Can you really throw Rogah in there knowing what we know about him? Honestly I have this philosophy on why all these young pitchers seem to have arm injuries. I may be wrong but I think it starts at the youth level. I think you have so many kids throwing pithes that developmentaly they are not ready to throw. For instance how many of these 12 years olds do you see in the LLWS throwing 40 or 50 curveballs in an 85 pitch game? I think at 12 years old your body is not ready for the type of stress that a curveball puts on your elbow and arm. I was at a friend's sons game and I saw this 9 year old throw nothing but curves. I swear he threw like 10 fastballs. I also think that the rules placed at youth and HS ball don't limit the amount of stress these kids put on their arms. These are the NJSIAA rules for a HS pitcher 1. A pitcher may not appear as a pitcher again for three (3) calendar days after having pitched six (6) or more innings on any day. Example April 2 - Pitches 6-10 innings can't pitch again until April 6 2. A pitcher may not appear as a pitcher again for two (2) calendar days after having pitched five (5) innings. Example April 2 - Pitches 5 innings can't pitch again until April 5 3. A pitcher may not appear as a pitcher in more than a total of ten (10) innings during any (4) calendar day period. This does not set aside 1 or 2 above. If an MLB starter is on 5 days rest after going 6 innings why are we allowing high school kids to pitch on 3 days rest after going 6 innings? If he only goes 5 innings he can go again in 2 days. I think there is direct connection between the rest period of youths and injuries of pro pitchers. After a certain point your arm just breaks down. Throw in this is just HS, think if a kid is playing American Leigon or some other AAU type league how much more stress the arm is under. That being said for Strasburg he needs to look no further than his own division and look at Josh Johnson. I believe he had TJ surgery and has bounced back quite nicely.
It's like the torn ACL. It used to be career ending, now guys come back after rehab like it's nothing. The technology of the surgery has come a long way on Tommy John.
I agree with the overall sentiment that young pitchers throw too often and throw too much junk, but MLB starters aren't on five days rest, typically. They are on four days rest (pitch one day, rest four days, pitch again), and they almost always throw a bullpen session after two days. I forget where I saw it, but I remember reading about how the MLB pitchers who played a different position in high school/college and were converted to pitcher in the minors had far fewer injuries as a group than did the ones who were drafted as pitchers. Less mileage on the arm and all that. My family is living proof of the dangers of overworking a young arm. I was a lefty pitcher in high school. Pretty good, too. Blew out my shoulder senior year... pretty sure that the coach asking me to throw a few dozen curves off of an indoor mound at a February "optional" mini-camp wasn't the best of ideas, considering it was my first real throwing of the season. He wasn't the brightest bulb, though, and I was too young/dumb to realize I could get hurt. I felt great at the session. Couldn't lift my arm past shoulder height the next day without pain. (Tried to play through it, though... I'm an idiot.) And there went my chances of playing college ball. I probably should have had surgery. I have a ton of scar tissue in there today, and a rather limited range of motion. Any throwing motion involves a ton of pops and cracks from my shoulder joint. My brother was even better than I was. A lot better, actually. He was righty, but was sitting in mid to high eighties as a 16-year-old, and had a pretty sick slider. Played on traveling teams and impressed a decent number of college scouts. His high school coach wanted to ride him as hard as the rules would allow, but my parents stopped them. Despite their efforts, though, he had elbow issues, and was shut down several times. The issues kept popping up, though, and his velocity dipped a bit. An MRI showed ligament damage. He passed on the surgery, chose rest, but never quite recovered that same zip on his fastball. (Still had a damn good senior year, though.)
I had a friend with a similar situation, kid was a 1st round pick but just couldn't shake the arm issues. When your a lefty and you throw in the high 90's in most cases the coach is going to look out for the best interest of the himself, team, school and player probably in that order. There is no doubt this guy could have at the very least had a very nice minor league career but he lasted about 2 1/2 years and didn't make it out of single A. I have my suspicions that it came from pitching about 30 games between junior and senior year. When you only play about 25 a year that's an issue. I meant 4 days but I was thinking 5 man rotation. Correct me if I'm wrong but don't they only throw about 30 pitches in the bullpen session? That's very interesting about the converted players. Makes a lot more sense.
I swear when I paid for my college tuition they said a Strasburg start was included, I may have to look into getting some of my money back
