Post by prisonerno6 on Sept 22, 2013 12:47:25 GMT -5
New York Times article...
Harvey’s Injury Shows Pitchers Have a Speed Limit
Harvey’s Injury Shows Pitchers Have a Speed Limit
By BARRY BEARAK
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Glenn Fleisig’s rather unusual laboratory has a pitcher’s mound and a home plate, and when he rigs people up to throw a baseball, their motion is analyzed with sensors feeding into computers.
Nearby is a second lab, and that is where Fleisig, the research director at the American Sports Medicine Institute, keeps the body parts, dead shoulders, elbows and knees. These appendages, severed from cadavers, can be stretched until the ligaments and tendons are stressed enough to snap.
Fleisig, a biomedical engineer, knows what an arm can handle, and years of research give him the confidence to answer one of baseball’s more intriguing questions: Is there a limit to how fast a human being can throw?
His answer: Yes, there is.
And, he adds: That limit already has been reached.
“Oh, there may be an outlier, one exception here or there,” he said. “But for major league baseball pitchers as a group of elites, the top isn’t going to go up anymore. With better conditioning and nutrition and mechanics, more pitchers will be toward that top, throwing at 95 or 100. But the top has topped out.”
So 110 will not become the new 100. Fleisig attributes this conclusion to the frailty of ligaments and tendons, already stretched to the limit by the pitching motion, the final whip of which he calls the fastest-known human movement.
“When you ask about performance and velocity, I end up talking about medicine and injury,” he said. “You can’t strengthen tendons and ligaments per se, certainly not as much as muscles. The muscles overwhelm them.”
And then comes that snap.
“Velocity itself is a risk factor for injury,” he said.
Mets pitcher Matt Harvey is the latest unfortunate example to confirm Fleisig’s research. Harvey, a 24-year-old who is among the hardest-throwing starters in baseball, learned Aug. 26 that he has a partial ligament tear in his right elbow. On Monday, Harvey met with Dr. James Andrews, the orthopedic surgeon who is the medical director of the institute. Whether Harvey opts to have surgery that would sideline him for a year — a decision most likely to be made in coming days — will depend to a considerable degree on what Andrews recommends.
And whatever decision is made, it seems clear that Harvey has already come up against his body’s own speed limits.
Those inherent human limits may be bad news for those who believe records are made to be broken, that the fastest inevitably cedes to the faster. On the other hand, no one really knows the record for the fastest pitch ever thrown.
Baseball might have a grand history supported by well-kept statistics, but pitching velocity has not been a mark easy to assess — perhaps until now.
In 2007, Major League Baseball began widespread use of the Pitch F/X system from the company Sportvision in conjunction with MLB Advanced Media; by 2008, the system had been installed in all 30 major league ballparks. Tracking software now follows the trajectory of each pitch, calculating its position and velocity along the way.
The speed readings were not entirely reliable until 2008, according to Graham Goldbeck, Sportvision’s manager of data analytics and operations. But since then, he said, it is a very accurate speedometer.
The fastest pitch recorded by the system is 105.1 miles per hour. It was thrown by Cincinnati Reds reliever Aroldis Chapman on Sept. 24, 2010, during an at-bat by Tony Gwynn Jr. of the San Diego Padres. The pitch was called a ball, leveling the count at 2-2. “I didn’t see it until the ball was behind me,” Gwynn said.
In fact, Chapman has thrown 17 of the 20 fastest pitches recorded by Pitch F/X since 2008, according to Goldbeck. Four of those heaters came during Gwynn’s seven-pitch at-bat, which ended in a strikeout. Two others were thrown by Chapman that same night against other Padres.
Of course, the question of “Who’s the fastest pitcher ever?” will draw different responses from Great Grandpa, Grandpa, Dad and Junior. Likely names surfacing in the conversation would include Walter Johnson, Bob Feller, Satchel Paige, Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson, Billy Wagner and, for real aficionados, Steve Dalkowski.
Early efforts to measure velocity relied on exotic methodologies, including a device called the “gravity drop interval recorder.” In 1912, Johnson’s fastball was timed — with questionable accuracy — at 86.6 m.p.h. at a testing range for bullets.
In 1940, an attempt to gauge Feller’s velocity was made when he agreed to throw a pitch beside a speeding motorcycle, according to the book “High Heat” by Tim Wendel. The motorcycle was moving at 86 m.p.h., and the throw managed to gain 13 feet on the vehicle during a stretch of 60 feet 6 inches, the distance from the pitching rubber to home plate. Calculations put Feller’s velocity at about 104.5.
