Nine of the Ten Starting Pitchers with the Hardest Average Fastball in 2023 are currently on the Injured List With Arm Problems
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We have been been banging our heads against sharp objects for weeks trying to figure out what to do about the best pitchers in the world getting hurt. The player’s union has blamed the pitch clock. MLB countered that teams’ obsession with spin rate has led to the maiming of ligaments.
Then
of the Substack newsletter Balls & Sticks posted a graphic on Twitter that made baseball GM in America reach for a bottle of Maker’s Mark:Just to explain what’s going on here, vFA means “average fastball velocity.” This chart was taken from Fangraphs, and represents the ten starting pitchers who threw the hardest average fastballs in 2023, minimum 60 innings. The story here is that the only player of the top ten hardest throwers currently not on the injured list with arm trouble is Hunter Greene (count your days, Hunter).
Here is what happened to the other nine:
Bobby Miller made three starts in 2024 (one dominant, two clunkers) then went on the injured list on April 15th with the vague and ominous “right shoulder inflammation.” It’s not yet clear whether this injury will wind up being significant or if the Dodgers are just being cautious with their young burgeoning ace and hoping he will be ready for the stretch run. There is no timetable yet for his return.
Sandy Álcantara won the National League Cy Young award in 2022 but regressed in 2023, maybe because his arm was on f—ing fire. He was shut down with a forearm strain on September 3rd, tried unsuccessfully to rehab it in time for the Marlins’ shock playoff berth, but ultimately underwent Tommy John surgery on October 6. He will miss the entire 2024 season.
Eury Pérez was awesome in 2023, finishing seventh in NL Rookie of the Year voting at age 20. Despite only pitching 19 games, he struck out 108 batters in 72 innings. He will not throw a pitch for the Marlins in 2024, however, as he just underwent Tommy John surgery on April 4th.
Grayson Rodriguez has been one of the top pitching prospects in all of baseball over the past few seasons, and the Orioles hope he will be a huge part of their rotation this year (which we all know is their soft underbelly). He got off to a great start in 2024 by turning in six effective starts during which the O’s went 5-1. But after the 24-year-old righty woke up with a sore shoulder on Wednesday, he was immediately placed on the injured list. Manager Brandon Hyde told reporters an hour ago that the team still did not have the test results on Rodriguez’s shoulder.
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My beloved Spencer Strider made two starts this season before nuking his elbow for the second time. Because the ligament in his pitching arm didn’t suffer a significant tear, Strider didn’t have to undergo Tommy John surgery again. Instead he received an internal brace that is supposed to cut recovery time down from 18 months to 12 months (or something!). He should be back on the mound at the beginning of the 2025 season. (Until his arm falls off again. Sigh).
Shohei Ohtani had elbow surgery last September, though he and his agent insisted it was not Tommy John. (It would have been a second TJ surgery for the superstar two-way player). Despite the, uh, now world famous communication problems between Ohtani and his agent, I tend to believe they were telling the truth here, because Ohtani has been knocking the crap out of the ball, which is hard to do six months post TJ surgery (just ask Bryce Harper and Corey Seager). Anyway, Ohtani will not pitch this year, but should be ready to go on opening day in 2025 like Strider.
Shane McClanahan was awesome for the Rays in 2023 and made the all-star team for the second straight year. His elbow imploded on August 12, however, and he had Tommy John surgery a month later. His timetable for return is unclear.
After a rocky first three seasons in the big leagues, Jesús Luzardo seemed like he figured it out last year in Miami, striking out 208 hitters in 178.2 innings while posting a 3.58 ERA. He made five rocky starts in 2024, however, before being scratched last week with “elbow tightness.” It appears he will try to rehab his way through this injury without surgery, so stay tuned!
Finally, Gerrit Cole won the AL Cy Young award in 2023, then promptly developed nerve inflammation and edema in his pitching elbow. The Yankees placed him on the 60-day injured list when this season began and held their breath. Cole is trying to rest and rehab his way through the pain without surgery, and is targeting a mid-June return. And the Yanks will need every ounce of Cole’s fastball to keep pace with the Orioles in the toughest division in baseball.
