Day 261

Fresh Start_261: An old gem

As I am finishing up this semester, I have put a fair share on papers on a single flash drive, and with the amount of files I have on that single drive, sometimes you click the wrong file. Well, that happened to me today as I was printing out a draft of one of my journalism papers, and I found this gem on Tommy John surgery. This paper is about a year and half old, and I love this paper, so I will just leave it here with the work cited and all, enjoy:

Many people don’t really know what Tommy John Surgery, and its significance to the game of baseball. It all started when John tore the ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching arm while playing for the Los Angeles Dodgers. John had thirteen wins and three losses that year with a 2.59 earned run average. His surgery was done by Dr. Frank Jobe on September 25^th 1974. After John came back he won more than half of his two hundred and eighty eight wins. Many pitchers would follow suit with the surgery and get better after the fact. However, that is not the problem. The problem is that pitchers over the past five seasons are having the surgery and people outside the world of medicine, like managers, general managers and analysts are trying to come with a solution for preventing Tommy John Surgery and many of them are wrong. The proper way that you clean up the issue with Tommy John Surgery is by letting the pitchers pitch without any limitations on anything, and let them throw their game to try and win you ball games.

            Tommy John Surgery or Ulnar Collateral Ligament Surgery is when the ulnar collateral ligament is replaced by any tendon in the body (Mccarthy). According to BaseballReference.com the surgery was invented by Dr. Frank Jobe in 1974, when he performed it on Tommy John, who the surgery is named after. The tendon is woven in a figure eight through the holes drilled in the humorous and ulna bones. The injury occurs when the elbow has been thrown around violently repetitively over a period of time. Lately the most common way of getting the surgery is by having a torn elbow ligament or simply “a dead arm”.

            Some experts believe in the pitch count method is the right way. Now pitch counts are vital to the game but not in this sense. Take New York Mets ace pitcher Matt Harvey for example, Harvey had Tommy John surgery in 2013 and missed all of the 2014 season with some minor setbacks. The New York Mets General Manager Sandy Alderson put a pitch count and innings limit on the young right hander to try and keep him fresh for his whole career. Harvey’s agent Scott Boras has been fighting the innings limit rule for his client. Harvey only pitched one hundred and eighty innings limit, which could have prevented him from pitching in the playoffs. As well as an one hundred pitch limit per start. Alderson ended up letting him pitch and that is one of the subjects that are highly controversial when it comes to talking about Tommy John Surgery.

            Since 1999 two hundred and thirty five pitchers have had Tommy John Surgery since 1999 and that number is frightening to many people around the game( Liu). It brings up the question of “are we teaching our kids the wrong way to pitch?” These pitches cause the kid to contort his arm instead on relying on the way you grip the ball and can cause some problems later on in the kids’ baseball career. Over one hundred and twenty pitchers having a noncontact injury that puts them out of the game for almost a year. Some of these pitchers come back better than over, but others never pitch in the game again. As future coaches and parents of young baseball players we can teach our children kids how to pitch with a fastball, changeup, two seam fast, and sinkers/splitters. All of these pitches rely on the way you grip the ball to curve, dive and dip without putting any stress on the elbow or wrist area for pitchers.

            As I have said before, pitch counts are vital to baseball, especially at a young age. The sixty five pitch limit for eight, nine, and ten year olds are good. Then it goes up seventy five for eleven, twelve and thirteen year olds. For high school baseball there is no pitch limit but coaches usually pull pitchers at around eighty five pitches. College, again there is no pitch limit, but starters are pulled around ninety five to one hundred pitches, and relievers around twenty or thirty depending on the rule(Mid-relief, late-relief, or closer). The minor leagues managers and coaches do a great job developing the pitcher to last and have a good major league career. In the majors something cliques that hasn’t since the pitcher was a very young age.

