An early-season elbow epidemic continues to plague several of MLB’s top pitchers, much to the chagrin of the league’s players union.
Revelations over the weekend included that the Guardians’ Shane Bieber needs Tommy John surgery, the Yankees’ Jonathan Loáisiga also needs a season-ending operation, and the Braves’ Spencer Strider has a damaged ulnar collateral ligament.
These developments came days after the Marlins announced 20-year-old Eury Perez, a prized prospect who debuted last season, needed Tommy John surgery.
Amid the rash of elbow issues, the MLB Players Association pointed to the league’s shortened pitch clock, which this season gives pitchers 18 seconds between pitches with runners on base.
“Despite unanimous player opposition and significant concerns regarding health and safety, the commissioner’s office reduced the length of the pitch clock last December, just one season removed from imposing the most significant rule change in decades,” Tony Clark, the MLBPA’s executive director, said in a statement.
“Since then, our concerns about the health impacts of reduced recovery time have only intensified. The league’s unwillingness thus far to acknowledge or study the effects of these profound changes is an unprecedented threat to our game and its most valuable asset — the players.”
MLB introduced the pitch clock before the 2023 season in an effort to speed up games, originally giving pitchers 15 seconds between pitches with the bases empty and 20 seconds with at least one runner on.
The players union pushed back against a decision this offseason to shorten the time with baserunners by two seconds.
On Saturday, MLB responded to the MLBPA’s latest criticism by citing a Johns Hopkins study finding “no evidence to support that the introduction of the pitch clock has increased injuries.”
“This [MLBPA} statement ignores the empirical evidence and much more significant long-term trend, over multiple decades, of velocity and spin increases that are highly correlated with arm injuries,” MLB said in its own statement.
Strider, Perez and Loáisiga each averaged at least 96.3 mph on their primary pitch this season. Bieber’s four-seam fastball, meanwhile, averaged 92.0 mph over his 12 innings – all scoreless – in 2024, compared to 91.3 mph over 128 innings last year.
The 25-year-old Strider, whose 20 wins and 281 strikeouts last season led MLB pitchers, is set to meet with Texas-based orthopedic surgeon Dr. Keith Meister to help determine his path of treatment.
