Benitez 1

David Benitez

Trisha Briones

English 1301-162

November 1, 2023

Epidemiological Study on Elbow Injuries

Baseball is known to be one of the hardest sports to play, it requires good hand-eye

coordination, arm strength, speed, and other physical and mental strengths to become an elite

player. However, elbow injuries are very common among baseball players because throwing

mechanics are not natural for the body; therefore, when pitchers or position player overuse their

arms, it can lead to elbow injuries that may cause needing surgery to be able to play again. The

article “Elbow Injuries in Professional Baseball: Epidemiological Findings from the Major

League Baseball Injury Surveillance System” by Michael G. Ciccotti and Keisha M. Pollack

effectively persuades the audience to demonstrate that professional baseball players have a high

risk of acquiring an elbow injury, providing detailed data and graphs of the likeness, rareness,

and time range of recovery concerning elbow injuries.

At the professional level, there are very few studies regarding existing elbow injuries, all

with certain limitations on the information. However, there are two studies that provided

percentages on elbow injuries; both by Conte and Posner, who are authors of other studies

similar to this one, based their conclusions on the disability lists (DLs) of Major League Baseball

(MLB). Even though neither of the studies analyzed specific anatomic regions, Conte found in a

period of 11 years in all musculoskeletal injuries that 22% involved the elbow, while Posner

found during a period of 7 years that elbow injuries were 16.4% of all types of musculoskeletal

injuries. For this reason, this study is the only epidemiological study to focus specifically on
 Benitez 2

elbow injuries among the players of professional baseball, despite other studies that focus on all

types of injuries, including or not including elbow injuries. Therefore, with the use of a

surveillance system created by the MLB, this article succeeds at describing the unique

characteristics of elbow injuries and generates a more extended view of these types of injuries

that occurred in Major and Minor League Baseball during the 2011-2014 seasons.

Furthermore, Ciccotti and Pollack are successful at reviewing elbow injury information

and revealing meaningful data that shows a correlation and effects regarding player position,

mechanism of injury, time of season, percentage requiring surgery, and time lost from playing

elbow injuries in the population of baseball players. To demonstrate this, Ciccotti and Pollack

based their information on the players at the professional level, where there were a total of “3185

elbow injuries were registered from seasons 2011- 2014, with a percentage of 13% (430) in

Major Leagues and 86% (2775) occurring in Minor leagues (2023).” The age of the players

acquiring an elbow injury was 28, with a range from 20 to 40 years for the Major leagues,

notably higher than the Minor leagues, which was 22 years with a range of 16 to 41 years. Also,

this study provides a comparison of elbow injuries with the rest of the injury types in

professional baseball, leaving elbow injuries as the fourth most common injury in both Major

and Minor leagues combined, representing 7.8% and 9.8% for each, respectively, and a

combined percentage of 9.5%. This article accomplishes to provide information to demonstrate

how there is a high occurrence of injuries regarding the elbow at the professional level varying

from all ages.

In addition to the study made by Ciccotti and Pollack, they display a percentage of

players requiring surgery from an elbow injury, the number of days missed from nonsurgical

treated injuries, and the even position at where the injuries took place. According to the study
 Benitez 3

and data recorder, pitchers were the highest player position to incur an elbow injury, being more

than one-third of all elbow injuries at the professional level, 48.1% in Major leagues and 38.8%

in Minor leagues. Moreover, out of all the positions, pitchers were more susceptible to requiring

surgery after an elbow injury (43% for Major leagues and 32.5% for Minor leagues). Of those

players acquiring an elbow Injury and treated nonsurgical, it was demonstrated to be pitchers

who had the greatest amount number of days missed, with a combined number of 32.2 days

between Major and Minor Leagues.

Overall, of the information, this study successfully demonstrates that elbow injuries

represent a great reason for overhead or throwing athletes to cause a disability to play. As a

result, pitchers often have the greatest risk of incurring an elbow injury due to the data presented,

which indicates the amount of exposure and number of games played throughout the season. Yet,

even though this study does not target information about specific elbow injuries on factors such

as treatment, mechanisms, and timing, it is the first comprehensive review using the MLB Injury

Surveillance system to analyze beyond and provide accurate data about elbow injuries among the

population of baseball players at the professional level. Also, it sets the framework for future

researchers to investigate and elaborate further on elbow Injury risks and the prevention of these

types of injuries in baseball players at a higher level.

In conclusion, there is limited information on the data existing on epidemiological

characteristics for elbow injuries. However, this study points out excellent information on

statistics for one of the greatest causes of throwing athletes to enter the disability list.

Information in this study indicates that since pitchers have the greatest risk of acquiring an elbow

injury, they are also most likely to require surgery and the greatest number of days missed. This

study also explained meaningful information concerning factors that influence elbow injuries,
 Benitez 4

such as length of time playing, time period within the baseball completive cycle, and specific

positions played. These findings provide an excellent set of work for a foundation for further

research and prevention of these specific Injuries that are one of the most common in Major and

Minor leagues.
 Benitez 5

Work Cited

Ciccotti, Michael G., et al. "Elbow Injuries in Professional Baseball: Epidemiological

Findings From the Major League Baseball Injury Surveillance System." Am J Sports Med, vol.

45, no. 10, 2017, pp. 2319-2328, https://doi.org/ 10.1177/0363546517706964.