re: Little kids throwing curve balls.

Haha I thought about making this point. A lot of guys are mad their son’s glorious baseball career got derailed early and are desperately looking for a scapegoat other than their own bad coaching and their son’s genetics.

If you look closely at this thread, you can easily pick out the angry lunatic dads and uncle rico washouts. For years they have attributed their failure to something, heaven forbid someone come in someone come in and tell them those curve balls they threw when they were 12 weren’t responsible for them not being major leaguers today

My boys are in 12U and have started throwing a few curves this season. They’ve been throwing change ups for a couple of summers.

We faced pitchers last two years that were 80-90% curve ball pitchers.

Teach em to throw a change up consistently and you’ll thank me later.

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Quit listening to sound bites from the mlb network and actually learn about the mechanics of the pitch before sounding off on something you don’t understand

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My apologies. I had no idea I was communicating with someone with a greater knowledge on the subject than the best orthopedic surgeons and MLB. Best of luck to your son trailblazer.

High school.

I played D1 at Louisville, and pitched. I've helped travel baseball coaches with their players, with focus mainly on pitching.

There's absolutely no reason to teach anything but control, changing speeds, and pitch location early on. I'm not going into detail on wear and tear, because any dumbass here can Google.

The best and most successful pitchers I've seen up to 16 years old are ones that have the aforementioned tools. Most, if not all of them, were also brought up with people that followed pitch count protocol, and taught proper care. Many also had "natural" movement to their pitches based on a variety of aspects to their pitching from speed to technique.

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Even the ones that know shite, they don't know shite.

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Docs and trainers can't exactly go around saying this.

I firmly believe that the increase in injuries like UCL tears has to do with guys throwing harder than ever before. However, I think that stability and strength and rest can help combat the stress. I've said this once and it deservers saying again. Mechanics taught in pitching aren't centered around the goal of keeping the pitcher healthy. They are centered around being able to throw it hard with control and consistency. Period.

And when it comes to curves/sliders, I truly believe that when you change anything about the motion whether it be simply turning the wrist or completely different mechanics, you are suddenly changing where those stresses in the arm occur and this leads to a higher likelihood of injury in general. Obviously, kids will eventually throw new pitches or change slots or mechanics. All we can do is what I mentioned early. Make sure they have the strength and stability to handle that change. This is why so many "experts" still say that curveballs should wait to be taught as long as possible. The stronger someone is with most of the physical development out of the way, the better chance he has at successfully throwing new pitches without injury/pain.

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This is similar to what i taught him.

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He's teaching a slider with that arm slot and grip, fwiw.

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13/14 isn’t going to wreck arms

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I don't think anyone is arguing against that age. It's freshman year for most players.

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dr Andrews has said many times that breaking balls aren’t the culprit.. over usage and lack of proper time off are the leading cause for arm injuries.

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He's basing that off of the kinetic data that shows curves are less stressful at the shoulder and elbow. But peer reviews and others don't see that as some breakthrough. It's no revelation that a curve which doesn't have the potential energy of a fastball also doesn't stress the areas where that potential energy is stored as much. The problem with that study is that you can't get data on specific tissue like the rotator or the UCL. So while he's not wrong in general about a curveball being "bad", there's still no data to suggest that it's "not bad" either. The same data that he refers to also shows that mechanics play no part. Yet this thread is full of people saying that curves are fine "with the right mechanics".

The misinformation is everywhere. For one, studies have shown different things over the years with even the most recent ones unable to pinpoint a cause. Second, even doctors have changed their stance. So while you have Andrews saying it's solely overuse, that wasn't always what he said and he still advocates waiting until players are more physically developed to throw them which is a contradiction somewhat.

The current advice is "don't do anything too much too soon". But all of that is relative. Adolescence isn't a specific date on a calendar we can all point to for every boy or girl. And even then you still have boys and men who are built differently where no amount of precaution or strength training will prevent their UCL from tearing after X amount of pitches over 90 mph.

Not at all. He’s right. Just an observation.