Youth Baseball Pandemic

The Issue

In the midst of a real pandemic (Covid-19), I can’t help but think of another pandemic that is ongoing and spiraling out of control right in front of everyone – youth baseball. We are in a time where far too many kids prioritize “showcasing” their perceived talents above all else. Little league organizations have disappeared in many areas and instead we have massive high school (and even middle school/junior high) showcases occurring in December. DECEMBER. And those same companies are running summer long tournaments and showcases, as well. Now, business is business, so as much as we love to blame the companies putting these events on, stop. There is money to be made and they are capitalizing. It is unfortunate, but a lack of education is the real issue. Kids and their families don’t know what they don’t know. If said companies are able to market these events well enough to get hundreds and even thousands of kids in attendance, why haven’t we found a way to better “market” the education on why this might not be the best thing for kids to be doing to advance their careers? This is a debate for another time, but at the end of the day, education is key.

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Off-Season

Comparing underdeveloped kids to fully developed adults who are the best at their sport is typically a mistake in many aspects. However, when it comes to recovery and development at its core, why not look to the best? Major League Baseball has a 5-month offseason. When you look at a year-round high school/youth approach, kids average about a 2-month offseason, if that. Even worse, pro’s typically have their full offseason over 5 consecutive months where the youth ~2-month offseason occurs over 2-3+ periods of “off time.” There is never any time to truly rest, recover, develop, or, most importantly, BUILD WORKLOAD.

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Workload? Pitch Counts? Inning Limits?

It’s worth saying that youth and high school baseball are both at least trying, to some extent, to more positively impact arm health. Pitch counts and innings limits are not inherently bad, but if we’re being honest, they only focus on a very small piece of a much bigger issue. When we only count pitches, or innings, we completely ignore all other throws that a pitcher made in a given day, or range of days. There are too many other unanswered questions. How many throws did long toss include? How many pitches were thrown in the bullpen? How many pitches were thrown in between innings? And hardest of all to answer, how taxing was each of these throws? There is a study on the “Unaccounted for Workload Factor…” that reviews workload monitoring, as it pertains to pitch limits. The study states that “42.4% of the pitches performed were not accounted for.” The study actually only included in game, bullpen, and warm-up pitches, so when we account for long toss throws, the number is actually much higher. It is likely that the number of unaccounted for throws is much closer to 60%, depending on the outing length, and sometimes even higher. For some reason, we put SO MUCH emphasis on in game pitch counts, without any regard to other throws involved in their one-day workload, and complete fail to account for the individual athlete’s fitness, as it relates to chronic workload. Again, in game pitches are absolutely something that should be monitored. However, it has to be monitored with a base. The base is their individual fitness level (Chronic Workload). Unfortunately, it is very difficult to truly track this and we can never be exact or “perfect,” without wearable technology, such as Motus Throw.

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Conclusion

As previously stated, it’s very difficult to track AC ratios without wearable technology like Motus Throw, and merely impossible to ever get completely true data, as it relates to workload ratios. Workload is not just number of throws, but we must also account for the stress levels of each and every throw. However, we can have a much better idea of what it all means and how to progress and maintain players, if we are educated on the matter. It is a fact that the off-season and pre-season are the times to build athlete fitness levels. This shouldn’t be up for debate. Too many coaches and players try to use the beginning of the season to suddenly start building the players fitness levels. It’s too late at this point. If this is never a focus of the off-season, players are going to be at much higher risk of injury throughout the entire year. This is where having true seasons are important in youth development and recovery. Not to mention, recovery IS development. When a youth baseball player plays tournaments all year long with 1-2 practices during the week (if that), and does nothing the other days, this is a problem. We are at a constant state of dangerous change within AC Ratios. Acute workload either doesn’t exist (0) or is extremely high. The athletes throwing patterns are on an up and down rollercoaster. Fortunately, kids recovery quicker and are able to deal with this. At least we think…..However as time progresses, and sometimes it might even take years, the athlete breaks down. When these throwing habits become constant patterns, the athlete is actually in a constant state of breakdown. In an article by KineticPro Performance when referencing an outside study, they state that “an example of changes the body faces can be found in research that shows through the course of a season, athletes experience an increase, on average, of above 10 degrees of external rotation.” This is completely normal to happen, and not inherently bad or dangerous. However, it does become dangerous when there is never a time to correct/recovery from this natural adaptation. The current youth baseball model never includes this time. So take that ~10+ degrees of increase in external rotation and let it keep increasing more and more over time. It is important to note that obviously we don’t just keep adding 10 degrees every few month and it is never ending. What does happen though, is to stop this continued increase in external rotation, our body starts to adapt and compensate in other areas and ultimately, if there is no intervention, injury occurs. This is the truth of “over use” injuries. Realistically, nobody gets hurt because they threw 100 pitches. Players get hurt because, year round, they play short stop for 2 6-inning games on Friday, throw 100 pitches Saturday morning, go back to shortstop for the fourth game on Saturday, and then play 3 games on Sunday, likely pitching again, all to win a 2nd place ring, at 12 years old. Congrats, you did it. Kids arm and body health are in an extremely vulnerable place, all so that we could put a ring on the shelf. And worst of all, this becomes a year round pattern, with very unorganized weekly and seasonal patterns. There is never a true development, recovery, or workload building time. I attribute a majority of blame of this issue simply to the lack of education. A lot of coaches don’t know any better, and therefore parents and kids surely don’t know any better. There is money to be made, and the people running certain organizations are going to do what they’re going to do. We have absolutely gotten better, but as a whole we HAVE TO do more. Education is key.

Sean Stacy