By legend, Dalkowski might have been the fastest ever. Folklore has him throwing balls through walls and backstops. Ted Williams was said to have faced him for a single pitch during spring training and, after failing to see the ball as it whizzed by, refusing to step back into the batter’s box. Dalkowski played pro ball for nine seasons during the 1950s and 1960s without making it to the majors. He walked nearly as many batters as he struck out.
Radar guns came into use in the 1970s, employing the same technology utilized by the police to catch speeders. These measurements were surely more accurate but perhaps just as maddening. Different guns picked up the velocity at different points in the path of the pitch. Results commonly varied depending on who was operating the device.
Pitch F/X finally brought some uniformity to the gauging of speed. And based on data supplied by Sportvision, velocity certainly seems to matter. Since 2008, batters have hit only .175 against pitches thrown at 100 m.p.h. or above. Batting averages go up as the speed of the pitches goes down: .210 at 99, .213 at 98, .225 at 97, .242 at 96 and .252 at 95.
The number of pitchers who throw high-velocity fastballs is on the rise, according to Sportvision. In 2008, 26 pitchers were averaging 95 and above. In 2009, the number rose to 29; in 2010, 41; in 2011, 42; in 2012, 44. This season the number is 46.
Through mid-September, the pitcher averaging the most velocity with his fastball this season is Chapman at 98.3. Kansas City reliever Kelvin Herrera was second at 97.3. Harvey is at 95.4.
“Everyone is trying to throw faster these days, especially youngsters,” said Fleisig, the biomedical engineer, whose office is in Birmingham. “The ticket to being scouted is to light up someone’s radar gun.” In the process, he said, pitchers are populating the practices of orthopedic surgeons.
But might there be a game-changer, some radical new way to throw faster — and more safely — a motion that would revolutionize baseball in much the way the Fosbury Flop transformed high jumping?
Fleisig said he doubted it. But Mike Marshall, the National League’s Cy Young Award winner in 1974, said that if coaches listened to him, “they’d get 8 to 10 more miles per hour from every pitcher.” He says speeds of 114 to 116 are conceivable.
Marshall, 70, has a Ph.D. in exercise physiology. Until a few years ago, he ran a baseball camp in Florida, where he taught pitchers a new way to throw, stopping them from bringing their arms out to the side. He instructed them to throw in as straight a line as possible toward home plate.
“None of baseball’s big shots cared to listen to me,” said Marshall, whose adaptation had few converts.
He no longer watches the national pastime, saying, “I can’t stand the way they pitch.”
Harvey’s Injury Shows Pitchers Have a Speed Limit
Harvey’s Injury Shows Pitchers Have a Speed Limit
By BARRY BEARAK
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Glenn Fleisig’s rather unusual laboratory has a pitcher’s mound and a home plate, and when he rigs people up to throw a baseball, their motion is analyzed with sensors feeding into computers.
Nearby is a second lab, and that is where Fleisig, the research director at the American Sports Medicine Institute, keeps the body parts, dead shoulders, elbows and knees. These appendages, severed from cadavers, can be stretched until the ligaments and tendons are stressed enough to snap.
Fleisig, a biomedical engineer, knows what an arm can handle, and years of research give him the confidence to answer one of baseball’s more intriguing questions: Is there a limit to how fast a human being can throw?
His answer: Yes, there is.
And, he adds: That limit already has been reached.
“Oh, there may be an outlier, one exception here or there,” he said. “But for major league baseball pitchers as a group of elites, the top isn’t going to go up anymore. With better conditioning and nutrition and mechanics, more pitchers will be toward that top, throwing at 95 or 100. But the top has topped out.”
So 110 will not become the new 100. Fleisig attributes this conclusion to the frailty of ligaments and tendons, already stretched to the limit by the pitching motion, the final whip of which he calls the fastest-known human movement.
“When you ask about performance and velocity, I end up talking about medicine and injury,” he said. “You can’t strengthen tendons and ligaments per se, certainly not as much as muscles. The muscles overwhelm them.”
And then comes that snap.
“Velocity itself is a risk factor for injury,” he said.
Mets pitcher Matt Harvey is the latest unfortunate example to confirm Fleisig’s research. Harvey, a 24-year-old who is among the hardest-throwing starters in baseball, learned Aug. 26 that he has a partial ligament tear in his right elbow. On Monday, Harvey met with Dr. James Andrews, the orthopedic surgeon who is the medical director of the institute. Whether Harvey opts to have surgery that would sideline him for a year — a decision most likely to be made in coming days — will depend to a considerable degree on what Andrews recommends.
And whatever decision is made, it seems clear that Harvey has already come up against his body’s own speed limits.
Those inherent human limits may be bad news for those who believe records are made to be broken, that the fastest inevitably cedes to the faster. On the other hand, no one really knows the record for the fastest pitch ever thrown.
