Why Baseball Is More Dangerous Than Ever

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Baseball is certainly in a struggle against itself, especially when you factor in that there's a deep drive into left field by Nick Castellanos and that'll be a home run

“Pete Reiser fractured his skull running into a wall, was temporarily paralyzed from running into a different wall, and fractured his skull a second time after running into a third wall. As he was being carried off the field on a stretcher, the TV broadcast showed Reiser looking directly into the camera, which broke the fourth wall.”

Change the hit batter rule into a walk to second base -- perhaps starting with the second player hit in a game. This would give control pitchers a greater relative worth.

I think another factor is that players and organizations have become more aware of injuries and are more likely to report it. Back in the day the mentality was often "just walk it off" so I can imagine quite a few injuries would go unreported because players tried to play through the pain. Now I feel like any amount of pain no matter how insignificant is brought up and taken care of. If a player today wakes up on the wrong side of the bed and has a sore back the organization will give them an ice bath and massage, 20 years ago they probably would have been told to suck it up and go to practice.

although i understand how dangerous it is to run full speed into a wall without bracing yourself because you're looking in the opposite direction concentrating on a fly ball i've always appreciated the looney toons factor it presents as a viewer.

I think the biggest thing for pitchers even with the decreased pitch counts is increases on elbow torque. Ultimately it’s insane that we can throw as hard as we do and that throwing motion is literally tearing your shoulder/elbow appart with that amount of force. Realistically a lot of the older guys who were throwing 300+ innings a year were simply not throwing 100% effort for the vast majority of their pitches, if it all. I think in the past it was more common to have actual shoulder wear issues for pitchers from over use but now it’s all elbow injuries due to increased torque which comes from pitch velocity. MLB is not actually solving any problems by decreasing pitch counts because it’s just allowing pitchers to throw harder for shorter outings which just exacerbates elbow injuries.

17:45 Not to mention pitching is getting more reliant than ever in relieving pitchers, which not only brings the aforementioned lack of being used to pitch a lot of times per game, but also making the overall pitcher lose the "marathon" mindset of not forcing their throws to prevent injuries. Relievers are never holding back their pitches because they will be benched after one or two innings, and starters aren't holding back their pitches as much as before because they are more likely to be relieved sooner rather than later.

Pitchers throwing at 100% power is what kills arms. Think about motors: if you run your car at 100% pedal to the floor all the time non-stop it won’t last. If you give it a relatively easy life it’ll last much much longer. Even just dropping down to 80% would greatly reduce wear on their arm.

I’d be more concerned about these injuries if baseball actually existed

We've been seeing an increase in serious injuries across pretty much every sport. Considering that athletes today are bigger, faster and stronger than ever before, I believe we're coming to the absolute limit of what humans can physically do.

Start making players use hockey helmets and more specifically goalie helmets. They are designed for 100mph shots in hockey right to the face and the vision in them is good enough for goalies to effectively stop those shots. Give pitchers hockey helmets as well, except since they need to be more stream lined and have more peripheral vision give them player helmets with a fish bowl on it. Instead of just fences, use plexiglass to protect the dug outs. They can also easily survive 100mph shots just fine while being as clear as glass, so they work perfect Also use plexiglass for the walls around the stadium. If used in the design used in hockey using stanchions they provide a very good surface to bounce off of when hitting the wall. Make a higher penalty for hitting the batter with the ball. Instead of one base, give 2. Or maybe while giving a single base take away one of their outs so that they need to get more to end the inning. You will see the league meta change, hopefully to resort to more skilled pitchers again or to pitches farther from the batter. The simple fact is, don’t make safety the players choice. Make the league set that up and make those decisions.

As a 21 year old who grew up right after “travel ball” exploded, I think that had a lot to do with the arm injuries we see on the pitching side. My dad grew up playing baseball, but back then, it was only little league (which was more competitive than most little leagues today)or your high school team. Both of these enable an off season in which your arm can rest. The year round travel ball cycle doesn’t allow for this. Guys are just throwing more year round from a young age, and are specializing earlier.

Damn the Dave Dravecky portion hit me hard. My cousin got a rare cancer when he was around 10 or 11 and passed away. My parents got my Dave's book about his life as I was a big baseball fan. I wrote him a letter and he even responded. I knew about his arm breaking while pitching from the book but I had never seen video of it.

your channel is one of those things that MLB should invest it. You're making baseball so much accesible and interesting to non baseball fan

9:26 that curveball thrown by a Cubs pitcher might be the sickest and nastiest off speed pitch I’ve seen. The one right before this one which knee buckled the batter was FILTHY AF too! I remember watching Kerry Woods 20K’s game and the sliders he threw that game looked like a whiffle ball.😮

I’d like to see a team go with a strategy to have 4 starter rotation, where they pitch five innings maximum. Then they will have a designated reliever who pitches the final four innings. That reliever is essentially a second starter, and they would prepare and be conditioned as a starter. So, in effect, you have two 4 starter rotations, where each player pitches half a game. The manager could flip the pitcher that starts the first inning. The remaining 5 pitchers would be relievers. And you would use them sparingly, for extra inning games or blowout mop up duty. There would be no one inning closer. This strategy would balance out the pitch workload, where 8 pitchers would, theoretically, have the same pitch count in the season, and it would be less of a pitch count than what is average for starters.

I couldnt imagine seeing 100 coming right at you. The worst hbp i had was against kid in high school probably not even throwing 80 and he still knock me out for a week when he nailed me in the side of my knee

This is the most painful baseball video I’ve ever watched, man…constant stream of arm blowouts, wall collisions and headshots 😬

10:55 Dale Earnhardt died because he didn't wear a hass device because he thought it was uncomfortable, nascar now mandates them. Some times the league just needs to tell them to suck it up.