This pitch has been extinct from the arsenal of pitchers for awhile now due to violent consequences and risk of injury. a marginal 24th rd lefty from texas tech became a decent prospect due to that one pitch, zoomed through the minors, then got injured. he was forced to dump the pitch due to further injury risks. now if you were a pitcher would you sacrifice throwing a screwball a handful of times if its the difference between solid mlb pitcher and AAA/bullpen filler? i ask this because dallas braden is attempting to do this, since his screwball has been rated as a true out pitch before. but has had mixed results on the AAA/mlb shuttle the last 2 yrs. would you take that risk if it meant solidfying an mlb roster spot ? already beaten the odds as a 24th rd pick, having played 1 season of div 1 college baseball, and playing for his mlb hometown area team. would you tempt fate?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/15/SPRF15UO4S.DTL

That pitch earned him notice in the minor leagues but after surgery in 2006 to remove scar tissue encircling his biceps tendon and a humeral defect that left the top of his arm with an unusual hollow, the A's asked him to stop throwing the scroogie.

"It's something I'm going to kind of petition for," he said. "That's the pitch that put me on their radar, but they wanted me to back off it because my injuries were so abnormal and they weren't sure what caused that. Then I bounced back so quickly they didn't want to stir anything up."