NEW YORK — The president of the Baseball Players Association believes a shorter pitching clock has contributed to a rash of injuries among pitchers.
“Despite unanimous player opposition and significant health and safety concerns, the commissioner’s office reduced the length of the pitch clock last December, just one season away from imposing the most recent rule change important for decades,” the union’s executive director, Tony Clark, said Saturday evening. A declaration.
“Since then, our concerns about the health impacts of reduced recovery time have only intensified,” Clark said. “The league’s reluctance thus far to acknowledge or study the effects of these sweeping changes poses an unprecedented threat to our game and its most valuable asset: the players.”
Cleveland’s Shane Bieber, Atlanta’s Spencer Strider, the New York Yankees’ Jonathan Loáisiga, Miami’s Eury Pérez and Oakland’s Trevor Gott are among the pitchers diagnosed with elbow injuries.
“This statement ignores the empirical evidence and the much more significant long-term, multi-decade trend of increases in velocity and spin that are strongly correlated with arm injuries,” Major League Baseball said in a statement .
MLB said it is conducting a research study into the causes of the increase in injuries. He cited a Johns Hopkins analysis that “found no evidence that the introduction of the pitching clock increased injuries” and “no evidence that pitchers who worked quickly…or increased their pace were more likely to suffer an injury than pitchers who worked quickly…or picked up their pace. those who did not.
Cleveland said Saturday that Bieber, the 2020 AL Cy Young Award winner, will undergo season-ending Tommy John elbow surgery to repair an injured right ulnar collateral ligament.
Hours later, Atlanta said Strider had a damaged UCL and would be examined further by Texas Rangers team physician Dr. Keith Meister.
Loáisiga said on Saturday that he needed season-ending elbow surgery and would be out for 10 to 12 months. Loáisiga, a 29-year-old right-hander, said he felt a pop in his elbow as he threw a changeup to Jorge Barrosa, his final batter in the ninth inning of Wednesday’s 6-5, 11-inning win over the Arizona. A scan revealed a torn UCL.
Miami announced Thursday that Pérez would undergo Tommy John surgery and miss the season. A day earlier, Gott had undergone surgery for TJ.
MLB instituted a pitch clock for the 2023 season set at 15 seconds when there was no one and 20 seconds when there was a baserunner. The average length of a nine-inning game fell to 2 hours and 40 minutes, a decrease of 24 minutes to become the shortest since 1985. The 11-player competition committee decided in December to reduce the clock to 18 seconds with the baserunners, a change that was fought by all four players on the body.
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