Pitch Counts Like Leo Mazzone, I’ve got Eyes and I Have Seen Enough
I can remember it like it was yesterday. I was playing right field the day after I had pitched a complete game win for the DeVilbiss Tigers High School baseball team in Toledo, Ohio. I can still feel my arm aching and I was hoping no ball would be hit my way, where I would have to make a long relay throw. Sure enough it happened and the pain of the throw is still a sharp memory. There where many other instances in my career where it seemed like my arm hurt for a week, like the time when I pitched a complete double header win in college or the time I was brought back to pitch the last inning of a game in college after pitching a nine inning win the day before. At the same time, if a coach would have come out to the mound and said he was going to take me out of the game because I had reached a certain pitch count I would have told him what he could do in his hat. There has got to be a way to protect a pitcher’s arm while allowing the competitive spirit in that pitcher to grow and flourish. Although nothing popped in my arm during those times and I continued to take my regular turn in the rotation, the question still is valid as to whether those instances played a role in my chronic arm problems throughout my 18 year professional career.
All of the current popular talk about pitch counts and protecting professional pitchers arms is long overdue and a good start but by the time a pitcher signs a pro contract or a scholarship to college it may be too late to prevent injuries that started to manifest themselves years before in youth leagues.
I taught private pitching lessons to pitchers age eight on up in Southern California from 1989-1995, and now continue to teach young men outside of Ann Arbor, MI at the Michigan Sports Academy. When they come to me for lessons during their playing season I would always ask them when they pitched last, how much they threw, and how did their arm feel. Sadly to say many of these young pitchers were being unknowingly abused. I don’t believe coaches deliberately put a young pitcher in danger. They just don’t know what future ramifications their actions have on the well being of the pitcher’s arm. While there are many things I believe should be researched there are some things we do know or can reasonably assume and there are some actions that we can take to help protect a pitcher’s arm.
I’ve seen enough and it’s time to make changes for the health of pitchers from Little League on up through the big leagues.
The following are some things that are known or assumed:
• All pitchers are different. They have different physical and mental make-ups. I was a pitcher that had good endurance on the day I was to pitch, but I needed enough rest in between starts to recover. The other extreme was Mike Marshall, the Cy Young Award reliever. He felt slighted if he didn’t get to pitch every day. While one pitcher will let you know every pain he has, another will never let you know until he can’t lift his arm. They employ different mechanics. They practice different exercise and nutritional programs and their bodies can react differently to identical exercise and nutritional programs. Therefore each pitcher must be treated as an individual and one set of rules doesn’t maximize everyone’s potential or protect everyone.
• A break down in mechanics puts a pitcher at greater risk of injury. Pitch Counts can help alert a coach to probable break down points. If you observe a pitcher long enough you begin to see a general pattern as to when his mechanics begin to break down. For one pitcher it may be at eighty pitches and for another it may be one hundred twenty. When a pitcher approaches his particular pattern a coach should begin to look for signs that his mechanics are breaking down. These signs may include:
o Loss of velocity
o Loss of sharpness of break on his breaking ball.
o Loss of control, usually high in the zone
o A dropping of his arm angle resulting in a flattening of the break of his breaking ball.
o Taking longer in between pitches
o Defensive body language
Just because a particular pitch count is determined for a pitcher doesn’t mean that he will adhere to it every time out. Some days he will break down early, particularly if he has pitched a lot of innings recently or has gone deep into the game in consecutive starts. A good coach might even spot a breakdown while the pitcher is warming up. Many times pitchers will try to pitch knowing they are hurt, thinking they can gut their way through it. Other times a pitcher may go twenty or more pitches past his count with no ill effects to his mechanics.
• Cumulative trauma to the elbow and shoulder joint can lead to injury. This is the area where most young pitchers get abused. Especially in the north where teams from high school to college fight to get games in, they schedule weekend tournaments where they may play four to six games in two days and they schedule doubleheaders during the week. In college northern teams play their 56 NCAA allotted games in a thirteen week schedule while their southern competitors play the same number of games in seventeen or eighteen weeks. This tight scheduling lends itself to pitchers pitching before their arm has recovered. In high school even with inning limitations there are abuses. Time after time I hear stories from pitchers and dads about how great they did over the weekend. Here are some samples:
o A twelve year old tells me that he was allowed 6 innings over the weekend. He started a game on Saturday and went three innings, winning while giving up one run and striking out 6. He threw 80 some pitches. On Sunday he came back and pitched three more innings only needing 60 some pitches. That’s over 140 pitches in two days. He isn’t sure why his arm is tired when he comes for a lesson that next Weds.
o A thirteen year old starts the first game of a doubleheader and pitches 4 innings only needing 70 some pitches. He then plays shortstop for the second game and then an hour and a half after shutting it down in the first game comes back and pitches the last two innings of the second game only needing around 40 pitches.
o A High School Senior that I recruited, started and completed almost one game a week throughout his senior year. When he wasn’t pitching he played shortstop and pitched in relief. He told me his arm never hurt. He never pitched in college having blown out his medial collateral ligament in his elbow. The injury wasn’t completely diagnosed until after he was in college.
o A college relief pitcher warms up three times for two consecutive days without getting in a game. On the third day he is brought into the game early and throws a lot of pitches only to come up with a sore arm the next day. Pitching coaches now recognize that getting a reliever up three time is the same as bringing him in a game. If that happens two days in a row, most pitchers need a day off. I once threw a complete game against the White Sox. I felt good after the game that I had given the bullpen the day off. To my amazement several of the relievers iced their arms after the game because I had been in trouble almost every inning necessitating the need to warm them up several times.
