You could field a good team with the injured players sitting out opening day or just about any day during the season. This seems to be a pretty bold statement to make but if you look at the number of players sitting out on any given day you’ll see it is not far from the truth.
If we ignore the myth that baseball is doing everything in its power to prevent baseball injuries you can see that most of the injuries are indicative of one or more of the following factors:
- The players are not in very good physical condition to withstand the stresses involved in execution of the skills,
- The players are not doing skill specific strength exercises to strengthen the muscles in exactly the same manner as they are used in throwing, running etc.
- Teams are not doing skill technique analyses to determine if the players are doing something ineffectively in execution of the skill that is causing the injury. This is especially true of the pitchers.
- The teams are still continuing in their old ways when it comes to injury prevention. They still believe that injuries are just a “part of the game”. They appear to have a hard time accepting the fact that most of these injuries are preventable.
In regard to not being in very good physical condition, this becomes obvious just by looking at various players and by watching the type of training done in spring ball and during the season. In spring training most of the training is geared to getting used to throwing, running, hitting and getting ready to play preseason games.
There is very little, if any training done in regard to enhancement or improving player performance in comparison to the previous season in spring training or in-season. But the younger players can be improved from year to year. Older players can maintain their abilities for longer periods of time. To do this however, the players would have to be in much better physical and technical condition and be ready to exert themselves to their fullest. Doing this will go a long ways to the prevention of baseball injuries.
The second factor, not doing specific strength exercises is related to the first. Specific strength exercises, that develop strength as it is displayed in execution of the skill, is needed not only to improve skill execution, but to prevent baseball injuries. Keep in mind that injuries have a neuromuscular base.
When you develop strength in the same manner as it is used in execution of the skill you enhance the ability of the player to execute the skill more effectively. In addition, because the pattern of movement in the exercise duplicates the pattern of movement in the skill execution, you improve coordination which is perhaps the biggest factor in the prevention of injury, including baseball injuries.
The third factor, that teams are not doing skill analyses, indicates that teams are not looking to find out what causes baseball injuries, especially to pitchers. It seems that they prefer to give the athlete more rest and to limit the amount of pitching that he does. But as sports science has shown many times, rest does not make the muscles stronger nor is more rest needed except in cases of overtraining, which is rare in a well-conditioned and physically prepared player. But this practice does not prevent baseball injuries it is
The fourth factor that is related to teams continuing in their old ways becomes obvious when we look at what the players do in the off-season as well as in the preseason and in-season. It appears that baseball is very reluctant to any changes that could enhance player performance. This may be hard to believe. Keep in mind that only about 20-30 years ago baseball was adamantly against any strength training for the players.
To get the best players teams continue to spend more and more money and rely on statistics which have proven to be a crapshoot. To get the most out of the players, they play them more and more. It is main method used to improve player performance. But this does not prevent baseball injuries.
For more information on this topic see Build a Better Athlete.