June 17, 2024

By Mark Whicker

Canadian Baseball Network

The human body wasn’t designed to fling a baseball 100 mph.

It also wasn’t designed to watch ESPN try to broadcast hockey, but that’s another discussion.

Whether the cause is unnatural velocity, improved diagnostics, a de-emphasis on throwing at an early age, or the pernicious influence of a villain named Max Effort, it’s a great time to be an elbow surgeon.

As of Saturday, there were 115 pitchers on MLB’s 40-man rosters that were on the 60-day injured list, mostly with shoulder or elbow miseries.

Some of them were among the most decorated arms in the game. Max Scherzer, Jacob deGrom, Clayton Kershaw, Robbie Ray, Shane Bieber and Gerrit Cole are Cy Young award winners.

Together, in 2024, they will make $160 million. Other proven pitchers who reside on the 60-day list are Spencer Strider, Lance McCullers, Felix Bautista, Brandon Woodruff, Devin Williams and Shane McClanahan.

It is not idle hand-wringing to agonize over this epidemic and to wonder how it can be controlled. It is bad economics, and clubs are beginning to reject its premise.

The Braves have tied up their position players for the long-term and, yeah, some of them can miss major time, too, like reigning MVP Ronald Acuna Jr. But they haven’t made the same commitment to their pitchers.

In fact, NL Cy Young winner Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery were on the sidelines until much of spring training had elapsed. Then, in lieu of good options, they signed one-year deals with San Francisco and Arizona, respectively. Results were not encouraging, except for the civic boosters of Scottsdale, who would like all of us to believe that seven weeks of spring are necessary.

But there’s little correlation, at least so far, between these injuries and the actual outcomes.

Sure, Texas would profit from having Scherzer and deGrom, but it didn’t really have them anyway, during its run to last year’s world championship.

The teams with the most 60-day pitchers, at the moment, are the Dodgers (eight), the Brewers (seven), and the Yankees and the Astros (six). Three of those have decisive leads in their divisions.

Detroit and San Diego are the only teams with just one 60-day pitcher, and their postseason hopes are flimsy, although the Padres are missing Yu Darvish and Joe Musgrove at the moment.

Pitchers know the structural insanity of their profession. They expect to miss significant time, much like downhill skiers who realize that if you haven’t had ACL surgery, you’re not trying.

There have been so many Tommy John surgeries and labrum repairs that it’s almost like fixing an oil leak or a worn-out brake pad. Doctors have more pitchers back on the road, and functioning, than ever before.

At 35 years old, Chris Sale might win the Comeback Player and the Cy Young Award in the NL. He signed with Atlanta this season, and Atlanta might be swimming with the Marlins if he hadn’t. He is 9-2 with a 2.98 ERA in 13 starts, and his WHIP is 0.943. He leads the NL in strikeout/walk ratio (7.62).

Sale pitched 150 innings, total, the past four years, thanks to Tommy John surgery and Covid-19. He has a reasonable shot at reaching 200 innings for the first time since 2017, when his 214 1⁄3 innings led the American League for Boston. He also struck out 308 batters that year, leading the AL for the second time. Did all that work lead to Sale’s elbow problems?

Hard to say, because ineffectual pitchers get hurt, too.

Luis Gil was a sensation for the Yankees in 2021, with three scoreless starts to begin his major-league career. He missed a year and a half with Tommy John surgery. He is back, at 26, and is sensational again. He has given up 39 hits in 80 innings for the AL’s best team and is 9-1 with a league-leading 2.03 ERA.

Even members of baseball’s underclass are putting together decent rotations. Tarik Skubal had Tommy John surgery when he was pitching for Seattle University. He signed with the Tigers, but lost a good hunk of the 2022 and 2023 seasons with flexor tendon surgery. He’s healthy this year and is 8-1 with a 2.20 ERA and 98 strikeouts in 86 innings. As Casey Mize, a former first-overall pick, comes back from the TJ operation that robbed him of his 2023 season, you can see sprouts coming through.

Pittsburgh, which hasn’t really had a reason to flex since Cole was its staff ace, now has the 100-mph-plus stylings of Paul Skenes to attract fans. Skenes, a year ago, was helping LSU win the College World Series and would become the first overall pick. The Bucs also have Mitch Keller, who has won 21 games over the past season-and-a-half, and rookie Jared Jones, who sports a 1.127 WHIP over 14 games.

The Phillies have either been lucky or diligent in keeping their essential pitchers healthy, and they are running off with the NL East. The Mariners, by any estimate, have the most solid rotation in the AL, and they’ve separated themselves from the rest of the West.

Remember the 2023 season, when commissioner Rob Manfred unveiled the weapons of a new offensive? Bigger bases and a limit on pickoffs, to make stealing easier. A pitch clock that had the desired effect on time-of-game but also would hurry pitchers into more mistakes.

Elimination of those dastardly infield shifts that were muffling the best hitters in the game. A minimum-hitter rule that would keep managers from shuttling in relievers whenever the mood struck.

Forget it.

The cumulative batting average in MLB is .241. That’s the lowest since 1968, the fabled Year of the Pitcher, when it was .238 against pitchers dealing from a higher mound. Twenty-five years ago the average was .271.

Slugging percentage is .390, down 45 points from 2019. On-base percentage is .311, and 1968 was the last year it was lower (.299).

Even home runs are at a nine-year low. There are 1.57 doubles per team per game, and that figure hasn’t been lower since 1992.

There are only 11 .300 hitters, and it’s not even midseason. There are only three hitters with a 1.000-plus OPS (Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, Marcell Ozuna).

One shudders to imagine Manfred’s next tweaks. Shrink the base paths to 30 feet? Ban relay throws? Put a salary cap on pitching staffs?

No, the only way to stop major league pitchers is to convert them all to Christian Science.

Ligament, heal thyself.