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Old 05-20-2019, 05:58 PM   #8
jeffw3000
Minors (Triple A)
 
Join Date: Jun 2009
Posts: 296
Quote:
Originally Posted by Syd Thrift View Post
I think that in reality knuckleballers get hurt as well. The best example I can think of is Steve Sparks because my mind is stuck in the 90s and ISTR Tom Candiotti having elbow issues as well. I mean, yes, the motion looks easier on the body and maybe that is a thing, but it might just be the repetitive nature of pitching itself that causes issues and we dont have a terribly large sample size of these guys.

All that being said they do seem to age more gracefully and I wonder if that's handled at all by the Stuff rating of individual pitches (my guess is that pitches like the knuckler or the straight change lose stuff less as a pitcher gets older if you put real life into OOTP terms).

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In the case of Steve Sparks, he did have TJ surgery in his career, but he was injured when covering first and making a throw home. Candiotti had TJ early in his minor league career, but he was not an exclusive Knuckleballer then. He actually went on to a very durable career.
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