Around The League Thread

[Kerb Hohl]

Reports that Fernandez is done for the year.

[ReasonablySober]

First Harvey then Fernandez, the two best young arms in the game. Brutal.

[trwi7]

Reports that Fernandez is done for the year.

[blazza18]

Both did their elbow after their 36th start too apparently

[blazza18]

Cards let in a couple of TDs against the Cubs

[trwi7]

Or a couple of goals and 5 behinds, amirite?

[blazza18]

Smh. Go figure out how you get 17 points in rugby league.

[trwi7]

Nobody gives a **** about rugby.

[blazza18]

I know. Which is why I said rugby league

[jr lucosa]

Just seeing the news on Jose Fernandez now, that sucks. He's my favorite pitcher in all of baseball right now.

[El Duderino]

First Harvey then Fernandez, the two best young arms in the game. Brutal.

Many teams today keep their young pitchers on fairly strict pitch counts in the minors and generally don't let them go past 110-115 pitches in the majors, yet there seems to be an epidemic of serious arm injuries.

Have there been any studies comparing the amount of arm injuries to say 15-20-25 years ago when most pitchers threw more innings and pitches than today?

I remember once during a Brewers broadcast they were talking about Mike Caldwell who pitched on that 82 Brewers team and in 1978 he threw 23 complete games. Had 98 complete games in his career. On the flip side to today, some teams are lucky to get 5-10 complete games out of their whole pitching staff over a full season.

FWIW, i'm not saying that having young starters throw 10 complete games a year is a cure for all of the injuries, i just wonder why as starting pitchers today are monitored much more on the number of pitches they throw, that arm injuries to these guys seem so high?

[-Jragon-]

Look at the run differential for Oakland (+62), Colorado (+55) and Detroit (+40). Brewers are +13 for comparison. Must be nice, Geesh

http://espn.go.com/mlb/standings

[trwi7]

That's why I'm not confident we can sustain this. Unless we have a 2012 Orioles type run from our bullpen.

Phillies have the second worst playoff odds in the NL.

[Kerb Hohl]

It's hard to say. I have gotten that 2012 Orioles or 2013 Pirates feel most of the year, but we have gotten next-to-nothing out of Khris Davis and Segura. Of course, Segura may be showing us what he really is. We may have luck for the first 1/3 of the year and then explode at some point.

I think with Braun back in the fold and we can hold of until Aramis returns, with some deadline depth acquisitions, the offense is fine. We came into the season knowing there were regression risks with Segura and Davis and injury risk with Braun, A-Ram, etc. but if we can get that whole group together on the field, it's a pretty good offense. We've had to cobble together a lineup for a decent part of the season and our offense is still in the upper half of the NL.

The season all hinges on getting the offense healthy at the right time. It has no depth and is flawed in that it is 90% right-handed, but 1-8 if everyone is healthy the Brewers probably have a top 3, maybe top 5 NL offense. I'd put the Rockies as a clear-cut #1 and the Dodgers at #2. Probably the Cards at 3 but you can start debating there.

It could be worse, we could be the Diamondbacks trying to build as if playing in Petco Park trading away a bunch of valuable power bats for relief pitchers so that we can get our contact-hitting corner outfielders on the field. They're still pretty good, but there is a lot of flawed logic in the NL offensively.

[OnWISports]

i just wonder why as starting pitchers today are monitored much more on the number of pitches they throw, that arm injuries to these guys seem so high?

Velocities are at an all time high, and throwing a baseball is an unnatural movement. With the velocity being at an all time high, there is more strain on a pitchers elbow than ever before. Add the velocity factor, to pitchers making the ball move more than any point in baseball and I think it's pretty easy to understand why all these surgeries are happening. The body is not meant to throw a baseball like it is being thrown now.

[Kerb Hohl]

Yeah, that relates to what I've kinda thought all along. To make/stay in the MLB, you need to get hitters out that have watched 10 hours of film on you. Gone are the days where Sandy Koufax can throw the same curveball 100 times to get himself out of trouble (I just picked a pitcher out of the sky).

Sure, there are issues with the fact that kids start throwing sliders at too early of an age, but it's like fingernails on a chalkboard sometimes listening to any former player or fan over the age of 50 talking about the good old days where their arms were made of rubber because they played catch with Billy down the street every day growing up and weren't on a pitch count through their career.

I think some of the cream of the crop pitchers of past generations did have a better makeup with arms that wouldn't wear down. There might have been plenty of guys who blew out their arm before they made the majors, but in general, the pitchers of yesteryear wouldn't throw their complete games 2-3 times a week in today's MLB like our grandfathers and uncles romanticized.

[El Duderino]

i just wonder why as starting pitchers today are monitored much more on the number of pitches they throw, that arm injuries to these guys seem so high?

Velocities are at an all time high, and throwing a baseball is an unnatural movement. With the velocity being at an all time high, there is more strain on a pitchers elbow than ever before. Add the velocity factor, to pitchers making the ball move more than any point in baseball and I think it's pretty easy to understand why all these surgeries are happening. The body is not meant to throw a baseball like it is being thrown now.

I wonder then if a study has been done to see if high velocity pitchers have been significantly more prone to arm injuries than guys who are more lower velocity/command type of pitchers?

[Kerb Hohl]

Silders and velocity, without doing a study, seem like the main things that cause the elbow injuries.

[El Duderino]

I think some of the cream of the crop pitchers of past generations did have a better makeup with arms that wouldn't wear down. There might have been plenty of guys who blew out their arm before they made the majors, but in general, the pitchers of yesteryear wouldn't throw their complete games 2-3 times a week in today's MLB like our grandfathers and uncles romanticized.

There also wasn't the type of medical technology and surgical skill as there is today. So in the past, if a pitcher had say a sore elbow, they couldn't just schedule an MRI the next day to check out the structure of everything going on and if a tiny tear was showing, get a TJ surgery which today has become so common and well done that pitchers going under the knife for it isn't really scary anymore. In fact, some pitchers end up being better off after the surgery.

[NeedsMoreCheese]

Apparently the Marlins have brought in Randy Wolf to fill the spot in their rotation. Based on how its setup it looks like the Brewers will be facing him in a couple weeks. (assuming his first two starts before then don't cause them to change their mind about him)