\u201cIt\u2019s like the soldiers on the front lines \u2014 they come into the tent with bullet wounds,\u201d Meister said. \u201cYou take the bullets out, you patch them back up and you send them back out there to get shot up again.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like the soldiers on the front lines \u2014 they come into the tent with bullet wounds,\u201d Orthopedic surgeon Keith Meister said about performing Tommy John surgeries. \u201cYou take the bullets out, you patch them back up and you send them back out there to get shot up again.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Tom Fox \/ The Dallas Morning News)<\/p>\n
MLB released a report on pitcher injuries<\/a> in December 2024. The much-anticipated study concluded that increased pitching velocity, \u201coptimizing stuff\u201d \u2014 which MLB defines as movement characteristics of pitches (spin, vertical movement and horizontal movement) \u2014 and pitchers using maximum effort were the \u201cmost significant\u201d causes of the increase in arm injuries.<\/p>\n Meister was interviewed for the report. He knew all that years ago. He was yelling from the proverbial rooftop as MLB took more than a year (the league commissioned the study in 2023) to conclude what the doctor considered basic knowledge.<\/p>\n \u201cNothing there that hadn\u2019t been talked about before, and no suggestion for what needs to be changed,\u201d Meister said to The Times Wednesday.<\/p>\n Although pitching development labs such as Driveline Baseball and Tread Athletics provide fresh ideas, Meister said he does not entirely blame them for the epidemic.<\/p>\n It\u2019s basic economics. There\u2019s a demand for throwing harder and the industry is filling the void.<\/p>\n However, Meister sees the dramatic increase in velocity for youth pitchers, such as a 10-mph boost in velocity within six months, as dangerous.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s called child abuse,\u201d Meister said. \u201cThe body can\u2019t accommodate. It just can\u2019t. It\u2019s like taking a Corolla and dropping a Ferrari engine in it and saying, \u2018Go ahead and drive that car, take it on the track, put the gas pedal to the metal and ask for that car to hold itself together.\u2019 It\u2019s impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n On the other end of the arm-injury epidemic is the player lying on his back, humming along to Kendrick Lamar\u2019s \u201cNot Like Us\u201d as an air-cast-like device engulfs his arm, pressurizing the forearm and elbow.<\/p>\n The noise of the giant arm sleeve fills the room of Beimel Elite Athletics, a baseball training lab based in Torrance \u2014 owned by former MLB pitcher Joe Beimel. It generates Darth Vader-like noises, compressing up and down with a Krissshhhh Hhhwoooo\u2026 Krissshhhh Hhhwoooo.<\/p>\n Greg Dukeman, a Beimel Elite Athletics pitching coach whose 6-foot-8 frame towers over everyone in the facility, quipped that the elbow of the pitcher undergoing treatment was \u201cbarking.\u201d<\/p>\n For professional and youth players alike, this technology, along with red-light therapy \u2014 a non-intrusive light treatment that increases cellular processes to heal tissue \u2014 and periodic ice baths, is just one example of how Beimel attempts to treat athletes as they tax their bodies, hoping to heal micro-tears in the arm without surgical intervention.<\/p>\n With little to no research publicly available on how high-velocity-and-movement training methods are hurting or \u2014 albeit highly unlikely \u2014 helping pitchers\u2019 elbows and shoulders, Meister said, it\u2019s often free rein with little \u2014 if any \u2014 guardrails.<\/p>\n Josh Mitchell, director of player development at Beimel\u2019s Torrance lab, said that\u2019s not exactly the case in their baseball performance program. Beimel will only work with youth athletes who are ready to take the next step, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou got the 9- and 10-year-olds, they\u2019re not ready yet,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cThe 13- and 14-year-olds, before they graduate out of the youth and into our elite program, we\u2019ll introduce the [velocity] training because they\u2019re going to get it way more in that next phase.\u201d<\/p>\n Beimel uses motion capture to provide pitching feedback, and uses health technology that coincides with its athletes having to self-report daily to track overexertion and determine how best to use their bodies.<\/p>\n Their goal is to provide as much support to their athletes as possible, using their facilities as a gym, baseball lab and pseudo health clinic.<\/p>\n Joe Beimel pitched for eight teams, including the Dodgers, over the course of a 13-year career.<\/p>\n (Ted S. Warren \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n Mitchell knows the pleasure and pain of modern-day pitching development. The Ridgway, Pa., native\u2019s professional career was waning at the Single-A level before the Minnesota Twins acquired him in the minor league portion of the Rule 5 Draft.<\/p>\n The Twins, Mitchell said, embraced the cutting-edge technique of pitching velocity, seeing improvements across the board as he reached the Double-A level for the first time in his career in 2021. But Mitchell, whose bushy beard and joking personality complement a perpetually smiling visage, turned serious when explaining the end of his career.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m gonna do what I know is gonna help me get bigger, stronger, faster,\u201d said Mitchell, who jumped from throwing around 90 miles per hour to reaching as high as 98 mph on the radar gun. \u201cAnd I did \u2014 to my arm\u2019s expense, though.\u201d<\/p>\n Mitchell underwent two Tommy John surgeries in less than a year and a half.<\/p>\n Mitchell became the wounded soldier that Meister so passionately recounted. Now, partially because of advanced training methods, youth athletes are more likely to visit that proverbial medic\u2019s tent.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a saying around [young] baseball players that if you\u2019re not throwing like, over 80 miles per hour and you\u2019re not risking Tommy John, you\u2019re not throwing hard enough,\u201d said Daniel Acevedo, an orthopedic surgeon based in Thousand Oaks, Calif., who mostly sees youth-level athletes.