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 Why can't baseball pitchers stay healthy?
For the same reason they are throwing harder.
And, ultimately, because there's No Free Lunch.
The failure to understand that reality is leading to problems that are ENTIRELY predictable.
And, because those problems are PREDICTABLE, that also means they are PREVENTABLE.
Chris O'Leary's Epidemic Overview
Why do I say the Epidemic is a REVERSIBLE phenomenon? Because the problems are so
predictable. Because they are being TAUGHT.
Chris O'Leary's
Epidemic Explainer
One-Pager
CLICK TO ENLARGE
The morning Jack Flaherty of the Cardinals broke, most recently, I put together the
one-pager above, using a picture of Flaherty to explain what's happening to baseball
pitchers.
Topics
The key elements of my theory of why
baseball pitchers are having an increasingly difficult time staying
healthy, and what to do about it,
include...
One-Pager
In the interests of brevity, I've put together this one-page explainer.
Chris O'Leary's
Epidemic Explainer
One-Pager
CLICK TO ENLARGE
This illustrates and discusses the key problem that is driving the Tommy John surgery
epidemic in baseball pitchers.
Background
I have argued, since 2007, that baseball pitchers can't stay healthy because the tricks and
shortcuts that have been, and increasingly are being, used to boost
their velocity work by
overloading the pitching arm.
Specifically, they put the pitching arm in
a problematic position.
Increasingly, pitchers' arms are FLAT and not UP,
which I describe as a having a Late Arm or,
visually speaking, Flat Arm
Syndrome...
Stephen Strasburg
...when the pitcher's shoulders start to turn and the pitching
arm comes under load.
That creates what I call a
Timing problem.
Root Cause(s)
Baseball pitchers are throwing harder than ever before.
And are
struggling to stay healthy.
Those two facts are related.
Over the past 15 years, I have observed that,
in an effort to — quickly — boost fastball velocities, baseball
velocity trainers and pitching coaches have adopted and popularized
a number of tricks, shortcuts, and mechanical patterns for training
and creating velocity. Those new ideas, starting with the
Inverted W
and/or the Elbow Spiral and a movement I call the
Tommy John Twist,
generally do help to boost the velocity of pitchers who employ them.
But there's No Free Lunch.
 The problem is those new ideas work by
overloading the pitching arm; by creating what I call a
Timing
problem, whereby the pitching arm is in the wrong position — it's
FLAT and not UP — when the
shoulders start rotating and the pitching arm comes under
load. That overload can be visualized by looking for a pattern
I call Flat Arm Syndrome.
All of this is especially troubling given the rising incidence of Thoracic Outlet Syndrome,
blood clots, and related problems in baseball pitchers, a
meta-syndrome I call TICaNS.
While many are fatalistic about the present situation, believing there's no
alternative to rising pitching injury rates, I'd suggest that the
examples of Nolan Ryan, Justin Verlander, Aroldis Chapman, and a
small number of other pitchers who were both Dominant & Durable,
points to another way.
Predictions
The test of any theory is its ability to predict the future.
I'd suggest my numerous — tweeted and thus time-stamped and
non-editable — predictions help to establish that I know what I'm
talking about.
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