            To answer the opposing argument of “we should just use pitch counts”, yes we should but to build up the young players arm and make him get used to the fatigue setting in at a certain point and teach them how to go long into games. “Pitchers want to start what they finish every time they go out, it’s the fighter mentality” this quote coming from John Smoltz a Hall of Fame pitcher that pitched for the Atlanta Braves. Smoltz had Tommy John surgery in 2000, and thanked Dr. James Andrews—who is the main doctor that does the procedure to major league baseball, and his name has been linked with bad news. “That baseball is not a year-round sport. That you have an opportunity to be athletic and play other sports. Don’t let the institutions that are out there running before you guaranteeing scholarship dollars and signing bonuses that this is the way….I want to encourage you, if nothing else, know that your children’s passion and desire to play baseball is something that they can do without a competitive pitch. Every throw a kid makes today is a competitive pitch. They don’t go outside, they don’t have fun, they don’t throw enough — but they’re competing and maxing out too hard, too early, and that’s why we’re having these problems. Please, take care of those great future arms.”

            Smoltz is right in that sense, but that doesn’t change anything about pitch counts in the major leagues. Hall of Famers, three hundred game winners, Cy Young award winners like Bob Gibson, Randy Johnson, Roger Clemons, Nolan Ryan, Pedro Martinez, Sandy Koufax, and others have all went through their respected careers without pitch counts and had no Tommy John Surgery. Some of these pitchers are also a part of an illustrious group of pitchers that have perfect games, no-hitters, and three thousand strike outs, with other major accomplishments as well. No pitcher is the same, which is very important in studying Tommy John Surgery. The argument that has been pushed to the side with the pitch count side. If you let pitchers pitch their game, they we be more relaxed and throw less stress pitches. A stress pitch is when there are runners on base usually in scoring position and the pitcher needs an out to get out of an inning, get a win, or even prove to himself that he can get out of a tough spot. Stress pitches are very important in a game that pitchers who can limit their stress pitches are in high demand, and get paid the big bucks. Stress pitches often result in injuring your elbow and resulting in a visit to Dr. James Andrews for a MRI to see in you need Tommy John. Dr. James Andrews is the only doctor in major sports in the United States that preforms Tommy John Surgery( Schwartz).

           

            The solution to not using pitch count limit and inning caps is a six man rotation. That would mean one more pitcher on the roster that could start so that one pitcher on the starting staff would start twice a week and hopefully give everyone on the staff an extra needed day of rest. Usually you do see six man rotations in the major leagues, but only in the late months when the rosters expand from twenty five players to forty, and when the team is headed to the playoffs and they need to rest their star starters so they have a chance in the postseason. Another solution you can use is spot start once every couple starts for each of the five starters. What a spot start is a pitcher starts a game that isn’t one of the regular starter. These usually happen when you need to rest a starter that is been worked a lot or when there is compotation between two pitchers to get the fifth starter job. You can also limit how many times that each pitcher gets used in spring training. For example you can pitch your star pitcher maybe five times instead of seven or eight and give him the rest earlier in the year so he is fresh and doesn’t have that much work on his arm when the regular season comes around.

             With all those precautions in in mind, pitch counts is another way that you can keep track of pitchers.  The idea is good because pitch counts have a big significance in the individual game of baseball. In the long term, like an entire season you can limit a starter to a specific number of pitches. Just like each pitcher is not the same, no two games are the same. Each game brings certain challenges that a pitcher must face, and to have him think how he can get through a start with a certain number of pitches isn’t fair to the player. It is not the pitchers job to figure out when he is done, that is the pitching coach and the managers job. That again brings up stress pitches. If a pitcher get into trouble with about eighty pitches or so, he will start to tighten up and start to not finish his pitches, getting him into positions that make him throw more stress pitches. The more stress pitches the more stress on the elbow that can lead to Tommy John.

The same thing goes to innings limits. We also revisit Sandy Alderson and Matt Harvey. Harvey cannot think about how many innings that he needs in order to pitch. “You cannot predict baseball” is something that the New York Yankees radio play by play commentator John Sterling, and he is absolutely right about that. Each game has different things happening in them and a pitcher can put a game plan together but game plan break down. Matt Harvey for example is pitching a great game and is ready to go out for the seventh inning and he cannot because of the innings limit. That is not fair to his teammates in the bullpen that might need some rest.

 It is not fair to his fellow starters because they will need to perform their best so that the bullpen can that rest. The whole pitching staff on the entire team now starts to throw more and more stress pitches. That can take its toile on the staff, and it did as seen in this past years World Series, were they lost to the Kansas City Royals in five games, and a big reason why is the play of the their pitching staff. The staff as a whole seemed gassed (tired) and made some bad pitches, especially when it meant the most in an elimination Game five. The Mets staff gave up a seven run fourteenth inning that sealed the World Series for Kansas City. Was that the sole fault of Matt Harvey? Of course not, but it had something to do with the whole staff being tired and failing on the biggest stage of the season.   

