American League teams have better training staffs.
Or batting is not good for pitchers.
Reading that made me sad about pretty much all of our young pitchers we acquired.
We already got the guys who had Tommy John, its like chicken pox, it won't come back
Does the Braves organization have more pitchers, ergo more opportunities for TJ surgery?
most likely reason is the rise of stat ball. there's more emphasis on the strikeout now than ever which would have to lead to more stress on more arms.
remember when crash davis told us that strikeouts are fascist? well, maybe we need to stop teaching our young pitchers that these advanced pitching stats are everything. this is just like AAU basketball ruining that sport too though. there's way too much pressure to do x y and z while the basics aren't emphasized like they once were.
but hell, if i was a young guy looking to get drafted highly and i know 99% of observers look at advanced stats more than anything now, i'm going to do what it takes to get the max payday. maybe this is the modern day steroids...
in short, blame the statheads.
I firmly belive that it stems from Kids travel ball.My son who just turned 7, has already been asked to play on a 8-9 travel ball team and it's pretty much year round.He also plays basketball and football and I would much rather him do that while he enjoys it.Im 34 was a pitcher and played for 14 years and always played other sports.We need to get kids to take a break.I'd much rather draft a kid that didn't pitch year round and develop him in the minors a few years then draft one who I know has a ton of wear on his arm.
I would agree that playing multiple sports is usually a good thing. Especially when you're pre-high school. I was asked to play year round baseball and soccer. My parents kept me out of either and played soccer in the fall and baseball in the spring. One year or 2 before I was old enough to play CYO basketball I played indoor soccer in the winter but that was just til I could play basketball.
It's obviously happening at younger ages. They're not properly building arm strength. Remember Leo preached throwing between starts? Braves pitchers tended not to go on the DL. Smoltz didn't have TJ until he was much older, and that slider stressed the elbow. If you're looking for a culprit, consider the pitch counts/innings limits also. A few years back, I started a thread on that very topic to get a discussion going, but hardly anybody was interested.
Hasn't Don Sutton been saying as much for the last 25 years or so?