August 3, 20241 yr 12 minutes ago, kitekrazy said: I've heard they start training with the throwing thru a wall even as young as Little League. It's never about location. They start throwing breaking pitches at age 10. Back in the day my friend the flamethrower and I played rubber ball against the wall at Mt Greenwood school every day in the summer. Sometimes he'd play somebody else later and pitch a Little League game at night. He threw fastball, curve from 10 to 12 in Little League, went on to Babe Ruth or whatever we called 13-15 and he pitched. He then went to Brother Rice and was a starter, then before college he blew his arm out and that was that. Think of how many times MLB pitchers threw 150 to 200 pitches in college and Babe Ruth to get their teams meaningless championships. Then in the minors? All those innings. The human arm can't take all this work/stress apparently. Edited August 3, 20241 yr by greg775
August 3, 20241 yr 12 hours ago, fathom said: Crochet blowing out his elbow would be rock bottom An injury sustained while signing the longest contract extension in team history
August 3, 20241 yr 10 hours ago, fathom said: Owner is responsible for hiring the GM that got a very mediocre package back for an elite arm in Cease. Thorpe could be fine with rest but if it’s Tommy John, 2025 isn’t a bad year to miss honestly. Better than 3 years from now
August 3, 20241 yr 13 hours ago, kitekrazy said: The age of the brittle athlete. I started watching baseball in the 70's and I don't recall this many injuries in baseball. Cause they pitched to contact. Not worried so much about Velo. I remember when 94-95 was elite velocity now Steve Stone says it's not overwhelming... The focus on ks now a day is crazy. Randy Jones won over 20 games one year and kd around 80 batters and threw 300 innings
August 3, 20241 yr 14 hours ago, kitekrazy said: The age of the brittle athlete. I started watching baseball in the 70's and I don't recall this many injuries in baseball. Because they didn't pitch full out back then as starters.
August 3, 20241 yr 1 hour ago, southsider2k5 said: Because they didn't pitch full out back then as starters. Plus, they got to pitch to opposing pitchers. Baseball was more fun to watch then, as I recall through my hazy memory.
August 4, 20241 yr 16 hours ago, southsider2k5 said: Because they didn't pitch full out back then as starters. Plus, I wonder if they just got hurt and fell off the radar before hitting the big leagues back then, due to the way they just ran pitchers into the ground even in the minors? So basically the big leagues were largely full of guys who had already been filtered out as being able to handle 250+ innings a year?
August 4, 20241 yr 1 hour ago, JoeC said: Plus, I wonder if they just got hurt and fell off the radar before hitting the big leagues back then, due to the way they just ran pitchers into the ground even in the minors? So basically the big leagues were largely full of guys who had already been filtered out as being able to handle 250+ innings a year? Yes, in general they did pitch more in the minors and did find out who could tolerate the workload. There were also fewer teams so fewer pitchers were needed. Many pitchers today would not make teams just because of the numbers.
August 4, 20241 yr 13 minutes ago, ptatc said: Yes, in general they did pitch more in the minors and did find out who could tolerate the workload. There were also fewer teams so fewer pitchers were needed. Many pitchers today would not make teams just because of the numbers. Yep - so the drop-outs from injury would more frequently happen in the minors, I would think
August 4, 20241 yr 6 hours ago, JoeC said: Plus, I wonder if they just got hurt and fell off the radar before hitting the big leagues back then, due to the way they just ran pitchers into the ground even in the minors? So basically the big leagues were largely full of guys who had already been filtered out as being able to handle 250+ innings a year? Yeah I've always suspected that part of the deal in the "old days" was the meat grinder of amateur and minor league baseball basically filtered out everybody whose arms needed any sort of babying to manage the workload expectations. Not to say I think it's a good system to have guys flaming out like that, but it would make sense to me that it's what was going on.
August 4, 20241 yr 23 hours ago, JoshPR said: Cause they pitched to contact. Not worried so much about Velo. I remember when 94-95 was elite velocity now Steve Stone says it's not overwhelming... The focus on ks now a day is crazy. Randy Jones won over 20 games one year and kd around 80 batters and threw 300 innings I think the batters played a role here too. Older culture saw striking out as a major negative and didn't properly value walks. So you have hitters going up there who are pretty satisfied to hit a pitch into play the first time they get something hittable, even if they can't square it up. And the pitchers are trying to go the long haul so they're serving up stuff to try to induce that imperfect contact. You're left with batters swinging earlier, with more contact-oriented swings, at softer pitches. Once you had more people looking at the numbers and thinking tactically, all these approaches started falling out of favor. Draw walks, wait for your pitch, realize that a strikeout isn't the end of the world if it means you can make the pitcher throw more pitches and get a chance to hit a meatball out of the park. Then the pitchers realize the hitters aren't swinging at as much bullshit so they need to up their game, leading to higher effort *and* longer at-bats. Edited August 4, 20241 yr by Jake
August 4, 20241 yr 10 minutes ago, Jake said: Yeah I've always suspected that part of the deal in the "old days" was the meat grinder of amateur and minor league baseball basically filtered out everybody whose arms needed any sort of babying to manage the workload expectations. Not to say I think it's a good system to have guys flaming out like that, but it would make sense to me that it's what was going on. Yes - thank you for putting it much more elegantly than I did / could
August 4, 20241 yr 7 hours ago, JoeC said: Yep - so the drop-outs from injury would more frequently happen in the minors, I would think Correct.
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