It's long past time to stop coddling major-league pitchers
The question: are pitch counts making players more susceptible to injury? Or is it the repertoire of pitches seen in the modern game? The rise of youth baseball? There's only one way to gauge, suggests the author. And that might be to eliminate the pitch count. None other than the Tommy John agrees.
Bruce Jenkins, San Francisco Chronicle / 3-26-14
When it comes to calculating theories and moving backward in time, nobody does it quite like baseball. Obsessed with pitch counts, innings limits and organization-wide game plans, teams have spent three decades trying to protect pitchers' arms - and they have failed so miserably, they've actually made things worse.
Research indicates that 25 percent of today's major-league pitchers have undergone at least one Tommy John surgery. Once considered a last-ditch solution, it's become as common as the sniffles - claiming the A's Jarrod Parker, Arizona's Patrick Corbin and Atlanta starters Kris Medlen and Brandon Beachy (among others) this spring - and it may not be long before a third of pitchers will have taken that step.
SNIP
So why are today's pitchers more susceptible to injury than ever? Some point to the excessive pressure of youth baseball, with its travel teams, year-round action, radar guns, lurking scouts and televised Little League games. Others feel conditioning has wrongly shifted from leg strength (the core of a pitcher's foundation) to over-the-top weightlifting programs.
Just as relevant, though, is the very nature of modern-day pitching. As opposed to the days when Sandy Koufax or Bob Gibson dominated games with just two pitches - fastball, breaking ball - "guys throw so many different pitches now," former Phillies catcher Brian Schneider told ESPN. "You see cutters and splits to both sides of the plate. You see the two-seamer, inside to a lefty and backdoor to a righty. It seems like everyone you face has all these pitches. It never used to be like that."
FULL COLUMN: http://www.sfgate.com/athletics/jenkins/article/It-s-long-past-time-to-stop-coddling-major-league-5348947.php