taken.  My 2017 says his finest moment was when he sawed off a guys bat with an inside pitch at a PG/WWBA tourney this summer.  On the thread about what folks love about baseball, there is something neat about some big guy standing there holding just the nub of a bat.

Rather than assume that people are stupid (and I'm sure many are), why not assume that people have weighed the risks and rewards of each of the above scenarios and chose to participate in some and not participate in others. Maybe even though it is more risky to drive a car than fly, the people have decided that the benefit of driving a car outweighs the risks. It doesn't necessarily mean they are stupid.

And when you talk about insurance companies and liability lawyers, you are talking about their bottom line - money. It really has nothing to do with safety, it has to do with how much money they will make or lose on their policy holders.

Start with the assumption that people are capable of making their own decisions.

According to this article the chance of being hit in the head by a batted ball is 1000th of 1 percent (.001%).

http://www.sportingnews.com/ml...reds-spring-training

Since most pitchers have come back from this, the chance of getting hit in the head and permanently being out of the game are MUCH smaller than that. And in the 150 year existence of MLB, only one pitcher has been killed by being hit in the head - and that was in 1920.

So, if you mandate a piece of protection that costs say $30 to purchase and there are 10 million baseball players, that comes out to a 300 million dollar 1st time cost to protect against against something that will occur less than one thousandth of one percent of the time. Is this really something that needs to be mandated?  I can think of plenty of other ways to spend that money that will bring forth much more benefits.

As in much of life, that it's explicitly about money doesn't mean it's not implicitly about safety. If it's possible to make it safer by mitigating excessive risks, the market will generally tend to head in that direction or regulation will tend to be brought into play (I'm hedging here to avoid heading down the road of philosophical/economical arguments).

 

As I mentioned before, I like to live an evidence based existence.  

Admittedly, the amount of time I spend with teenagers may color my experience somewhat.

 

bballman - love the facts brought into the equation.  One small "correction" would be the cost to protect against death AND injury.  Talking about major and minor injuries.  Major injuries carry more of a price tag than death sometimes so the economic argument needs to include those costs also.  On the other hand, no product is 100% safe so you will only protect against, say 60%, of current injury dollars.  I'm just hoping this gets some traction and something seamless is introduced at a really low cost.  Sometimes the mandate is really the only way for this to occur.  Was not wild about LED light bulbs when they first came out, but the mandate resulted in far superior, far cheaper options than initially available - as a result I'm now saving energy and am close to breakeven on the bulbs themselves (assuming they last as long as they are advertised) . 

       
       


2017, I did not give a cost of injury or death. The cost I presented was the cost to the consumer to purchase the devices to protect against injury. The risk of being hit in the head by a batted ball are 1000th of 1%. My guess is that in at least half of those incidents, no medical treatment is necessary. No numbers to support that, but I know many of these incidents don't require medical treatment, in fact some of them continue to pitch immediately after it happens.

What I'm saying is, is it worth an initial cost to baseball families of $300,000,000 plus some additional amount every year for something that is such a low risk?  For some it might be. Let them make that individual investment on their own. For those who think the risk is not big enough, let them make their own decision. That is a huge economic investment for the very low risk involved.

Numbers are a wonderful thing.  You can make them say whatever you want sometimes.  Lets just use.the numbers provided by that sporting news article.  And the article said 'less' than a .001% chance.  If you may indulge me here lets just use .001 shall we.  Those numbers were based on 'any given pitch'.  So if you threw 100 pitches then the chance would be .1 correct?  Now 30 games a year would that be 3% now?  10 years pitching...  30%?  I am not entirely sure how probability and statistics work but if we were dealing with just one pitch and that was all you were ever going to throw then I guess you're good to go.  If there is anyone out there with an actual probability and statistics background would be interesting for you to chime in based upon the given number of .001% of pitches hit pitchers in the head.

.01% is 1/100 of 1% and it will always be 1/10 of 1% but if you include all of the hits that are within 2 feet of the pitchers head it is probably a larger number. That is where to look if a person wanted to look into the future.

       
       
yes PER PITCH it will always be that.  But over the course of a career it obviously grows tremendously.

The article mentions a "less than" 1 in 100,000 chance, but doesn't get more precise than that, which makes it somewhat suspect.

 

This article mentions that Bryan Mitchell was the 7th pitcher hit by a line drive since 2013.  I can't speak to the veracity of that number, or even take an educated guess at the economic value of the injuries incurred on those 7 occasions, but that implies about a 1 in 300,000 pitches chance given that there are around 700K pitches a year in MLB. Oh, and that's just line drives to the head.

 

Of course, those are the best athletes in the world, and pitching talent is matched well to hitting talent, and they're not swinging metal bats, etc, etc.  I'm not sure there's an easy comparison to be had to the risks at other levels, and I really don't want to spend the time trolling the web for injuries to youth players over time to find a more useful basis from which to draw a conclusion. If someone else wants to do it, the math for the odds is relatively straightforward, depending on the assumptions you want to make.

 

FWIW, given the large odds involved and relatively small number of pitches thrown by a given pitcher, it's a decent approximation to use pitches thrown/incidence odds as a proxy of the chances of getting hit.  The more pitches you throw over a career though, the less useful that approximation will be.  Given, for instance, Greg Maddux' MLB career, and incidence of more like 1/300,000, there's about a 19% chance that he should expect to take a line drive off the head at least once.

 

That seems high on it's face to me, but I don't have nearly enough data about the incidence rate to really feel confident about it. That same incidence rate suggests that there should only be about a 10% chance of making it through an MLB season without someone getting cracked in the skull, and that we ought to expect about 2 per season, which is actually pretty close to where we've been recently based on the Forbes article, though.

No, your odds don't increase depending on how many pitches you throw. Every pitch you throw, the odds are .001% that you will get hit in the head. Looking at the numbers, I'm not sure if the odds are even that high. Let's take MLB. There are a total of 2,430 games during the regular season. Say 200 pitches per team per game comes out to 972,000 pitches thrown during the regular season. Multiply that by .00001 and you get 9.72 pitchers hit in the head per year in the regular season. Are there really that many?  I can only think of maybe 1 or 2 a year. Maybe I'm wrong.

And it's no different than flipping a coin. Your chances of flipping heads are 50-50. Each time you flip the coin your odds are the same. Your chances of flipping a head don't increase each time you flip.

The odds stack up the more pitches you throw.  More pitches thrown, the higher the cumulative probability - that's how it works.  As for injury costs, I assumed you were comparing the $300,000,000 to the imputed cost of death and injury.  Injury costs prevented may not exceed $300,000,000 - but cut the cost of the device in half and it might be a different argument.  Cut the number of players by 50% (just pitchers or make it part of team equipment) and again it might be a different argument.  Again, I don't think it is a compelling argument today but would like to move in that direction.  

Let's throw one more set of numbers out there. Once again, take MLB and assume my set of numbers are correct (I realize they may be off, but are actually on the high side). There are 30 MLB teams. Let's say there are 12 pitchers on a team. That's 360 pitchers in the MLB. If there are 9 pitchers hit in the head every year (which obviously there aren't), any one pitcher has a 2.5% chance of getting hit in the head. If we say there are only 2 hit in the head every year (I think a more realistic number), any one pitcher has a 0.56% chance of being hit in the head. I know depending on pitches thrown, your odds will increase, and I don't want to go thru the math right now to figure weighted averages and all, but suffice it to say, the odds are pretty slim.

As I noted above, we are at about 2 a year right now, for shots to the head, which is about what would be expected with a 1/300,000 rate. That ignores all the lesser hits to other parts of the body.