The American Sports Medicine Institue, while currently working for at least some professional teams, does not conduct true scientific research, in my opinion. (I have a background in a scientific field.) They are simply reporting on what pitchers currently do under controlled laboratory (non-game) conditions. I would likewise wish to see Dick Mills (comments above) validate his opinion with PROOF. He cannot.

From the get-go I will tell you that I have a dog in this fight. With the impetus of tearing up my shoulder in college, ending my hopes of continuing to pitch, then having a stepson drafted in the 2003 MLB draft, I have invested well over 1500 hours investigating pitching injuries. I am quite certain, positive actually, that the only meaningful research into pitching arm injuries has been conducted by Dr. Mike Marshall.

You will recall that Marshall won the Cy Young in 1974 (Dodgers). Dr. Marshall also holds a doctorate in Exercise Physiology, with numerous minor fields of study. Doc’s opinions are controversial. He is telling everyone that the way we currently throw baseballs is incorrect, in fact broken, based on the way the human body is designed. I think he is correct.

My son is currently training with Dr. Marshall, has pitched every single day, seven days per week, since the 12th of June, 2004. He will continue this training regimen until at least late May, 2006, when we hope he is ready to compete again at a very high level. I have also trained a high school pitcher, using Dr. Marshall’s mechanics, who has now thrown every single day, seven days per week, since Sept. 11, 2004. This young man won a state Legion baseball title for our local high school summer team this summer (2005). These young men, and others, are doing this without structural injury. (Meaningful training discomfort, because muscles are stressed beyond current physiological capacities, is yet another topic.)

My conclusion: Until professional baseball insiders realize that they are personally and corporately responsible for teaching and encouraging pitching mechanics that damage pitching arms and shoulders, the injury scenario will not change. My conclusion illustrates to you why Dr. Marshall is not popular. This does not diminish the reality that he is correct. The status quo is always more comfortable, and the mentality behind it continues to rack up needless injuries.

Call Dr. Marshall. He loves to speak of this. It has become his life’s work of over 40 years.

These other activities mentioned interfere with the pitcher’s ability ability to do more specific training for pitching.

The idea that baseball pitchers only have so many “bullets” in their gun or only so many pitches in their arm is ludicrous. Andrew Agassi at 35 still has more bullets in his gun and he hits many more balls than pitchers throw more often and for much longer periods all year long at high intensity.

The problem may be that reducing the number of pitches thrown in the course of a week or in the preseason along with too much recovery time does not allow the pitcher to be fit to pitch. The best form of pitching fitness, once the pitcher has trained and conditioned his body – is pitching and pitching a larger volume of pitches from the mound rather than less. Most bullpens of 40-50 pitches are thrown in less than 15 minutes. Spacing a larger volume of pitches in a bullpen over the course of an hour will allow the pitcher to not only be more effective with each pitch but will allow his body to recover while he is pitching.

The arm is the delivery device of the body. In 1983Dr. Frank Jobe, noted orthopedic surgeon, did EMG studies on the pitcher’s arm while throwing. The study confirmed that there was very little muscle activity going on in the pitcher’s arm during the acceleration phase of pitching, that is, from front foot contact until ball release. Since there is little muscle contraction forces going on in the arm it would indicate that the arm is “along for the ride” with the body supplying the kinetic energy and the majority of forces. The pitching arm is accelerated by stored elastic energy not but muscle contraction forces. The pitching arm does not supply power to the ball but acts as the control device of the pitch. I know this will be a difficult fact for most pitchig coaches to swallow but the evidence is out there for all to see.

The problem we have today is that baseball instruction is mainly dominated by belief based coaching rather than evidence based.

The arm is not the problem. The body is not fit to deliver the arm and because the connective tissue (ligaments and tendons) are not taxed they are not conditioned.

Starting major league, minor league, college and high school pitchers are all expected to pitch 100 pitches during each outing. In order to train the body to do that these pitchers are encouraged to save their arms by throwing normally less than a 50 pitch bullpen many times at less than full game intensity, only once between starts.

Should we expect pitchers to throw 100 pitches if they are only training to throw 50 at less intensity? No other sport that I know of has that philosophy.

When pitching coaches and teams stop ignoring the principles of sports science that relate equally to baseball as they do to all other sports training then pitchers will have a much better chance of training intelligently, reducing injury risk and performing to their true capability.

The good part is that it makes the Mariners look better.
The bad part is that it makes it ever more obvious something’s afoot with the A’s.

Nevertheless, it does seem improbable (more improbable than the Mariners result) that the A’s would have zero injuries solely due to chance. So I agree wholeheartedly with DMZ’s conclusions in that respect.

Your example does jibe with expectations. Assuming the “win” (non-inury) rate is .800, and you have 30 “tries” (pitchers), then the chance that all 30 pitchers will be healthy is .8 ^ 30, or one team out of 808. Since you simed 1000 teams, I expected only 1 team, on average. That you got zero teams isn’t out of line. If you were to make it 8000 teams, you’ll probably get 10 teams with 0 injuries.

The statistical question to ask is: if we expect one occurrence per 808 trials, what is the probability we will get one occurrence with 30 trials by chance alone?

Tom

I simulated the equivalent of 1000 “teams” (i.e. groups of 30 players, each with binomial injury p = .80) and looked at the resulting histogram. The number of injuries per team ranged from 1 (10 times) to 14 (1 time). There were no “teams” in the sample with 0 injuries. The median value was 6 (as expected). 120 of the teams (12%) had 9 or more injuries (injury p >= .30), while 42 of the teams (4.2%) had 2 or fewer injuries.

I hope people with more statistical training than myself can augment or criticize my mini-study. And all the caveats Tango mentions definitely apply. But the question of the hour (in my eyes at least) is not “What did the Mariners do wrong?” but rather “What did the A’s do right?”