MLB Pitcher Injury Pandemic
By Jon Stauffer
We aren’t even 2 months into the season and the number of injuries pitchers are seeing is close to the highest it’s ever been. Big names such as Justin Verlander, Framber Valdez, Bobby Miller, Walker Buehler, Jhoan Duran, Spencer Strider, Gerrit Cole, Kodai Senga, Kyle Bradish, John Means, Alex Manoah, Jordan Romano, Erik Swanson, Shane Bieber, Paul Seward, Edward Cabrera, Sandy Alcantara, Braxton Garrett, Alex Cobb, Marco Gonzales, Shane McClanahan, Jacob Degrom, and more have all been hurt within the last few months and a bout 90% of these names have to do with an injury specifically to their throwing arm. A good few of these guys are receiving Tommy John surgery which requires a full year-year and a half of rehab to completely get back to where they were.
Many people suspect whether the new “Pitch Clock” has to dfo with these athletes hurting their arms because they are being forced to throw more pitches with very few rests in between. Lots of studies have been done on most of these people’s pitching mechanics revealing that each have imperfections that make them injury prone. However, a large portion of them are throwing 95–101 mph.
Personally, I think that it has to do how much torque these guys have on their pitching arms. In today’s day and age pitchers are throwing harder than ever in the history of the sport revealing that I think we have found the breaking point as to how fast the human body is capable of throwing a baseball. The fastest pitch ever thrown was recorded by Cuban born pitcher, Aroldis Chapman. He threw a 4 seam fastball 105.8 mph to Pirates hitter Andrew McCutchen in 2010 14 years ago.
Back 50 years ago if a guy could throw above 90 mph he was considered an elite arm. Today if you throw above 90 mph you are looked at as somebody who doesn’t throw that hard because there are 16 year olds throwing 95 mph in highschool.
”I think it’s pretty crazy that all of these guys have injuries during almost the same time period. I know a lot of speculation has been given about the pitch clock causing all of these injuries. I don’t know if I agree with everything being said, but one thing for certain is that the MLB front office won’t change anything. It’s pretty evident that they care a lot about viewers and shortening the game.”
Chase Smith (Business Major, ‘27)
Why do you think pitchers are getting hurt so much?