Baseball might have a grand history supported by well-kept statistics, but pitching velocity has not been a mark easy to assess — perhaps until now.
In 2007, Major League Baseball began widespread use of the Pitch F/X system from the company Sportvision in conjunction with MLB Advanced Media; by 2008, the system had been installed in all 30 major league ballparks. Tracking software now follows the trajectory of each pitch, calculating its position and velocity along the way.
The speed readings were not entirely reliable until 2008, according to Graham Goldbeck, Sportvision’s manager of data analytics and operations. But since then, he said, it is a very accurate speedometer.
The fastest pitch recorded by the system is 105.1 miles per hour. It was thrown by Cincinnati Reds reliever Aroldis Chapman on Sept. 24, 2010, during an at-bat by Tony Gwynn Jr. of the San Diego Padres. The pitch was called a ball, leveling the count at 2-2. “I didn’t see it until the ball was behind me,” Gwynn said.
In fact, Chapman has thrown 17 of the 20 fastest pitches recorded by Pitch F/X since 2008, according to Goldbeck. Four of those heaters came during Gwynn’s seven-pitch at-bat, which ended in a strikeout. Two others were thrown by Chapman that same night against other Padres.
Of course, the question of “Who’s the fastest pitcher ever?” will draw different responses from Great Grandpa, Grandpa, Dad and Junior. Likely names surfacing in the conversation would include Walter Johnson, Bob Feller, Satchel Paige, Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson, Billy Wagner and, for real aficionados, Steve Dalkowski.
Early efforts to measure velocity relied on exotic methodologies, including a device called the “gravity drop interval recorder.” In 1912, Johnson’s fastball was timed — with questionable accuracy — at 86.6 m.p.h. at a testing range for bullets.
In 1940, an attempt to gauge Feller’s velocity was made when he agreed to throw a pitch beside a speeding motorcycle, according to the book “High Heat” by Tim Wendel. The motorcycle was moving at 86 m.p.h., and the throw managed to gain 13 feet on the vehicle during a stretch of 60 feet 6 inches, the distance from the pitching rubber to home plate. Calculations put Feller’s velocity at about 104.5.
By legend, Dalkowski might have been the fastest ever. Folklore has him throwing balls through walls and backstops. Ted Williams was said to have faced him for a single pitch during spring training and, after failing to see the ball as it whizzed by, refusing to step back into the batter’s box. Dalkowski played pro ball for nine seasons during the 1950s and 1960s without making it to the majors. He walked nearly as many batters as he struck out.
Radar guns came into use in the 1970s, employing the same technology utilized by the police to catch speeders. These measurements were surely more accurate but perhaps just as maddening. Different guns picked up the velocity at different points in the path of the pitch. Results commonly varied depending on who was operating the device.
Pitch F/X finally brought some uniformity to the gauging of speed. And based on data supplied by Sportvision, velocity certainly seems to matter. Since 2008, batters have hit only .175 against pitches thrown at 100 m.p.h. or above. Batting averages go up as the speed of the pitches goes down: .210 at 99, .213 at 98, .225 at 97, .242 at 96 and .252 at 95.
The number of pitchers who throw high-velocity fastballs is on the rise, according to Sportvision. In 2008, 26 pitchers were averaging 95 and above. In 2009, the number rose to 29; in 2010, 41; in 2011, 42; in 2012, 44. This season the number is 46.
Through mid-September, the pitcher averaging the most velocity with his fastball this season is Chapman at 98.3. Kansas City reliever Kelvin Herrera was second at 97.3. Harvey is at 95.4.
“Everyone is trying to throw faster these days, especially youngsters,” said Fleisig, the biomedical engineer, whose office is in Birmingham. “The ticket to being scouted is to light up someone’s radar gun.” In the process, he said, pitchers are populating the practices of orthopedic surgeons.
But might there be a game-changer, some radical new way to throw faster — and more safely — a motion that would revolutionize baseball in much the way the Fosbury Flop transformed high jumping?
Fleisig said he doubted it. But Mike Marshall, the National League’s Cy Young Award winner in 1974, said that if coaches listened to him, “they’d get 8 to 10 more miles per hour from every pitcher.” He says speeds of 114 to 116 are conceivable.
Marshall, 70, has a Ph.D. in exercise physiology. Until a few years ago, he ran a baseball camp in Florida, where he taught pitchers a new way to throw, stopping them from bringing their arms out to the side. He instructed them to throw in as straight a line as possible toward home plate.
“None of baseball’s big shots cared to listen to me,” said Marshall, whose adaptation had few converts.
He no longer watches the national pastime, saying, “I can’t stand the way they pitch.”
