What is up with all of the injuries MLB-wide?

[Chuck]

The number of days on the DL are already up 8%, which is significant. This doesn't even factor in the minor leaguers. 

Do you think it's what we're eating/drinking? Supplements? Training regiments (or the lack thereof)?

I don't remember this many injuries back in the 80's, 90's or even in the past decade. The past two years have been crazy though. 

Any ideas?

[Inside Pitch]

18 minutes ago, Chuckster70 said:

The number of days on the DL are already up 8%, which is significant. This doesn't even factor in the minor leaguers. 

Do you think it's what we're eating/drinking? Supplements? Training regiments (or the lack thereof)?

I don't remember this many injuries back in the 80's, 90's or even in the past decade. The past two years have been crazy though. 

Any ideas?

The more you push the human body to it's extremes, the more likely you'll see an injury.   Athletes today are far more maxed out than they were 20 years ago -- I think it's only natural that injuries are up.   The crackdown on PEDs is likely also at play -- some of those guys weren't using to get bigger, but rather to overcome fatigue -- and as it's been written about countless times -- fatigue is the most common factor that leads to injuries.

The Angels pitching woes are IMO, just bad luck....   An extreme reversal of what they saw the previous ten years.

[Blarg]

I think the stat performance preoccupation by clubs make it so a player cannot pace themselves to play the season as a season rather than trying to be in top gear every game.

Sure, there are some that look like they aren't working that hard (see Garret Anderson career) but they've made a conscious decision to play like there is going to be a game tomorrow and don't want to be on the bench nursing a pulled or strained something. Others play like they will be on the bench if they don't lay out for that pop up and eat some grass. Those guys are your 8% candidates.

On the pitching side these guys start out with their best heat rather than work their way up to it through the innings like some of the old school pitchers did, giving the batter a look at more velocity in the latter innings rather than decreased because of tiredness. The idea of come out strong and try to maintain that same velocity through 7 innings is grinding these arms down. 

Of course this is just a layman's opinion.

[Jason]

I think that most clubs are over protective of their players (investments) and baby any little injuries they have. I'd do the same thing if I were them. 

[Angel Oracle]

21 minutes ago, Blarg said:

I think the stat performance preoccupation by clubs make it so a player cannot pace themselves to play the season as a season rather than trying to be in top gear every game.

Sure, there are some that look like they aren't working that hard (see Garret Anderson career) but they've made a conscious decision to play like there is going to be a game tomorrow and don't want to be on the bench nursing a pulled or strained something. Others play like they will be on the bench if they don't lay out for that pop up and eat some grass. Those guys are your 8% candidates.

On the pitching side these guys start out with their best heat rather than work their way up to it through the innings like some of the old school pitchers did, giving the batter a look at more velocity in the latter innings rather than decreased because of tiredness. The idea of come out strong and try to maintain that same velocity through 7 innings is grinding these arms down. 

Of course this is just a layman's opinion.

Verlander gets it.   He usually dials it up later on as the game progresses.  iirc, so does Kershaw.

Also, could a little bit of the increase in DL stays be attributed to teams making use of the shorter DL time (10 days vs 15 days)?

[Brent Maguire]

The answer for pitcher is easy: this is the generation of pitchers who were throwing too much as kids and they're also throwing harder than any group of pitchers ever had. More velocity means more wear and tear on the elbow, which leads to injuries.

IP's reasoning applies for the position players. Some of these guys are so maxed out physically that they're more susceptible to injuries. These guys nowadays are much bigger and stronger than they were pre-steroid era. 

[Junkballer]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3445126/

Study that analyses mechanics, velocity, fatigue, pitch type, youth development.  Some interesting thoughts on lead foot placement of high velocity pitchers affecting arm mechanics.  Fairly general conclusions altogether though. There's links to several other studies on the web page as well.

I would think that the combination of high velocity pitching mechanics and fatigue would be an obvious culprit, but these injuries seem just as likely to occur when arms are fresh at the beginning of the season.  I tend to lean towards cumulative damage from more competitive youth environments, all that travel ball and a pervasive mindset of pitching through fatigue as the baseline issue but to what extent is very hard to say.

[Ace-Of-Diamonds]

8 minutes ago, Jason said:

I think that most clubs are over protective of their players (investments) and baby any little injuries they have. I'd do the same thing if I were them. 

The last 3 or 4years of Koufax's career would never have happened today. They said he had arthritis, but they didn't have the benefit of an MRI machine. He had a bad elbow, they used extraordinary measures for him to be able to pitch. He was being treated by D. Jobe, (inventor of the Tommy John surgery). Koufax said if Dr. Jobe had thought of the surgery a couple of years earlier It might be known as the Sandy Koufax surgery.

When Koufax walked away from baseball in 1966 he was at the top of his game winner or the Cy young award with a 27-9 record, an ERA of 1.73, 27 CG, 5 shut outs, and 317 SO in 323 innings. in fact he won 3 Cy Young's and 1 MVP and 2 second place finishes for MVP in his last 4 years.

He had cortisone injections 2 or 3 times a week if I remember correctly. He did all this with a torn UCL. He walked away in 1966 after maybe his best season ever, because he said he wanted to be able to brush his teeth when he was older.

http://mlb.nbcsports.com/2012/07/14/dr-frank-jobe-it-could-have-been-sandy-koufax-surgery/

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1672080-dr-frank-jobe-tommy-john-and-the-surgery-that-changed-baseball-forever

[Troll Daddy]

Too many banned substances imo. This isn't the Olympics. Cut down on the soft core substances that helps a player fight fatigue and promote/prevents recovery from injury.