I was the jinx. Day after posting the meme, the best pitcher in baseball, Gerrit Cole, was shut down and sent for testing on his elbow. After testing and a series of consultations, no doctor found an actual tear or damage in the elbow but he will be shut down for 1 to 2 months and is scheduled to have an in-person meeting (and testing) after some of the natural swelling and inflammation from throwing a baseball for a living subsides. My bet is they will find something broke or is on the verge of breaking.
Considered by many to be the exception to the rule that pitchers are ultimately unreliable because they break, Cole earned an industry wide opinion that portrayed him as indestructible. For the last several years you could pencil him in for 35 starts, 200 innings, and top of the league results.
Lots of speculation about what he was doing that others couldn't or didn't. Cole has very boring (and less stressful!) pitching mechanics. He is physically big but proportionately so; solid athletic build. Then there was speculation by himself and others that his recovery processes (no over exertions; proper amount of rest; eating right) helped greatly.
The thing is though, last year he reached the 2000 innings pitched barrier. And I call it a barrier because that seems to be nearing the upper limit of what elite pitchers can throw before they start seeing diminishment. For a lot of guys, it is when a series nagging injuries start popping up. Or his 'stuff' just isn't as sharp; or for reasons unexplained he can no longer air it out for a whole game and must strategically deploy it and learn to pitch as something lesser. All do-able; there are countless examples of some of the best pitchers who hit that wall and remained at the top of the pyramid for several more years; but it is still a barrier where you can point to those guys and delineate pretty easily a 'before' and 'after' period.
One hypothesis is that it is just age and age is undefeated. Cole, off the top of my head, is 33 with a decade of professional baseball behind him. Guys who get to 2000 innings are 'old' in terms of athletes, all reaching that mid-30s point where their skills are visibly heading into decline. What exactly goes though is tough to pinpoint.
It's not like batters who everyone can be pretty easily tracked with broad strokes- eye sight decline by x age; fast-twitch muscle and slowing down by y age; so on and so forth. The hard cutoff for the greatest batters ever is 39.
The few great pitchers who make it to 40 go on and on. It's the nagging muscle injuries and endurance over a 162 game in 181 day season which catch up to them. 50 is the age barrier there.
Pitchers declines don't map out as easily as hitters. A 28-year-old star batter who sees steep decline has something very wrong with him- mechanical, pscyhological, physical. 28 year old star pitchers flame out all the same as 34 or 35 year old ones.
In the last decade plus, teams have tried to limit usage to stretch out the "phenom" period as much as possible. I don't think its worked at all and has arguably contributed to more injuries. Some teams are starting to signal that they are doing a 180 on their strategies going forwards. The Texas Rangers, for one, have publicly stated that they are implementing a heavier workload in the minor leagues this year, that they want to develop pitchers who will be habituated to throw six innings a game and that they will be aggressive in promotions. (It goes without saying that every team with a strategy will claim it is grounded in some sort of empirical and scientific consensus- a Truth with a capital 'T')
Promotions of pitchers league wide are becoming more aggressive. Some of that is due in part to more being drafted at 21,22 out of college fully formed than previously. But the other part is that the current consensus has resulted in stronger pitchers so may as well use up the talent at the highest levels when the iron is hot than nurse a 22 year old through the minors, have him debut closer to when his skeletal frame has matured and watch him battle a series of arm injuries and physical decline for the 6 years of restricted agency you have him for, while never teaching him to learn to pitch more than 120 to 150 innings a year.
Baseball
Re: Baseball
which is almost identical to the situation in cricket.
typically the bowlers that last beyond the early 30's have very smooth actions and lots of skill at both reading the player and throwing the variation required, so as their speed drops, they replace it with craftyness.
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they also have spent less time in the 90-100 mph range - not sure how much that translates to baseball with 100mph being "easier" on the body.
typically the bowlers that last beyond the early 30's have very smooth actions and lots of skill at both reading the player and throwing the variation required, so as their speed drops, they replace it with craftyness.
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they also have spent less time in the 90-100 mph range - not sure how much that translates to baseball with 100mph being "easier" on the body.
ultracrepidarian
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NapLajoieonSteroids
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Re: Baseball
Crisis averted. Several doctors have examined the elbow of Garrett Cole and none of them have found structural damage to the elbow or its ligaments.)
