We know there are too many injuries, and we know why injuries happen, or at least what leads to a sizable portion of them: fatigue.
Fatigue leads to kinematic changes, which leads to kinetic changes, which leads to performance changes, which can lead to more kinematic changes, and the domino effect eventually leads to injury.
We know there’s been a major increase in injuries among youth pitchers. MLB’s injury report published last December documented how the share of Tommy John surgeries performed on high school and youth arms by the Andrews Institute is averaging about 50% of all procedures performed there since 2015.
“That’s a pretty shocking number and definitely indicates that we have some stuff to figure out,” Morgan said. “Because on no planet should that be happening,”
The culprit often cited is the emphasis on increasing throwing velocity and overworked young arms.
There’s no doubt that more energy and more force are needed to create more velocity. But the stuff and velocity benchmarks needed to compete at the college level or pro level are only increasing. There are great financial incentives for pitchers to reach those levels. It’s difficult to see how one would disincentive trying to improve skill level.
But what’s frustrating is we know overuse is a rampant problem, and that it leads to injury, and the baseball industry just is not doing enough about it.
And one big reason why not enough is being done is youth baseball is flying blind.
The industry needs more data.
Pitch Smart is a start, a noble effort. But it’s hardly perfect, starting with a lack of comprehensive reporting.
“You had some organizations were like, yeah, we’ll send that stuff out to our coaches, but we’re not going to actually deploy a system or track it,” Morgan said.
The recommendations are largely estimates, guesses, not backed by statistical rigor, because, again, the data does not exist.
Even at Driveline, our sample of youth athletes who have multiple years of training with PULSE – including Noah Coury, who we recently featured – is a small sample relative to the scale of youth baseball.
“We’ve got some kids, I just don’t know that we have enough,” Morgan said. “And if we don’t have that data, then nobody has it.”
That’s a big problem. It’s one Morgan is interested in helping solve, along with other potential partners, like MLB, with a Pitch Smart 2.0.
Like with anything, progress begins with measurement. For instance, if we want to gain or lose weight, we begin by stepping on a scale to monitor progress. We need more information to study.
And that’s where new systems combined with PULSE data can begin to reduce the injury plague.