New Year’s Holiday Sale: ends december 31st
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Every baseball season begins with renewed hope. New contracts, fresh arms, and the optimism of Opening Day. But for pitchers, the early months of the year have also become the most dangerous. Over the past two decades, Major League Baseball has witnessed an alarming trend: UCL tears are increasingly concentrated in the spring, disproportionately affecting younger arms at the earliest stages of their careers.
For years, the common refrain has been that velocity is the driving factor behind this epidemic. Throw harder, and the ligament eventually fails. Yet, when we look closely at the data, the story becomes much more complex. A landmark study by DeFroda and colleagues (2016) reviewed 170 MLB UCL injuries from 2007–2014 and revealed that timing and career workload matter far more than the small velocity differences so often cited.
In fact, 62 percent of UCL tears occurred in the first three months of the season. Nearly one-quarter happened within a pitcher’s first 100 MLB innings, and over half occurred in the first four seasons of a career. Velocity differences between injured pitchers and healthy controls were just 0.7 mph — statistically significant, but hardly meaningful when compared to the overwhelming influence of poor ramp-up strategies and organizational workload mismanagement.
This reframes the UCL conversation. The true problem may not be that pitchers throw too hard, but that they throw before their bodies are prepared.
The myth of velocity as the sole driver of UCL injury is deeply ingrained in baseball culture. Biomechanically, it makes sense: more speed equals more torque across the elbow. But DeFroda’s findings expose the limitations of this view.
If velocity were the dominant predictor, then we would expect injuries to cluster evenly across the season and career, following wherever the hardest throwers appear. Instead, the injuries cluster at very specific points: April through June, the first 100 innings, and the earliest years of a pitcher’s career.
Conte et al. (2015) analyzed MLB injury trends across 18 seasons and confirmed this pattern — elbow and shoulder injuries spike in the first half of the season. At the amateur level, Olsen et al. (2006) reported that pitchers who played year-round or lacked sufficient rest were significantly more likely to sustain elbow and shoulder injuries. The parallels are unmistakable: whether a 15-year-old moving from basketball into spring baseball or a 25-year-old reliever rushing into April innings, abrupt workload spikes during unprepared phases are the common thread.
This makes the problem less about raw velocity and more about transition. How pitchers move from the off-season into competition, and from amateur to professional workloads, may be the real fulcrum of risk.
DeFroda et al. (2016) reviewed UCL injuries in MLB pitchers between 2007 and 2014, comparing 170 cases against matched controls using pitch-tracking data. The key findings:
These findings illuminate the underlying patterns of vulnerability: timing, transition, and inexperience.
The clustering of UCL injuries at the start of seasons and careers has enormous implications for how we train and manage pitchers.
First, off-season ramp-up strategies are inadequate. Most MLB pitchers face organizational calendars that dictate when they must throw, not when their bodies are ready. Winter ball, instructional leagues, and sudden reporting to spring training create abrupt spikes in workload. DeFroda’s data suggest that these spikes are not simply inconvenient — they are catastrophic for elbow health.
Second, early-career workload is mishandled. Camp et al. (2018) found that younger pitchers and those with fewer MLB service years are at heightened risk for UCL reconstruction. DeFroda’s study confirms this, showing that the majority of tears happen within the first four years of a career. When young pitchers are rushed to the big leagues, they face a double burden: their ligaments are not yet conditioned for sustained pro workloads, and they are thrust into the most dangerous months of the calendar without adequate preparation.
Third, velocity obsession misses the point. Injured pitchers in DeFroda’s dataset did throw harder than controls — but by less than one mile per hour. On its own, that’s not enough to explain why injuries cluster in April and May. The more likely explanation is that velocity changes within a pitcher are the real danger.
Traditionally, the contrarian angle has been that velocity still matters. Even small velocity bumps can add stress. But Manzi et al. (2021) sharpened this discussion by showing that the real problem isn’t simply throwing hard — it’s throwing harder than you’re used to, without time for adaptation.
This finding reframes DeFroda’s marginal 0.7 mph gap. The issue isn’t that injured pitchers were “harder throwers” overall — it’s that sudden increases in their own velocity, especially after an off-season or early in a career, exposed them to greater forces before their ligaments had adapted.
The contrarian position, then, is not to dismiss velocity altogether. It’s to recognize that sudden velocity jumps — not absolute velocity levels — are the real accelerant of UCL injuries. Poor ramp-up sets the stage; abrupt velocity gains pour gasoline on the fire.
At Velo University, we’ve made ramp-up the foundation of arm care. We don’t accept that a pitcher can go from zero to game speed overnight. Instead, we design months-long progressions that gradually increase volume, intensity, and complexity.
We rely on objective monitoring tools — from the ArmCare device to force plates — to measure readiness rather than guessing based on calendar dates. Our model looks beyond velocity and pitch counts, incorporating tissue preparedness, recovery metrics, and strength asymmetry data.
For young athletes stepping into higher levels of competition, we slow the timeline rather than accelerate it. The first 100 innings at a new level — whether it’s college or the big leagues — are the most dangerous. We treat that period with heightened care, ensuring that exposure builds gradually and the athlete’s ligament is given time to adapt.
This is not about suppressing velocity. It’s about creating a foundation where velocity can be sustained safely. The harder a pitcher throws, the more critical ramp-up becomes. At VeloU, that principle drives everything we do.
DeFroda’s study reframes the UCL epidemic. It’s not primarily about throwing too hard. It’s about timing, workload transitions, and organizational mismanagement of the most vulnerable phases in a pitcher’s career.
The fact that 62 percent of injuries occur in April–June, that a quarter happen within 100 innings, and that the majority strike within the first four seasons of a career tells us this is a preventable problem. It is not the radar gun alone that dooms pitchers. It is how and when they are exposed to volume before their bodies are ready.
Velocity is not irrelevant. Manzi’s data remind us that sudden velocity jumps — especially without structured ramp-up — are the real accelerant. Until organizations treat preparation with the same seriousness they treat in-season workload, the cycle will continue.
At VeloU, we believe the solution is clear: extend the ramp-up, monitor readiness, and manage transitions with precision. That is how we keep pitchers healthy, not by obsessing over decimals on a radar gun, but by respecting the biology of adaptation.
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