Injury Impact On Baseball

You never want to see any athlete get hurt. When you play sports, you have to understand going into action that injuries are a part of the game. Wilson Contreras is no stranger to that. The Cardinals catcher has had his fair share playing the game. He had gotten off to a hot start for the Cardinals, but now will be out of action for the next ten weeks.

Why? 

He got hit in the forearm from a swing by J.D. Martinez of the Mets, fracturing his arm.

How did this happen? Well it has to do with Contreras, and a lot of other catchers around baseball, moving up closer to the plate in order to better frame pitches and try and "steal" strikes from umpires. There is a reason stuff like this his happening. IN an article written earlier this season from the Athletic, it explains this a little bit better. 

Per the Athletic: Weeks before Opening Day this season, Major League Baseball sent a memo to all 30 clubs highlighting a rise in catcher’s interference. The instances of catchers being struck by the bats of opposing hitters were rising rapidly. Catcher’s interference was called 94 times in 2023, nearly 20 more times than in 2022. What was causing the dramatic uptick? Catchers kept moving closer to the plate. In the era of pitch framing, teams deduced that the closer a catcher is to receiving a pitch, the better chance he has to “steal” a strike.

What impact could this have on the game? well for one thing, maybe baseball can keep catchers a little more back in the catchers box so that way they aren't interfering in the hitters swing. Yes, that will make it a little harder to frame pitches. Pitch framing has been around in the game of baseball forever it seems. It just seems like its more prominent in today's game because of the umpiring.

There have been times, and this has been documented by the television coverage of games, that the umpires are getting calls wrong on the location of balls and strikes. Calling a game as an umpire isn't an easy job. You have to make a call in a split second, and you don't have access to replay, like the viewer does. If that were the case, it would slow the game down a lot more. Yes that would make sure there's more accuracy in the calls, but length of game would slow down more. Which is something that baseball is trying to speed up as it is (that's another debate in and of itself).

As for calling balls and strikes, there's been debate for quite some time now as to whether or not their should be an automated strike zone from a camera in center field. That could work, but the system will never be perfect, no matter how hard you try. There will still be an umpire behind the plate to make the physical call, and make calls on fair foul and plays at the plate. But there is something that needs to be done in order to prevent injuries to catchers ion the game.