So…what does this list tell us? Well, for starters, teams are going to keep chasing velocity at their own peril. Right now, players are incentivized to throw as hard as they can in order to get jobs. Until that changes, arms will continue to break at alarming speed.
Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times spoke with journeyman starting pitcher Brock Stewart this week about how he re-invented himself as a flame throwing reliever halfway through his career to awesome results. Stewart said he had no regrets about the damage the velocity spike had on his arm because he currently has a job in the big leagues:
From the middle of 2019 to the middle of 2020, [Stewart] journeyed from three organizations — the Dodgers, Toronto Blue Jays and Chicago Cubs — to the independent Chicago Deep Dish. The uniform top there was covered, if you will, with what Stewart described as “a deep dish slice, with melted cheese falling off of it.”
As summer turned to fall in 2020, Stewart and his wife hosted a barbecue, and one of the guests — “a friend of a friend’s boyfriend” — ran a baseball development facility called Tread Athletics.
Driveline is the brand name in the field, but the common goal is better performance through intensive analysis. For pitchers, throwing harder can be a goal in itself, not a byproduct of a new workout routine.
Within weeks after he got on the Tread program, his velocity spiked. Five months later, he had Tommy John surgery.
“At 29 years old, I gained 5 mph in two months, so that sudden jump? I’m sure that’s what led to my elbow breaking down,” Stewart said.
“Do I know that for a fact? No. I don’t think anybody does. But I think you’d be silly to say the added velocity doesn’t play a big part.”
He is not blaming Tread. Far from it. Without training there before and after the surgery — rebuilding his delivery so his hips and arm path were more efficient; building his flexibility, mobility and strength; and, yes, cranking up his velocity — he says he wouldn’t be here.
Stewart has emerged as one of the most effective relievers in the majors. In 39 appearances with the Twins this season and last, he has been scored upon once. His ERA this season: 0.00.
The Dodgers caught a lot of flack for spending over a billion dollars last off-season for Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Tyler Glasnow. The reality is that they would not have needed to do this if their six top homegrown starting pitchers were not all on the injured list with arm problems at the same time. Walker Buehler has not thrown a pitch in the major leagues in 22 months. Tony Gonsolin, Dustin May, and Clayton Kershaw are all out indefinitely. Emmett Sheehan is, too. And we will see what happens with Miller.
Have the Dodgers been hit harder than most teams because they chase velocity and spin perhaps more than any other organization than the Rays and Astros? (Who have also been hammered by injuries?).
Maybe!
The Astros are now considering a six-man rotation to help ease the burden on their starters. The Dodgers already pitch all their starters on five days rest almost all the time by tucking in a bullpen day when no midweek off-day can make that naturally possible.
In the meantime, here is the list of the top 11 starting pitchers based on average fastball velocity so far this year. If what has happened over the last 12 months is any indication, 10 of these guys will be on the injured list with exploded arms by next May:
Plan your lives accordingly.
OK, it's time for me to be the guy who yells get off my lawn, though that's not QUITE where I'm going.
The human arm is not meant to do the things these guys are doing. I'm not sure it's meant to do a lot of other things. Near as I can tell, Fernando's left arm faces a couple of different directions, but knuckleball pitchers look like they can pitch in their eighties. Throw enough 100 mph fastballs, your arm is likely to fall off, and what is supposed to matter more is what the ball does en route as opposed to going straight in at high speed.
Once upon a time, you pitched hurt or lost your job. I'm not a fan of pitching hurt. But if these guys are being hurt that much, then we need to know why, because a lot of pitchers in ye olden days were NOT hurt, pitched well, and even had off-season jobs to make ends meet.
Maybe Ozzie Guillen was right: They're too well-toned. As he said, you can't pull fat.
from OnRoto.com:
"05.03... The Twins placed Stewart on the 15-day injured list Friday with right shoulder tendinitis."