The consensus sees it as a case of edema and that the muscle sits on the arm in a way that is irritating a nerve.* Edema is common for 34 year old pitchers and as for the muscle thing: they could shave down the muscle to avoid the nerve but it would be a senselessly excessive procedure for something which should resolve on its own.
Still, a 1 to 2 month period before Cole pitches in the majors (and more realistically, three months from now.)
Cole's dominant performance against Houston from a couple years back.
*as medical news is private for obvious reasons, there are those who don't trust the full extent of what is wrong have surfaced. There have been plenty of cases of guys with "fine elbows" coming back from an injury, pitching a game or two, then heading right to the surgeon's office.
The consensus sees it as a case of edema and that the muscle sits on the arm in a way that is irritating a nerve.* Edema is common for 34 year old pitchers and as for the muscle thing: they could shave down the muscle to avoid the nerve but it would be a senselessly excessive procedure for something which should resolve on its own.
Still, a 1 to 2 month period before Cole pitches in the majors (and more realistically, three months from now.)
Cole's dominant performance against Houston from a couple years back.
*as medical news is private for obvious reasons, there are those who don't trust the full extent of what is wrong have surfaced. There have been plenty of cases of guys with "fine elbows" coming back from an injury, pitching a game or two, then heading right to the surgeon's office.
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NapLajoieonSteroids
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Re: Baseball
MLB season started this morning (for America). The Dodgers beat the Padres 5-2; the game was played in Seoul.
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NapLajoieonSteroids
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Re: Baseball
A week into the baseball season, and there is already a gambling scandal too convoluted for a single quick post. Shohei Ohtani may or may not be a victim of theft, his interpreter allegedly stealing 4.5 million dollars to pay off illegal gambling debts to a bookie. Baseball might have been bet on, which is a lifetime ban [meaning really, in 2 years the players union sues to get the player reinstated and the MLB usually capitulates...unless one lies and then its the Pete Rose treatment.] Everyone is sweating because Ohtani is one of, if not the face of, baseball; just signed that obscene 700+ million dollar contract; is the bridge between the MLB and the East Asian market.
Complicating matters is that the parties involved gave about 3 or 4 different responses of what exactly happened when the story broke. Everything is super suspicious and federal authorities are now involved.
On one hand, how does Shohei Ohtani not notice 4.5 million being paid to a random guy in 500,000 increments (that would've pinged some security system at a bank)? What bookie is allowing an interpreter to run up a 4.5 million dollar debt without Ohtani's tacit approval that the debt is his or being covered by him? How does he not know his best friend interpreter who played in the NPB with him doesn't have gambling problems or a kinda shady past (he lied about his education and prior work on his resume.)
On the other, by all indications he doesn't speak English, and in the best light, a naive pampered athlete who's used to being waited on hand and foot. It's not to implausible that he was signing off on things here and there that the interpreter mischaracterized or straight out lied about. Even the change in stories is mostly due to the interpreter speaking first and claiming to speak for the whole Ohtani camp.
Not the sort of thing baseball wanted to start off the season with.
Complicating matters is that the parties involved gave about 3 or 4 different responses of what exactly happened when the story broke. Everything is super suspicious and federal authorities are now involved.
On one hand, how does Shohei Ohtani not notice 4.5 million being paid to a random guy in 500,000 increments (that would've pinged some security system at a bank)? What bookie is allowing an interpreter to run up a 4.5 million dollar debt without Ohtani's tacit approval that the debt is his or being covered by him? How does he not know his best friend interpreter who played in the NPB with him doesn't have gambling problems or a kinda shady past (he lied about his education and prior work on his resume.)
On the other, by all indications he doesn't speak English, and in the best light, a naive pampered athlete who's used to being waited on hand and foot. It's not to implausible that he was signing off on things here and there that the interpreter mischaracterized or straight out lied about. Even the change in stories is mostly due to the interpreter speaking first and claiming to speak for the whole Ohtani camp.
Not the sort of thing baseball wanted to start off the season with.
