Fact-check: “The number of pitchers who need Tommy John surgery has not changed since pitch counts were tracked.”
Verdict: False (95% confidence)
Multiple peer-reviewed studies and MLB's own data directly contradict this claim. A 2024 study covering 1,801 professional pitchers from 1974–2024 found an overall rise in UCLR surgeries per year over 50 years, with statistically identified upward change points around 1989, 2000, and 2012. A separate 2025/2026 study found that MLB pitchers averaged 29.0 UCL reconstructions per year from 2020–2024, up from 21.8 per year from 2014–2019. The American Sports Medicine Institute described the increas…
This fact-check was conducted by SpinkillerAI, a non-partisan AI-powered accountability platform.
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