<\/p>\n In MLB\u2019s report, an independent pitching development coach, who was unnamed, blamed \u201cbaseball society\u201d for creating a velocity obsession. That velocity obsession has become a career route, an industry, a success story for baseball development companies across the country.<\/p>\n Driveline focuses on the never-ending \u201chow\u201d of baseball development. How can the pitcher throw harder, with more break, or spin? And it\u2019s not just the pitchers. How can the hitter change his swing pattern to hit the ball farther and faster? Since then, baseball players from across levels have flocked to Driveline\u2019s facilities and those like it to learn how to improve and level up.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe five or six years ago, if you throw 90-plus, you have a shot to play beyond college,\u201d said Dylan Gargas, Arizona pitching coordinator for Driveline Baseball. \u201cNow that barrier to entry just keeps getting higher and higher because guys throw harder.\u201d<\/p>\n MLB players have even ditched their clubs midseason in hopes to unlock something to improve their pitching repertoire. Boston Red Sox right-handed pitcher Walker Buehler left the Dodgers last season to test himself at the Cressey Sports Performance<\/a> training center near Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., before returning to eventually pitch the final out of the 2024 World Series<\/a>.<\/p>\n Driveline is not alone.<\/p>\n Ben Brewster, co-founder of Tread Athletics, another baseball development company based in North Carolina, said high-school-aged players have been attracted to his performance facility because they see the results that MLB players and teammates achieve after continued training sessions.<\/p>\n Tread Athletics claims to have a role in more than 250 combined MLB draft picks or free agent signings, and says it has helped more than 1,000 high school players earn college opportunities.<\/p>\n Kansas City Royals left-hander Cole Ragans achieved a 4.4-mph increase from 2022 to 2023, the largest in MLB that year. With the velocity increase after his work at Tread Athletics, Ragans went from a league-average relief pitcher to a postseason ace in less than a year.<\/p>\n Kansas City Royals left-hander Cole Ragans achieved a 4.4-mph increase from 2022 to 2023, the largest in MLB that year, after his work with Tread Athletics.<\/p>\n (Charlie Riedel \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n So what makes Ragans\u2019 development different from that of a teenage prospect reaching out to Tread Athletics?<\/p>\n \u201cRagans still could go from 92-94 miles per hour to 96 to 101,\u201d Brewster said. \u201cHe still has room, but relatively speaking, he was a lot closer to his potential than, like, a random 15-year-old kid throwing 73 miles per hour.\u201d<\/p>\n Meister knows Ragans well. When the southpaw was a member of the Rangers\u2019 organization, the orthopedic surgeon performed Tommy John surgery on Ragans twice. (Ragans has also battled a rotator cuff strain this season and has been out since early June.)<\/p>\n \u201cThese velocities and these spin rates are very worrisome,\u201d Meister said. \u201cAnd we see that in, in and of itself, just in looking at how long these Tommy John procedures last.\u201d<\/p>\n Throwing hard is not an overnight experience. Brewster shared a stern warning for the pitching development process, using weightlifting as an example. He said weightlifters can try to squat 500 pounds daily without days off, or attempt to squat 500 pounds with their knees caving in and buckling because of terrible form. There\u2019s no 100% safe way to lift 500 pounds, just like there is no fail-safe way of throwing 100 mph. There\u2019s always risk. It\u2019s all in the form. Lifting is a science, and so is pitching \u2014 finding the safest way to train to increase velocity without injury.<\/p>\n \u201cThe responsible way to squat 500 pounds would be going up in weight over time, having great form and monitoring to make sure you\u2019re not going too heavy, too soon,\u201d Brewster said. \u201cWhen it comes to pitching, you can manage workload. You can make sure that mechanically, they don\u2019t have any glaring red flags.\u201d<\/p>\n Brewster added that Tread, as of July, is actively creating its own data sets to explore how UCLs are affected by training methods, and how to use load management to skirt potential injuries.<\/p>\n MLB admitted to a \u201clack [of] comprehensive data to examine injury trends for amateur players\u201d in its December report. It points to a lack of college data as well, where most Division I programs use such technology.<\/p>\n The Andrews Sports Medicine & Orthopedic Center based in Birmingham, Ala. \u2014 founded by James Andrews, the former orthopedic surgeon to the stars \u2014 provided in-house data within MLB\u2019s report, showing that the amount of UCL surgeries conducted for high school pitchers in their clinic has risen to as high as 60% of the total since 2015, while remaining above 40% overall through 2023.<\/p>\n Meister said baseball development companies may look great on the periphery \u2014 sending youth players to top colleges and the professional ranks \u2014 but it\u2019s worth noting what they aren\u2019t sharing publicly.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat they don\u2019t show you is that [youth athletes] are walking into our offices, three or six months or nine months later.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Keith Meister is worried. The 63-year-old orthopedic surgeon feels as if he\u2019s screaming into a void, his expert…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":78147,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[11661,39007,54048,54046,54047,6808,54045,54044,54043,34011,1266,28209,62,54050,54049,67,132,68,1628],"class_list":{"0":"post-78146","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-arm","9":"tag-athlete","10":"tag-beimel","11":"tag-driveline-baseball","12":"tag-elbow","13":"tag-facility","14":"tag-high-velocity","15":"tag-josh-mitchell","16":"tag-keith-meister","17":"tag-level","18":"tag-mlb","19":"tag-pitcher","20":"tag-sports","21":"tag-tommy-john-surgery","22":"tag-tread-athletics","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-year"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114885930784166908","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} <\/p>\n
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