PHILADELPHIA — The news was not news, not really, because while it was distressing, it was also hardly surprising. On Tuesday, Major League Baseball released the results of a yearlong study of pitching injuries, a 62-page examination of the factors, thinking, and trends that have led, over the last two decades, to an increase in the number of torn labrums and Tommy John surgeries at all levels of the sport.

The report, commissioned by MLB amid a slew of arm injuries to star pitchers, relied on insights from coaches, doctors and trainers, among others, to reach a conclusion that should be obvious to anyone who has followed the sport at the professional level, the amateur level, or both. More pitchers are suffering traumatic arm injuries, and “the most significant causes” of those injuries, according to the study’s authors, “are likely the increased velocity of pitches, the emphasis on optimizing ‘stuff’ (a term referencing the composite movement characteristics of pitches, including horizontal and vertical break and spin rate), and the modern pitcher’s focus on exerting maximum effort while pitching in both game and non-game situations.”

Put simply, the overhand motion of throwing a baseball is an unnatural act, and all the biomechanical expertise in the world can do only so much to limit the strain and damage that pitching inflicts on the fragile arrangement of nerves, tendons, and ligaments that keep an arm intact. More pitchers are breaking down because all pitchers, whether in the majors or in travel ball, are doing little more than throwing as hard as they can all time.

“Do I think there’s an end in sight? No, I don’t,” longtime major league reliever Tim Mayza said in a phone interview Wednesday. “You do wonder: Where does the velocity cap out at? How much can the human body withstand, and where’s the threshold? But it’s how pitchers are being evaluated. Even at the college level, what do they recruit? Well, guys who throw hard. So guys say, ‘In order to be recruited, I’ve got to throw hard.’ ”

The study examined pitching data from 2008 through 2024, for instance, and it’s striking to see how much the average velocity of each major league pitch has increased over that period. A run-of-the-mill fastball in 2008 was 91.3 mph. In 2024, it was 94.2 mph. Nowadays, if your heater sits at 92, you’re Jamie Moyer.

Actually, Moyer, who won 269 games over 25 years despite stuff that a teenager could catch barehanded, is a fitting example to show how different the landscape is. In ‘08, when Moyer, at 45, went 16-7 with a 3.71 earned run average for the world-champion Phillies, the average MLB change-up velocity was 81.7 mph. It’s nearly four miles an hour faster now: 85.5.

To be fair, Moyer was always an outlier for his ability to induce sickly popups and weak grounders despite throwing pitches — a tepid fastball, a looping curveball, that change-up that should have had a Florida license plate — that seemed so crushable. But then, his presence also made baseball more intriguing and enjoyable.

It was impossible for most casual fans to watch Moyer pitch every fifth day without asking themselves, How is this old man getting these hitters out? The air of mystery around his success and the understanding that he wasn’t going to rack up a lot of strikeouts made the game more entertaining, and baseball has suffered for its lack of pitchers who at least approximate Moyer’s approach. “That’s the true definition of pitching,” said Mayza, who is 32 and, after tearing the ulnar collateral ligament in his left elbow in 2019, came back to pitch 18 months later. “But that guy probably isn’t getting a chance now.” Variety is the spice of sport, and there isn’t as much variety in pitching styles anymore, which means that not only are more pitchers getting hurt, but baseball is boring even when they’re healthy.

“The primary injury factors — the focus on velocity, ‘stuff,’ and max-effort pitching — have caused a noticeable and detrimental impact on the quality of the game on the field,” the report’s authors wrote. “Current pitching practices are focused on the prevention of run-scoring through the accumulation of strikeouts; such trends are inherently counter to contact-oriented approaches that create more balls in play and result in the type of on-field action that fans want to see.”

This culture, of course, doesn’t exist just in the majors. Those 30 franchises need a deep and self-replenishing talent pool from which to draw, and the same habits and techniques that are proving so detrimental to big leaguers are also rampant at baseball’s lower levels. There, they pose an even more dangerous threat to players who haven’t finished physically developing; the Andrews Sports Medicine and Orthopedic Center performed five times as many UCL surgeries on youth and high school pitchers in 2021 as it did in 1995.

“Guys are getting bigger and stronger — as they keep getting stronger, their ligament doesn’t necessarily get stronger,” one orthopedic surgeon said in the report. “Some kids rip the bone off their elbow because their growth plate is weaker than the ligament. Instead of the ligament failing, the bone breaks off. That used to happen occasionally, but now it’s happening more and more.”

It’s common for those teenage and even pre-teen pitchers, instead of conditioning their bodies over time to withstand the rigors of pitching, to use max-effort training workouts to up their velocity and impress scouts. And the web of AAU, travel and showcase leagues and tournaments — the professionalization of youth sports, the chase for college scholarships — warps the incentive structure for athletes, their parents and their coaches.

Those incentives and their trickle-down effects will have to change for there to be any chance of either solving this problem or at least stemming this tide. MLB has shown a willingness to tweak or rewrite its rules in recent years (e.g. adding a pitch clock, banning shifts), and it acknowledged in the report that “creating a system where pitchers are encouraged or required to moderate their activity and throw at sub-maximum effort to go deeper into games may be better for pitcher health.” It would be better for the overall health of the sport, too.

The performance of a starting pitcher is one of the primary sources of drama in any game. A team might be 15 games out of first place by June 1, but if that night’s starter is working on a no-hitter or even a shutout, its fans will be more likely to watch from the first pitch to the last. Can he finish off this gem? Can he keep getting hitters out even though he’s fatigued? Fostering more of those moments, while at the same time lowering the risk of injury, would be a boon to baseball.

So how do you do it? Maybe, to earn a win, a starter should have to last six innings instead of just five. Maybe, to earn a save, a closer should have to record at least four outs. Maybe there ought to be just 10 pitchers on an MLB roster; setting such a limit might force organizations to place a higher value on durability. “I don’t know how that moves the needle,” Mayza said. “If a guy has a tough outing, does he have to grind through six innings at 120 pitches? Does he risk injury that way? I don’t have the answers.” No one does, not yet. The conversation is what counts for now.

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