Epidemiology, Performance, and Return to Sport After Rib Fracture in Professional Baseball Players.

Area of Science:

• Sports Medicine
• Orthopedics
• Baseball Analytics

Background:

• Baseball players face unique injury risks due to sport-specific biomechanics.
• Rib fractures, both stress and traumatic, are common chest injuries in professional baseball.
• Limited literature exists on the characteristics and performance impact of rib fractures in baseball.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the epidemiology of rib fractures in professional baseball players.
• To compare stress versus traumatic rib fractures regarding player impact.
• To analyze the effect of rib fractures on player performance and return-to-sport (RTS).

Main Methods:

• Utilized the Major League Baseball Health and Injury Tracking System database (2011-2022).
• Analyzed 121 rib fractures (54 stress, 57 traumatic) in MLB and Minor League players.
• Compared time missed and performance metrics between fracture types and player positions.

Main Results:

• Rib stress fractures resulted in significantly longer missed time (98 days) than traumatic fractures (47 days).
• Pitchers experienced longer recovery times (99 days) compared to infielders (42 days).
• Position players showed a slight decrease in on-base percentage post-injury; pitchers' innings pitched correlated with RTS time.

Conclusions:

• Rib stress fractures lead to longer return-to-sport times than traumatic fractures in baseball players.
• Athletes require approximately 14 weeks for stress fractures and 7 weeks for traumatic fractures.
• Pitchers with stress fractures had the longest RTS (17.6 weeks), with minimal performance decline observed in position players.