MINNEAPOLIS -- The MLB Players Association is blaming the pitch clock for injuries to Guardians starter Shane Bieber and several other high-profile pitchers in the early part of the 2024 season.
The Guardians announced Saturday that Bieber will undergo season-ending reconstructive surgery on his right elbow because of damage to his ulnar collateral ligament. Bieber won his first two starts of the season with 12 scoreless innings and 20 strikeouts.
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On Saturday night the players association released this statement:
“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.
“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.”
The pitch clock was introduced in the big leagues in 2023 season. It required pitchers to throw a pitch within 15 seconds with no one on base and 20 seconds with a runner on base. The average time of games was reduced dramatically to 2 hours and 40 minutes.
This year MLB’s competition committee voted to reduce the clock to 18 seconds with runners on base. The four players on the committee opposed it.
Bieber, the 2020 Cy Young Award winner, Atlanta’s Spencer Strider, Miami’s Eury Perez, Oakland’s Trevor Gott and the Yankees Jonathan Loáisiga have all been shut down with elbow injuries within the first two weeks of the season. Gerrit Cole of the Yankees was shut down with elbow problems in spring training.
Gott has already undergone surgery, while Miami said Perez will need surgery. Loáisiga told reporters he needs season-ending surgery on his elbow as well. Strider has a damaged UCL and is seeking a second opinion.
MLB responded to the players association this way:
“This statement [from the MLBPA] 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. Nobody wants to see pitchers get hurt in this game, which is why MLB is currently undergoing a significant comprehensive research study into the causes of this long-term increase, interviewing prominent medical experts across baseball which to date has been consistent with an independent analysis by Johns Hopkins University that found no evidence to support that the introduction of the pitch clock has increased injuries.
“In fact, JHU found no evidence that pitchers who worked quickly in 2023 were more likely to sustain an injury than those who worked less quickly on average. JHU also found no evidence that pitchers who sped up their pace were more likely to sustain an injury than those who did not.”
Guardians manager Stephen Vogt, a former catcher, was asked about whether the pitch clock has put pitchers in danger.
“I’m not a medical professional and I don’t know how all that works,” said Vogt. “All I know is there has been a lot of changes to the way people have played the game over the last year.
“We never had to worry about that at any level. I think people have adjusted fine as far as the game play goes. I think it will be a number of years before we can speak on the effect of the pitch clock.”
The Guardians have already lost two key pitchers to elbow injuries this year in Bieber and right-hander Trevor Stephan, who recently underwent reconstructive surgery on his right elbow and will be sidelined for a least a year.
“We can sit here and list a million reasons why (pitchers get hurt),” said Vogt. “At the end of the day no one really knows why. It’s just unfortunate that this many guys are getting hurt. The best product we have is when the best players in the world are on the field.
“There are always pitchers going down, but it’s unfortunate we’ve had some high-profile pitchers go down. People talk about it when big names are involved.”
Bieber’s elbow problems started last season. He was limited to 21 starts and was on the injured list from July 15 to Sept. 22.
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