Did the Pitch Clock Cause Pitcher Injuries?

Picture credit score: © Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports activities

We’ve proven that whereas pitchers (502 injured record stints in 2023) get harm extra typically than hitters (355 occasions on the IL), additionally they get harm worse. Hitters spent 13,142 days on the injured record final 12 months. Pitchers misplaced 32,107 days. Pitchers obtained harm 41% extra typically however spent 144% extra days rehabbing. Put one other method, pitchers accounted for 59% of injured record stints however 71% of days spent on the IL.

That’s in step with John Wholestaff’s Valentine’s Day article on pitcher accidents. (Sure, he’s an actual pitcher. Sure, that’s a pseudonym, clearly. No, we don’t know who he’s, don’t ask.) His level was that pitchers get harm quite a bit primarily as a result of, in his phrases, “The act of pitching is insanely irritating on the physique, and anybody who performs it for any vital period of time is sure to get harm not directly.” That’s a ringing endorsement for the vocation, huh?

He goes on to dispel the easy explanations some folks cite for the uptick in pitcher accidents: Pitchers not utilizing their legs sufficient, throwing too arduous, and so forth. You must learn the article when you haven’t already. The hyperlink’s within the prior paragraph. He lays out a persuasive case.

Essentially the most controversial assertion within the article, although, is that this one:

Now, if I had been accountable for making selections at Main League Baseball, and I had been conscious of the truth that pitching could be very irritating and that muscle tissue don’t work fairly so properly once they don’t have sufficient time to recuperate, I might most actually put a pitch clock in place. That’s, after all, if I had been being bribed closely by Huge Orthopedic Surgical procedure. It isn’t but clear how a lot this explicit piece of the puzzle is contributing to the upper damage charge this 12 months, however it’s actually contributing.

We will’t actually take a look at this. We will’t replay the 2023 season with no pitch clock and see if the damage counts are totally different, or if the accidents are much less extreme. We will solely take a look at what occurred in 2023 and evaluate it to prior years (whereas admitting that one season isn’t sufficient of a pattern). If accidents are up—or down—we will’t definitively level to the pitch clock. Correlation isn’t causation, as they are saying.