New York Mets top left-handed pitching prospect Thomas Szapucki left his start last night for the Columbia Fireflies after facing only three batters. The radio announcers said he had discomfort in his left forearm.
Tough news for 21-year-old fast riser who already had his season start late because of a back issue. Szapucki was recently named the South Atlantic League Pitcher of the Week on June 25.
In six starts for Columbia this year, Szapucki has gone 1-2 with a 2.79 ERA, 1.17 WHIP and has 27 strikeouts in 29 innings.
Before the 2017 season started we ranked Szapucki as the Mets No. 4 prospect here at MMN.
The bad news for Szapucki comes on the same day that it’s released that right-handed pitching prospect Cameron Planck will undergo season-ending shoulder surgery.
Why can’t we have nice things?
Very frustrating. I know it is epidemic with pitchers in all organization, but this has to be tied to training methods across baseball.
When I played college baseball, we did long toss everyday, never hit the weight room, swam a lot and ran more miles then I could count. When I stopped pitching in college my Junior year I had never had a pitching injury. And I was playing on Summer teams as well as Spring baseball. I topped out at only 90, so maybe I didn’t throw hard enough to stress my arm long term.
I really believe that there is the need for speed, because that is how the scouts are judging these young men. And in chasing it, combined with excess innings, they are just dropping like flies.
Really a shame.
Szapucki’s minor league career has been the same trend: 1. Starts season late bc of injury 2. strikes out everyone, makes every hardcore Met fan salivate at the thought of him in the rotation in 2-3 years with Thor 3. gets hurt right in middle of good run. 4. Repeat
You’re pretty much on the money with what Dr. James Andrews says. Baseball America has a podcast with him about all of this. A lot of good stuff and good info in there. He had several different points to make. One of the things he pointed out was that 20 years ago, only 6% of his patients were 19 or under. Last year, they represented 56%.
One of the (several) issues was about the age at which the players start throwing hard:
The ligament gets stronger and thicker throughout life as you use it more.
And kids today are simply throwing too hard at too early an age. Andrews said that his research shows that for kids in their early teens, throwing faster than 80 MPH simply places more stress on the UCL than it is able to withstand on a regular basis. In the late teens, they should be throwing no harder than 85, and can then start ramping it up after the age of 19.
But as you’ve pointed out, a high school senior throwing 85 won’t get noticed, probably won’t even get a scholarship offer from a major college baseball program.
He also believes that kids throwing hard need to stop throwing for at least two months, preferably three to four between seasons. but today’s game doesn’t really provide for that