Following the recent injury of Braves pitcher Spencer Strider, many baseball fans are getting concerned about the game's younger pitchers. The Braves are currently worrying about the situation that their poor decisions have led them to.
The Braves played Strider for 31 games in the 2022 season and 32 in the 2023 season. Playing a pitcher too much like this can cause serious injuries to the player's arm and ability to throw. It seems like the Braves got ahead of themselves during the past two seasons and possibly overworked their pitcher prodigy.
Regarding Strider's injury, he went into an MRI recently due to his elbow pain and came back with news of a season ending surgery for his elbow. The doctors stated that since the tear was close to the bone, an internal brace procedure with be conducted. This surgery is less invasive on the elbow and comes with a shorter rehab time, but it will still cost strider the rest of his 2024 season.
Another example of this is Shohei Ohtani and the Angels. Throughout the 2022 and 2023 seasons, Shohei Ohtani pitched for 38 games while playing 51 games as a batter. This may or may not have led him to getting Tommy John surgery and missing out on pitching during the 2024 season with the Dodgers.
This brings up the question of whether MLB teams are overloading their pitchers. With so many young and coming pitchers having the go through Tommy John or a different arm surgery, do teams need to be more careful with their players? The answer to this question. If teams want to get the most out of their players, they should make sure to not overwork them to secure a long career with the team instead of blowing their arm out and ruining their potential.
A pitcher will be more powerful if they are able to stretch their ability throughout many years in order to maintain a stable balance between rest and play. Through this method, a team will be able to win more games over a longer period of time, resulting in a better chance of winning the World Series.
A less common solution to the problem of pitchers dealing with load management is to limit the number of pitches thrown in a game. Most often, a pitcher will be taken out of the game after around 100 pitches. If general managers were to change that number down to 75 or 80, then pitchers will not be pressured into maintaining their speed on a tired arm.
Will MLB teams continue to work their pitchers as much as they do now, or will they realize their mistake and abate the number of games and pitches they are loading onto their stars?
Willem Crowther
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