MLB’s Pitching Crisis: High Velocity, Breaking Balls Take Toll on Elbows

The epidemic of injuries affecting Major League Baseball’s pitchers seems set to persist this year, with rotations across the league left reeling due to the alarmingly high number of cases hitting both top and lower-ranked teams. The Miami Marlins, who boasted one of baseball’s best starting lineups at the start of the season, have been hit particularly hard by these injuries. Top prospect Eury Pérez underwent surgery in April that has ended his current campaign as well as much of next year’s. Meanwhile, arguably MLB’s finest pitcher over recent years – Spencer Strider – also suffered an injury a few weeks later which resulted in Tommy John surgery and will keep him out until mid-2025. Gerrit Cole has avoided more serious elbow procedures for the New York Yankees but is still sidelined for several months, while Miami’s star pitcher Jesus Luzardo joined the list of injured hurlers this week following another announcement by Marlins officials about yet further elbow problems afflicting one of their players. While there has been no indication that Luzardo’s injury will result in Tommy John surgery at present, a significant proportion of such cases do indeed end up requiring it. Miami-born hurler Shohei Ohtani is another major league name on the sidelines due to elbow problems this year – recovering from Tommy John as a pitcher and unable to compete until 2024. Add those players’ injuries to others elsewhere around MLB, such as Wade Miley’s recent Tommy John surgery for instance, and it is clear that baseball has an issue with its arms department at present – particularly given the alarming rate of injury-induced absences in this area over previous seasons too. The explanation? High velocity – or rather a tendency towards higher velocities across MLB today than ever before: 2024 being yet another new record high, as average fastball speeds continue to soar; but that is not all there is to the problem, it seems – since teams and players have become more astute in recent years about what pitches are most effective. The old adage of “pitch off the fastball” has been found wanting by many pitchers today: they now realize that their best offering may well be a breaking ball instead – something to which this story refers several times (specifically sliders/sweepers or cutters). These pitches, it seems, are much harder on elbows than even the already highly taxing fastballs in this area: put the two phenomena together – higher velocity and more breaking balls – and you get a clearer picture of why we have seen so many injuries (and Tommy John surgeries) over recent seasons. There seems to be little that can be done about it, unfortunately – since high velocities and effective use of horizontal-breaking pitches go hand in hand when discussing increased levels of strikeout rate and hitter success rates. Baseball fans will just have to hope their favorite pitcher remains injury free for as long as possible!