The Effects of Hidden Injuries

Well I've just finished up the week of double sessions for both men's and women's soccer teams which is the reason why there has been a definitive lack of posting lately for me. During this time, as usual, I am always amazed as to the length that athletes will try to hide their injuries from the medical personnel while others will often complain about the smallest thing.

Even though Major League players are used to medical personnel, this doesn't change their attitudes any bit from the college athletes I work with on a daily basis. Even though having to deal with the most minor of issues is at times annoying, I'd much rather have that then have athletes hide their injuries or at least hide the extent of their injuries from me.

I had an athlete lie to me about the knee buckling on them, which ended up being an ACL tear most likely. The athlete didn't tell me about how often the knee was buckling and because of it, they could not only be facing surgery to repair the ACL, they may also be facing meniscal surgery or surgery to the cartilage of the knee.

All major leaguers go through the same thing, whether it be hiding elbow pain or shoulder soreness or even foot pain. Think of Kerry Wood, Mark Prior, or even Andy Pettitte. Hiding injuries can only last for so long but it always catches up to you.

This is why I think that Pitch FX has such a possibility to help revolutionize medical care. Some teams are already using biomechanical analysis in their pitchers but I don't know how many are using PFX. I think the ultimate goal and eventual gold standard Will Carroll somewhat touched upon. I think that overlaying the PFX with live video is key but also integrating that with pre and post biomechanical analysis. I think this is key in order to truly understand the effects of fatigue on pitching. Hopefully I'll be able to examine it more with PFX soon.

New Article at RotoSavants

So we're trying a new idea at RotoSavants and our first test subject is Manny Parra. Hope you check it out, there's going to be some good discussion about what we look for and what we believe.

Beckett Injury PFX

So I've started working the pre-season camps for the College that I work at, hence why I've been a little delayed in getting a new article up. I want to cover Beckett's injury which I hypothesized about here last week. The fact that it is an elbow injury will lead everyone to believe that there will be some automatic control issue.

To cover our bases, the speed and vertical release point are essentially the same over the last month or two.


There's not much difference here at all. In fact, his end velocity might have increased some. Movement is another story though as seen by the chart below. His fastball and curveball are both much more straight. The curveball especially and this makes sense as he probably is experiencing pain when he tries to snap one off. It has really only happenned though very recently which leads me to believe that it's not a chronic condition like a chronic tear of the UCL of the elbow.

These next two charts are what happens with the pitch. First whether it's a ball,strike, or hit into play. The next one is a more detailed version.

Lately I would argue that his command is about average for him this year. He's not increasing in the % of balls thrown or even balls hit into play. He is giving up more hits recently though as the balls are hit harder than they were before.

This quick analysis leads me to believe one thing. The nerve issue is giving him problems and not control issues, therefore the ligament is healthy. He's not doing well because he can't get the same amount of movement on his pitches as he was before which makes him more likely to get hid hard, although not necessarily more often. He's due to pitch Friday but I would not be surprised to see him pushed back even farther which would only cause more angst among Sox fans.

Injury Analysis

I've got a new article up at Fighting Chance Fantasy. I hope you check it out.