Pitch clock is ‘an unprecedented threat’ to athletes, MLB players union says

The pitch clock threatens the health of big league aces, according to the MLB Players Association. Union officials say the recently implemented rule leads to more injuries while league executives blame increased pitch velocity and spin rates. 

Several high-profile pitchers have already suffered elbow injuries this spring. An MRI revealed elbow damage for Atlanta Braves ace Spencer Strider on Saturday, the same day that Shane Bieber of the Cleveland Guardians said he was undergoing Tommy John surgery for a similar injury.

“Our concerns about the health impacts of reduced recovery time have only intensified,” Tony Clark, executive director of the MLBPA, said in a statement. “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 league introduced the pitch clock in 2023 to speed up games. The experiment worked — the average big league game lasted less than three hours in 2023. MLB officials tinkered with the clock over the offseason, reducing the timer from 20 seconds to 18 seconds when runners are on base.

“[The MLBPA] statement 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,” the league said in a statement. “Nobody wants to see pitchers get hurt in this game.”

MLB officials said they’ve been working with researchers at Johns Hopkins University to better understand what has caused more elbow injuries for pitchers in recent years. The jury is still out, but the league says the pitch clock isn’t at fault.

“Johns Hopkins University found no evidence to support that the introduction of the pitch clock has increased injuries,” the league said. “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.”

Any potential adjustments to the pitch clock would likely wait until the offseason when the MLB competition committee meets to consider rule changes.