Tommy John surgery has never been supposed to go so far.
It was formerly a cross solution and a preparation for an injury at the end of his career. Now, MLB teams travel up to 40 launchers per year, knowing that surgery is a telephone call.
You just have to ask John, a left -hander who has never thrown just as strong, reaching only the mid -80s on his quick ball in the fin. The gentle launch left had its best year as a launcher leaving Dodgers in 1974.
He did not have a sense of withdrawal from teammate Andy Messersmith, nor the composition of the AS of the future temple of renown Don Sutton. But what John had was coherence. John has always launched late in matches and returned the opposing strikers to the canoe without reaching the first goal.
“The baseball match is 27 withdrawals,” said John, now 82 years old. “It was not a question of launching hard. It is, how can I get you out?”
He was the first to go under the knife. The first to direct the pitches through a dangerous cycle to launch as loudly as possible, knowing that backup is surgery.
“I launched land and a boom, the ligament exploded,” said John.
John’s arm injury left a feeling like a amputee feels after losing a member. In 1978, he told Sports Illustrated: “I felt like I had left my arm elsewhere.” He didn’t feel pain. He felt a loss. His left arm was his career. It was the direct cause of his heads the dodger stadium mound first. Then John continued to present another 15 years in MLB.
It was the same loss as the Dodgers renown temple, the left, Sandy Koufax felt when he retired at 30 years after numerous arms injuries, which could probably have been fixed if current elbow and shoulders surgeries had existed in 1966.
It is the same loss as the doctor of the Texas Rangers team, Keith Meister, sees a daily walk in his office.
Today, Meister can see MRI scans of elbow tears and can tell launchers where and how they hold baseball. The patterns of tears are emblematic of the locations launched first. The solution – Tommy John surgery, an formerly revolutionary elbow operation – replaces a torn or partially damaged ulnar ligament in the elbow with a tendon in the body. The operation is not a quick solution. This requires a recovery period from 13 to 14 months, although Meister said that some launchers may require only 12 months – and some of up to 18.
Meister, which currently has the data and the search for the problem, wants to be part of the change. Halfway through an October telephone interview, he stopped safely on his traces and asked a question.
“What is the average duration of a career in the major league for a major league launcher?” He said.
Meister explained that the average career of an MLB launcher is only 2.6 years old. In addition to many other people interviewed, he compared the epidemic to the problem of the longevity of another sport: the running back of the National Football League.
“People say to me:” Well, it looks like a ball carrier in football “, said Meister. “Think of potentially the money that is saved with not having to arrive at arbitration, as long as organizations feel like they are being able to recycle and, you know, the next man, right?”
The orthopedic surgeon Keith Meister, in his office of TMI Sports Medicine & Orthopdic Surgery in Arlington, Texas, in 2024, recommended changes to mitigate pitch injuries.
(Tom Fox / The Dallas Morning News)
Financial ramifications also play from their home between launchers and runners. A lower sustainability and impact have led to a decrease in back wages. If the launchers continue to have shorter careers, as Meister says, MLB franchises could be happy to cycle through minimum-dry launchers instead of taking off wages for players who remain on the injured list rather than in the enclosure of the reinfants.
The Dodgers and the Rays of Tampa Bay have crossed the launchers at the Extreme League in the past five years. In the modern era – since 1901 – only the shelves and dodgers used more than 38 launchers in a season three times each. Tampa used more than 40 launchers each year from 2021 to 2023.
Last year, Dodgers used 40 launchers. Only the Miami marlins loaded more 45.
Dodgers have already used 35 launchers this season, second in baseball. The Rays only totaled 30 in 2024 and only sent 23 on the mound so far this season. What gives?
Meister says that the rays may have changed the philosophy of their launcher. The first supporters of the sweepers and other high movement fields, the Rays now rank near the bottom of the League (29th with only 284 launched) in the use of the sweeper entering the action of Saturday, according to Baseball Savant. Two years ago, the Rays launched the seventh plus.
Tampa goes up to the top of the MLB in the use of the fast two -fashion ball, said Meister, a terrain which, according to him, potentially creates much less stress for the elbow. Their starters are second in baseball in the number of innings, and they only used six starters all season.
“He is assimilated to endurance for their launchers, because you know why? They are in good health, they are able to launch, they are able to post and they can go further in the games,” said me. “Maybe the teams will see this and they will be like:” Wait a minute, look with what these guys won. Look how they won. We no longer need to do all these bullshit. “”
The Dodgers, on the other hand, rank ninth in the use of the sweeper (1,280 launched on Friday) and used 16 starters (14 in traditional starting roles). Meanwhile, their starting launchers have compiled the least MLB sleeves. Rob Hill, the Dodgers pitch director, began his career in Driveline baseball. The Dodgers hired it in 2020. Since then, the franchise has produced the prospect of higher pitching after the first pitch prospect, many of which launch sweepers and devastating changes.
On Saturday, dodgers had 10 launchers on the injured list, six of whom have undergone an elbow or shoulder operation – and since 2021, the team is leading the MLB in stays at the launcher injury list.
“There are probably only two baseball teams which can simply stay there and say:” Well, if I receive 15 to 20 departures of my starting launchers, it does not matter, because I will replace them with someone other than I can buy, “said Meister.” These are the Yankees and the Dodgers. “
He continued: “Everyone, they must understand, wait a minute, it does not work and we have to preserve our goods, our launchers.”
Apart from changes in organizational strategy, as the shelves have done, Meister expressed rules for MLB. He suggested rethinking the operation of the fault ball or playing with the pitch clock to give a slightly longer break to the pitches. He said that launchers do not get a break on the ground in the same way that the strikers do in the striker.
“Part of the problem here is that a hitter has the ability to get out of the box and take a while,” said Meister. “He must go and cover a ball fault and run to the first base and return to the mound. He should have an opportunity to take a break and take a hit.”
Meister hopes to discuss the reintroduction of “tack” – a prohibited sticky substance that helps the grip of a launcher on the ball – to the regulations, which launchers such as Max Scherzer and Tyler Glasnow called a factor of injuries. Meister also has other leading experts on his side.
“Myself and Dr. [Neal] Elattrache is very good friends, and we are talking about this for a long time, “said Meister.
Meister explained that the lack of adhesion on baseball leads the launchers to tighten the ball as loudly as possible. The “death on the ball,” said me, makes the muscles on the inside of the elbow contract in the arm and then extend when the ball is released. The extension of the internal elbow muscles is called eccentric load, which can create injury models.
The more difficult the handle, the more violent the eccentric charge becomes when a sweeping step, for example, is launched, he said.
“Just let the guys use a little pine tar at their fingertips,” said Meister, adding that launchers must already adapt to an inconsistent baseball, which changes from season to season. “No, put it on baseball, not in baseball with it, but put a little pine on their fingertips and give them a little better baseball.”
According to the New Yorker, MLB explores heavier or larger baseball balls to slow down the movements of the launcher’s arms, potentially reducing the tension on the UCL during maximum steps.
Meister, however, said that there does not seem to be a feeling of emergency to repair the game, with a process of several years to make fixes.
In short, Meister is ready to try anything.
For a man who has made a career off the baseball players nervously seated in his office waiting room, while waiting for news that could modify their careers forever, Meister wants MLB to help him prevent players from making this first appointment.
“For me, it is not more surgery as much as possible, what can we do to prevent, and what can we do to modify, the approach that the game adopts now?” Said Meister.
“It’s very, very dangerous.”
