Quote:
Originally Posted by bravos4evr
WAR isn't perfect, it's just the best we have to compare across generations.
There is something to be said for conditioning of course, there is also something interesting to be said for the tendency towards max effort pitching over less innings seemingly leading to MORE injury then back when guys threw 90% and tossed 300 innings a year. It's beginning to appear that it's effort over innings rather than just innings alone as far as the cause of so many elbow blowouts (which is hampered more by so many high school and college coaches overpitching their best arms)
actually, OVERALL, peak performance periods have gotten younger since the roid era ended. it appears that the best thing steroids did was slow decline (and in some bring a 2nd peak) we used to think player peaks were 28-31 now it's 26-28
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Nick, I am a professional pitching coach and I can promise you that the increase in Tommy John surgery's is due to young arms throwing too hard too fast, that is at too young of an age. Dr James Andrews (the best at what he does), insists that someone throwing 85+ at the age of 16/17 or younger has a 75% risk of eventually blowing their elbow. So many young kids throw 90+ in high school now because of super conditioning programs and...yes...PEDs! Why? Because there is simply too much money at stake in this era via college scholarships or the draft. That is EXACTLY what is gong on right now and it's only going to get worse. Many young elbows were not built to throw that hard that quickly, and if not at the high school level, it eventually catches up to pitchers in their early to mid 20s.