Splitters, Fork balls and Pitch Counts

Good discussion here!

A couple points.

All the major leaguers that have been talked about during this discussion share one common trait: they throw nearly every day.

Major league pitchers put an enormous amount of stress on their arms, look at any snap shot of a pitcher just before he releases the ball. You will note that in many cases, the fore arm is bent backwards and in many cases the wrist is below the level of the elbow. It is that rubber band effect of the ligments and tendons that generates velocity. Many people think that "taking three or four days off" between starts means that they are completely resting their arms, far from it. They have a routine that they follow between games that helps the arm recover and strengthen.

What I had tried to point out in my previous post is that most youth pitchers do not follow such a routine. Most youth managers have little idea of where to begin in teaching such routines. That is where, I think, the injuries are most likely to occur. The kids only go out and pitch once a week, maybe two, and ANY number of pitches at that point are dangerous.

Please understand that I am a firm beleiver in pitch counts at all levels. I just think they are invalidated by un-educated managers and players. Many think that they are keeping young arms safe by holding them to a set number of pitches per outing and that assumption leads to a false sense of security about the player's safety.

Bottom line, to me, is that if a kid is going to pitch, that child needs to have a throwing routine between games to give him the best chance of remaining injury free. And I firmly beleive that, to a certain point, more daily throwing will build (and keep safer) an arm and intense throwing once or twice a week will cause injury.

Notice that I often use the word "throwing" instead of pitching. There is a great difference. A player can go out and work on flat ground, play some long toss, and otherwise build their arms by throwing. Pitching doesn't come in until the foot touches the rubber. Pitching is where most of the danger lies (that's where the highest levels of stress take place), throwing is relatively safe.

I am beginning to think that the types of pitches that might damage an arm are unique to that invidual. Curves and sliders probably present the greatest overall risk to all pitchers.

If you watch someone throw a change-up closely, you will notice that something (depending on the type) tends to happen to the wrist that differs from the fastball. With the circle change, pitchers will tend to rotate the wrist in the opposite direction of a curve (still a rotation). Slip pitches and palm balls do not allow for the free movement of the wrist because of where the ball is sitting. Any proper change-up like these almost force the pitcher to do something out of the ordinary with the wrist and thus puts stress (my opinion) on the the arm. Even if a pitcher is coached and attempts to keep the wrist motion exactly the same as the fastball, I do not think it is possible.

Your comments on the splitter and fork ball are quite interesting. I threw the splitter for years and never noticed a bit of extra stress compared to the fastball. I would venture to say that my arm and wrist movements are identical between it and the fastball. But I have large lands and the ball rests quite comfortably on the webbing between my first and second finger. A pitcher with smaller hands would probably, now that you mention it, be forced to alter their wrist movement to throw the splitter of forkball.

I doubt any definitive study could be done that showed a correlation between number of pitches or types (excluding the curves and sliders, but maybe not) of pitches and injury. Jim Palmer said the slider nearly ruined his arm. The Big Unit throws dozens of sliders and gets better every year. Blyleven (sp?) threw one of the best curves in the league for many years. The curve severely hurt Gregg Olson's arm. Sutter and Sutton made livings on the splitter. The Dodgers refused to teach the splitter to young pitchers. Again, opinions, I think, play a large role in this dialogue and I am beginning to think that different pitchers face different dangers because of different factors.

Splitter