This article about the ever increasing number of injuries to pitchers seems to blame the increased velocity of throws:
There is a big-picture issue here that teams and their sports scientists are attacking to try to better preserve pitching health. But no organization is willing to surrender an in-the-moment competitive advantage by attacking the main issue, or as Adam Ottavino said, “It [pitching injury] is a runaway train because of velocity.”
Yep, every year the average fastball ticks upward, but also now an acknowledgment that hitters have seen enough of it that they are adjusting to hit even high-end fastballs better. Thus, pitchers are spinning the ball with greater force and frequency.
And, as Hefner said, “More injuries are going to happen when you are doing an unnatural thing [throwing a ball with force overhand] and trying to do it as hard as you can and then trying to make each pitch as nasty as possible and then it is what the industry is paying for. This is how teams have won the World Series and we are a copycat league and everyone is trying to do the same thing. So the consequences are the injuries.”
NYPost.com
A couple of days ago I suggest banning high speed pitches and forcing hitters to swing heavier bats to cut down on strikeouts. If velocity is really the problem, then that ban would serve a two-fold purpose.
I notice they specify this happening because of overhand throwing. I can imagine some enterprising team developing a staff full of sidearm throwers to combat this injury problem while still getting high speed pitching.
Also, I’d like to see someone research if injuries were more common among hard throwers of the past. I seem to recall Randy Johnson injured a lot, but I don’t remember Nolan Ryan having injury issues much. Perhaps it’s a training issue, and not specifically a throwing one.
I like your idea of limiting pitch velocity. More offense would be nice, and it would increase steals too.
Back when pitchers tried to throw complete games, they were taught to pace themselves. Then, it was decided that pitchers were throwing too many innings and getting hurt, so teams started using pitch counts and limiting innings. But at the same time they did that, “pace yourself” went out the window. Instead, it was, “Well, you’re not going to be out here that long anyway, so go max effort on every pitch.”
I’m not sure max effort on fewer pitches is better for the arm than throwing more pitches but pacing yourself. We sure don’t seem to be seeing fewer pitcher injuries.