These stories go on and on across America as youth league, high school, and college teams and their coaches vie for championships.
• Pitcher’s arms need rest to recover. There is much debate over what is the best form of rest for pitcher’s arms. If a young pitcher goes to see a physician with a sore arm, chances are the doctor will tell him not to pick up a ball for a period of time, and then to start throwing easy before getting back to pitching. Exercise physiologists will tell you that blood flow is the best healer. Exercise such as throwing, running, aerobics, and weight training promote blood flow. Many respected pitching coaches today advocate active rest where a pitcher throws almost every day. He doesn’t throw at maximum velocity but he does keep the arm moving with blood flow to that area. Once again, every body is different. How much and what kind of throwing a pitcher does between times that he pitches is determined by pain, how many pitches he threw in his previous couple of times pitching, body type, and past history, as well as when he is scheduled to pitch again. One thing I am sure of is that playing a pitcher, that just pitched the same day or the day before, in the field where he may have to make a long hard critical throw can be dangerous and at the least, does not allow for the rest a pitcher’s arm needs.
• Improper weight training can do more damage than good. Weight training is sport and position specific and theories are always changing. Good programs for pitchers arms tone the muscles of the shoulder, back and elbow and develop the muscles involved in the deceleration of the arm. Theories are always changing as to what exercises, how much weight, and how many repetitions are best for pitchers. I think the jury is still out as to the effects on a pitcher’s shoulder and elbow of lifting heavy weights over a prolonged period of time.
There are areas of concern:
o Many high schools, if they have a weight room it is sparsely equipped and it is usually supervised by football oriented weight trainers. Many high school pitchers play other sports and are ordered to lift the same program as their other sport, especially if it is football. Even in college weight rooms are often monitored by football oriented people.
o Young competitive men without constant supervision will gravitate to the heavy weights and the exercises (bench press, curls, and military presses) that make them look and feel more macho.
• The ball is too large and heavy for young pitchers.
During the five plus years that I taught individual lessons I had one pitcher between the ages of 8-10 that came to me throwing the ball close to mechanically correct. Through trial and error I found that when I put a tennis ball in their hands they picked up the mechanical concepts much faster than when I had them throw a baseball. My conclusion was and still is that the ball is to large and heavy for these young pitchers and they must reinforce wrong mechanics through repetition until such a time that they are strong enough and their hand is large enough to throw a regular baseball.
• Young men have trouble communicating arm problems or concerns with their coaches until they are really hurt. There has always been a pressure not to tell your coach if your arm is bothering you for fear that the coach will think you don’t want to win or that you are letting the team down or that the coach will get mad at you and not pitch you again. It can be even worse if that coach is dad. Many times young pitchers are made to feel like they are a wimp if they don’t pitch even though they know their arm is really hurting. The most frequently asked question of a coach to his pitchers has got to be ‘How is your arm feeling?” Then the coach must know his pitcher and look for body language and voice intonation as well as listening to what the pitcher has to say in order to find out how he is really feeling.
• Parental expectations can adversely affect a young player. One day I taught an eight or nine year old his first lesson. At the end of the lesson the father asked, “Well, what do you think?” I responded, “What do I think about what?” The father proceeded to ask me whether I thought his son had a chance to pitch in the big leagues. I proceeded to tell him that he or I had no idea as to whether his son would even play in high school and that he should let his son enjoy the game without any pressure whatsoever as to where he might play in the future. This father either wanted to live his life over vicariously through his son or he thought a nice fat major league bonus and contract would suit him and his son just fine. Parents can put unbelievable expectations on their sons that sons spend their whole life trying to live up to. They will not complain about sore or tired arms for fear of disappointing their dad. Many of these young players, although they have potential, leave the game because it just isn’t fun for them trying to play under that pressure. I’ve had some pitchers taking instruction with one eye on me and one eye on their father. I had pitchers in college who I know were under the constant scrutiny of their fathers feeling that they could never pitch well enough to please them.
If all of baseball is concerned about protecting pitchers arms then they should look further than pitch counts. From my experience coaching young pitchers between the age of 8-10 I truly believe the ball is too heavy and too large for them. During the ten plus years that I taught individual lessons I had one pitcher between the ages of 8-10 that came to me throwing the ball close to mechanically correct. Through trial and error I found that when I put a tennis ball in their hands they picked up the mechanical concepts much faster than when I had them throw a baseball. My conclusion was and still is that the ball is too large and heavy for these young pitchers and they end up reinforcing wrong mechanics through repetition until such a time that they are strong enough and their hand is large enough to throw a regular baseball.
I also think much more research needs to be done on the cumulative effect of weight training programs on pitchers shoulders and elbows. Many times, especially in high school, pitchers lift heavy weights in programs that are not specific foe baseball pitchers.
June 25, 2007
By Geoff Zahn Former Head Baseball Coach University of Michigan and 12 Year Major League Veteran Pitcher
