Joba Chamberlain suffered a torn ligament in his elbow:
“My guess is he probably is going to have to have surgery,” Girardi said.
Girardi thought Chamberlain would likely have Tommy John surgery, which would mean he would be out for the rest of the year.
That’s tough. Joba seemed to settle well into his relief role this season. We may not see him until 2013. It looks like the Yankees will need to call on their minor league depth soon.
Although I appreciate that arm injuries are obviously not preventable in a sport such as baseball, is there any kind of structure in place for developing young baseball players in such a way that builds up the strength required to prevent injury?
For example, in the UK, athletes who are determined to be on an LTAD (Long Term Athlete Development) Pathway have different ‘strength and conditioning’ type training built in to their skills and fitness training as they progress through age group or senior levels. For example, at age 8-10, boys may be taught the correct techniques for improving core strength using own body weight. By age 16-18, this has progressed to using static or resistance weights, etc.
Often injuries to a muscle are caused by other weaknesses in the muscle group or by compensating for the weakness of other muscle groups (i.e. arm muscles compensating for core muscle weakness). Injury ‘precovery’ is considered a vital part of preventing injury recovery.
Alex Hayes » This is really the holy grail. I know the Phillies do ultrasounds of pitchers arms every year to see what changes are there. There are all kinds of arguments about limiting pitches, not throwing certain pitches before a certain age, etc. No matter what they do the injuries seem to keep coming.
Interesting post on YFSF right now about the supposed failure of the Joba rules.
I think it’s difficult for one organisation to do all of the ground work required to REALLY research this; they could spend millions of dollars, only to have their ideas pinched the minute they formulate them.
What I really meant with the above statement is that these LTAD programmes are run and controlled by the Governing Bodies of the sport; Great Britain Hockey, for example, implemented the strength development programme, the FA did the same in football. Surely it’s in MLB’s interests to keep their star pitchers healthy.