BSR on Tommy John

[Dawgology]

So, Hadad interviewed one of the leading experts on Tommy Johns and the stats are eye-opening. Major programs have 1 Tommy John surgery every three years on average. We have seven...seven...in 15 months. That's insane.

With that being said, it's got to be something fundamentally that we are doing in practice to cause this. It's NOT a coincidence.

Incidentally the expert said that 20% don't recover from TJ surgery. We have 7 with TJ so I guess it's time to roll the dice and see who makes it back.

[missouridawg]

To me, the most frustrating part of our situation is that 4 or 5 of our surgeries occurred in the past 2 months, I believe. Which means we essentially lose 2 years of the player instead of just 1.

[MarketingBully]

Well the culprit is gone. We are just dealing with the aftermath of it.

[Tbonewannabe]

To me, the most frustrating part of our situation is that 4 or 5 of our surgeries occurred in the past 2 months, I believe. Which means we essentially lose 2 years of the player instead of just 1.

It makes it even harder with the scholarship limits in baseball. You can't afford to have someone on your roster recovering. So if someone redshirts then they don't count toward the 35 man roster but is their scholarship still count towards the 11.7? whate

[ShotgunDawg]

It will be interesting to see things go at Arkansas for Wes.

I'm curious if the problem wasn't necessarily Wes' system but maybe because we went from Butch's conservative system and immediately dove into Wes' aggressive system and then went back down Henderson's conservative system.

I'm curious if Wes being hired late in the year last year didn't give our pitchers time "work" into it. Maybe we were like an out of shape man that tried to run a marathon too fast. There's nothing wrong with running a marathon but running one before your ready could be problematic. The running one and backing the program all the way down to Henderson's style may not have helped either.

Just saying, let's keep an eye on Arkansas. Not just this year but long term. See if their TJs go up over the next 3-5 years or fall. I know that's boring, but it's the best perspective to view this if you actually want the best answer.

If you going to blame Wes, that's fine, but also admit that he came in at a funny time of year and followed a coach with a completely different style.

[MarketingBully]

It will be interesting to see things go at Arkansas for Wes.

I'm curious if the problem wasn't necessarily Wes' system but maybe because we went from Butch's conservative system and immediately dove into Wes' aggressive system and then went back down Henderson's conservative system.

I'm curious if Wes being hired late in the year last year didn't give our pitchers time "work" into it. Maybe we were like an out of shape man that tried to run a marathon too fast. There's nothing wrong with running a marathon but running one before your ready could be problematic. The running one and backing the program all the way down to Henderson's style may not have helped either.

Just saying, let's keep an eye on Arkansas. Not just this year but long term. See if their TJs go up over the next 3-5 years or fall. I know that's boring, but it's the best perspective to view this if you actually want the best answer.

If you going to blame Wes, that's fine, but also admit that he came in at a funny time of year and followed a coach with a completely different style.

They already have 3. We had a thread on this earlier.

[Tbonewannabe]

It will be interesting to see things go at Arkansas for Wes.

I'm curious if the problem wasn't necessarily Wes' system but maybe because we went from Butch's conservative system and immediately dove into Wes' aggressive system and then went back down Henderson's conservative system.

I'm curious if Wes being hired late in the year last year didn't give our pitchers time "work" into it. Maybe we were like an out of shape man that tried to run a marathon too fast. There's nothing wrong with running a marathon but running one before your ready could be problematic. The running one and backing the program all the way down to Henderson's style may not have helped either.

Just saying, let's keep an eye on Arkansas. Not just this year but long term. See if their TJs go up over the next 3-5 years or fall. I know that's boring, but it's the best perspective to view this if you actually want the best answer.

If you going to blame Wes, that's fine, but also admit that he came in at a funny time of year and followed a coach with a completely different style.

Might be the case but Wes is like the trainer pushing the guy to run fast until he blows out his knee then can't run the marathon. Wes had to know how hard to push someone if you are going to use a somewhat dangerous training method.

[MetEdDawg]

Might be the case but Wes is like the trainer pushing the guy to run fast until he blows out his knee then can't run the marathon. Wes had to know how hard to push someone if you are going to use a somewhat dangerous training method.

He most likely pushed too hard. It's a delicate balance. I was using weighted balls with my 9th graders pre season. Starting having too many sore arms and elbows and their recovery times were getting longer so I cut them out and we did more weights instead. Arm problems went away. At the college level, you don't have the luxury of doing that kind of stuff because you have a vision of where kids need to be in your system and when you have a philosophy you subscribe to you rarely deviate from it.

I'm not sure if he planned on being here longer than one year when he took the job but I would imagine to catch up for lost time he probably pushed too much.

[Commercecomet24]

He most likely pushed too hard. It's a delicate balance. I was using weighted balls with my 9th graders pre season. Starting having too many sore arms and elbows and their recovery times were getting longer so I cut them out and we did more weights instead. Arm problems went away. At the college level, you don't have the luxury of doing that kind of stuff because you have a vision of where kids need to be in your system and when you have a philosophy you subscribe to you rarely deviate from it.