            What gets lost in the shuffle about Tommy John and its importance to the game is that it is taking players, fathers, brothers, and good people out of the game that they love to play. Major League Baseball is a brotherhood just like any other major sport in the world. The players know how hard it is to get to that stage something that many never get to do, while spending most of their life trying to get there. There is anonymous that goes “Baseball is a children’s game and sooner or later we all get told when to hang it up.” My freshman baseball coach in high school told all the players before we tried out that spring. Now you may think that that is a very depressing way to start off a try out, but it worked. The coach got the best out of every player that tried out that week.

            Medical advance have made it so pitchers are more likely to return to baseball in less than a year. Pitchers that had the surgery in 2014, for example New York Yankees pitcher Ivan Nova who was shut down in May of 2014 after his start in Tampa Bay on April 23^rd. Nova has pitching in the big leagues in July of 2015 and finished the 2015 season with six wins and eleven loses in seventeen games started(mlb.com).  Usually pitchers who had the surgery in the past missed the entirety of the next season, like Matt Harvey. Harvey was shut down in 2013 and made his season debut on April 9^th this year.

            Keep in mind also there are many differences between Matt Harvey and Ivan Nova. Harvey was a first round draft pick, the ace of the staff, and is extremely important to the future of the New York Mets organization. Ivan Nova on the other hand is not a first round draft pick, he is the fourth or fifth starter in the rotation, and while he is a key piece to the youth of the New York Yankees moving forward they can afford to lose him. “I know these guys. I know the way they think, and they will erase us” (Miller). The importance is that the game of baseball is unforgiving. It does not care if you can’t produce and you lose your job—someone will go out there and replace you. Baseball is one of the hardest games in the world. You are trying to hit a round ball with a round bat, with the ball coming in at 90 miles per hour or faster at times.

            In closing, Tommy John is not only affecting professional athletes but it is affecting our children playing the game today. Baseball is not a year-round sport. Throwing a baseball is not a natural movement for the shoulder. Repetition of throwing, especially when throwing the ball with a violent twist of the wrist or forearm it will damage the elbow. The surgery was invented in 1974 by Dr. Frank Jobe, and was performed on pitcher Tommy John. Dr. James Andrews the current and only doctor to perform the surgery today has developed a way with current medicine that the player can return early than in the past. Baseball is a wonderful game and our nation’s pastime, let’s preserve the who play this great game so we can tell our grandchildren about them.

           

Works Cited

Berg, Ted. "Matt Harvey Changes Course on Innings Limits, Vows to Pitch in Postseason." Ftw.usatoday.com. Usa Today, 28 Sept. 2015. Web. 5 Nov. 2015.

Liu, Joseph N., et al. "Outcomes In Revision Tommy John Surgery In Major League Baseball Pitchers." Journal Of Shoulder And Elbow Surgery (2015): ScienceDirect. Web. 2 Dec. 2015.

Mccarthy, Matt. "The Cutting Edge." Sports Illustrated 121.9 (2014): 54-62. Canadian Reference Centre. Web. 2 Dec. 2015.

Miller, Bennett. "Moneyball." Imdb,com. Associated Press, 23 Sept. 2011. Web. 2 Dec. 2015.

Phillips, Benjamin Z., Christopher Stockburger, and Susan E. Mackinnon. "Ulnar Nerve Transection During Tommy John Surgery: Novel Findings And Approach To Treatment." Hand 3 (2015): 555. Academic OneFile. Web. 2 Dec. 2015.

Schwartz, Nick. "John Smoltz Warns Young Players about Tommy John Surgery in Hall of Fame Acceptance Speech." Ftw.usatoday.com. Usa Today, 26 July 2015. Web. 5 Nov. 2015.

"Tommy John." Http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/j/johnto01.shtml. Web. 5 Nov. 2015.

"Tommy John Surgery." Baseballreference.com. Associated Press, 28 Sept. 2015. Web. 2 Nov. 2015.