Lessons From a Covid Baseball Season

The Corona Season 

2020 and the Coronavirus have affected different aspects of our lives in many ways. As anticipated as it was to return to sports, COVID-19 still affected the game and played a role on the pitcher's health during the season. Here in Michigan, we saw a spike in sore arms, throwing shutdowns, injuries to pitchers throughout travel organizations, and the youngest UCL injury I have personally seen in my short career, all despite a shorter season. For many youth players, the late start of the season didn't bring fewer games. It simply condensed the entirety of a regular-season into a few months and even a few extra tournaments into the colder weather. To break down why this spike happened, you can look at this pandemic in compounding layers.

 Layer One: Lack of Preparation and A Sudden Start

With the compounding effects of injury rates rising annually in baseball and the Corona pandemic, injuries happened throughout all levels of baseball at an intense rate, with some big names getting hurt in the MLB. The timing of society opening up and the start of the season was unsure, to say the least, making it hard to prepare for any season. With teams unable or having limited time to practice, youth teams jumped right into tournaments, bypassing or condensing a proper building-up period for many youth players. In order to prepare for a season, the body requires this period so it doesn't shock the system. Very similar to why marathon runners steadily increase their running distance while training before the actual meet. This isn't revolutionary, but it is progressively getting overlooked in the youth baseball culture with the constant pressure to fit in as many tournaments as possible.

From an MLB standpoint, resources for an MLB pitcher to continue throwing bullpens and keeping his body in performance shape are abundant. Even once the MLB season was allowed to start, modified summer camp started in mid-to late July, allowing everyone to finish preparing and iron out organizational issues. Unfortunately, in the youth population, depending on state restrictions, tournaments and weekend double-headers were in full swing by the time the MLB clubs were arriving for summer camp. Many youth teams had already been playing for close to a month with less preparation and resources. For an MLB pitcher, his body's health and performance is vital, and the quality of his preparation can make or break his season. We would generally consider MLB players to be the most capable of handling the stress of throwing a baseball. For a youth player, who is typically not as strong or physically mature as an MLB pitcher, to be underprepared and rushed into a season adds risk factors to his throwing health. 

Layer Two: Lack of Depth to Handle Increased Demand

For many travel organizations, there was an increased pressure to fit in as many games as possible. Teams may have seen a heavier volume of games each weekend and even some games squeezed in during the week. With this increased volume, the supply of pitchers per team generally remained the same. To meet the increased demand, teams would have to pitch players not used to pitching and squeeze more innings out of their established pitchers. As a former youth travel coach, this is a common dilemma that many coaches see every week. Unfortunately, we saw more established pitchers get overused in this situation and have to shut down with arm injuries or soreness. Many coaches relied on these consistent pitchers, pushing their bodies limit to support the extra stress. 

For the MLB, this was a predictable problem. To combat it, they enacted roster expansions, COVID taxi squads, and seven inning games. Despite these protocols, MLB teams still averaged over 2.5 pitchers on the 60-day DL for 2020. For youth travel baseball, tournaments are financially driven and often individually-run, making MLB-like organization and protocols impossible. With the lack of organization and protocols, the amount of innings that a youth pitcher throws in a season is left up to coaches and their parents.

Layer Three: Individual Foundational Issues in Mechanics

 This layer has been an ongoing issue for the past few decades and has been accelerating quicker every year. Timing and mechanics directly lead to the number of innings that a player can support before a significant injury. For many pitchers, this is the easiest to control and help increase our performance and support system. We find that the youth population has an average DVS Score of 12, putting the average youth player in an at-risk category. This is very similar to when a builder is constructing a building. The most crucial aspect of that building is the structural foundation. With cracks or faults in the structure, a building is sure to collapse or need repairs. With the COVID season and other cultural factors, more levels were added on top of each player's foundation. Players with more inefficiencies in their deliveries tend to show signs of injuries earlier than players with better foundations.

 What We Learned Moving Forward

Fortunately, injuries and arm soreness can happen less often. For pitchers to have a healthier season, they have to understand what their bodies need to throw at a high level and how much is too much. During the COVID season, many highly competitive youth players throw at high intensities during pitching lessons, bullpens, infield or outfield practice, team practice, and during a heavy load of games every week. This dramatically reduces the time that the body has to recover and prepare for the next performance. To categorize throws by intensities instead of type or position, this may shed light on the actual workload that is being asked of the youth player. To allow time for the body to recover may reduce the number of outings or high-intensity throws that are made, but this is necessary for longevity. An easy way of organizing throwing throughout the season is with a quality throwing program that takes several factors into consideration, including recovery time, different throw intensities, and arm or body soreness.

A major part of handling the increasing demands of throwing in youth baseball is to efficiently create a high-intensity throw. There are many different variables involved in this process, but the most controllable from a player's standpoint is improving sequencing and timing in the delivery to reduce force put on the joints when they throw. Going back to the structure of a building analogy, this would be improving the foundational level of the building so that more levels or floors can be built. But, with the current trend, players tend to add more high-intensity throws without knowledge of their foundation, leading to earlier fatigue or lingering ailments that prohibit them from participating. A player would be able to see their grade of sequencing and timing through a DVS Score, along with the knowledge on how to improve it.