I'm not sure if he planned on being here longer than one year when he took the job but I would imagine to catch up for lost time he probably pushed too much.

I believe this is the best perspective. Wes didn't have these problems anywhere else he coached. Something definitely went wrong here though and its looking like he may have pushed to hard.

[Commercecomet24]

He most likely pushed too hard. It's a delicate balance. I was using weighted balls with my 9th graders pre season. Starting having too many sore arms and elbows and their recovery times were getting longer so I cut them out and we did more weights instead. Arm problems went away. At the college level, you don't have the luxury of doing that kind of stuff because you have a vision of where kids need to be in your system and when you have a philosophy you subscribe to you rarely deviate from it.

I'm not sure if he planned on being here longer than one year when he took the job but I would imagine to catch up for lost time he probably pushed too much.

I believe this is the best perspective. Wes didn't have these problems anywhere else he coached. Something definitely went wrong here though and its looking like he may have pushed to hard.

[maroonmania]

Might be the case but Wes is like the trainer pushing the guy to run fast until he blows out his knee then can't run the marathon. Wes had to know how hard to push someone if you are going to use a somewhat dangerous training method.

Agreed, it Johnson's fault either way. If you bring in a new pitching methodology to a staff you are unfamiliar with then you have to use extreme caution. Like the guy said on BSR, if you start training a pitcher a different way then they are going to be using muscle forces in a different way and stress areas that might not have been used to stress previously. All of that has to be monitored by the new pitching coach into understanding the soreness a pitcher is feeling when asked to do different things than what he had been doing. Sounds to me like Wes just went full out with his style with no real thought of long term effects. And of course he got out of Dodge before most of the fallout occurred.

[hailstate17]

You guys realize that marze and ford never did anything for Johnson. Smith and James had there's done in February. You blaming that on Johnson? I think one of the big reasons is whoever the genius is that decides to send these guys to summer ball after they throw a lot of innings. A pitcher shouldn't throw in summer unless they got no innings that year. Pitching in fall, spring, and summer have more of a factor to me that Johnson and his weighted balls

[maroonmania]

You guys realize that marze and ford never did anything for Johnson. Smith and James had there's done in February. You blaming that on Johnson? I think one of the big reasons is whoever the genius is that decides to send these guys to summer ball after they throw a lot of innings. A pitcher shouldn't throw in summer unless they got no innings that year. Pitching in fall, spring, and summer have more of a factor to me that Johnson and his weighted balls

Sorry but your reasoning doesn't even begin to explain the disproportionate number of TJ cases specific to MSU. Unless someone can tell me how our program has been demanding our pitchers to throw so many more innings over a complete calendar year than the majority of other college programs then I totally reject your reasoning. We have had a problem over the past year specific to us that is WAY out of the norm for college programs. As far as I know all college pitchers throw some in summer leagues if healthy, not just guys from MSU.

[ShotgunDawg]

They already have 3. We had a thread on this earlier.

Campbell is the only legit one. McKinney has been hurt since high school and Scroggins doesn't count. He was a position player that was just a thrower with bad mechanics.

[Homedawg]

It makes it even harder with the scholarship limits in baseball. You can't afford to have someone on your roster recovering. So if someone redshirts then they don't count toward the 35 man roster but is their scholarship still count towards the 11.7? whate

If someone is on scholarship they count against the 35 period. They can redshirt but they still count. The only person that wouldn't count is a non scholarship guy that they redshirt. In our case we started the year w a 32 man roster in essence. Now we are down to 29. Subtract, marrero and that's 28. Self is hurt, presently, that's 27.

[fishwater99]

Well the culprit is gone. We are just dealing with the aftermath of it.

We hope he was the problem.. Are you sure.. Time will tell..

[AlSwearengen]

I wonder if Johnson didn't get caught up in his own "velocity" hype and over did things when he got here. We made a big hoopla about how this guy was going to increase velocity blah blah blah and he probably felt some pressure to live up to that hype.

ETA: As bad as it sounds, we damn sure better be pinning all of this on Johnson when we are on the recruiting trail.

[Cooterpoot]

When you start pushing arms to throw hard, you're going to have problems. Not that many kids are made to throw 95 mph and pushing them to do it, with or without weighted balls, is going to tear up some arms.

[preachermatt83]

Well the culprit is gone. We are just dealing with the aftermath of it.

Yup

[HoopsDawg]

I believe this is the best perspective. Wes didn't have these problems anywhere else he coached. Something definitely went wrong here though and its looking like he may have pushed to hard.

It's possible he changed his coaching techniques after he left Dallas Baptist or maybe just a year b/f he left Dallas Baptist. Weighted ball training really started gaining traction the past couple of years.