NEWSLETTER
There’s been much debate about pitcher arm injuries lately, much of it sparked by Spencer Strider’s season-ending Tommy John surgery, and Strider spoke to the media for the first time since the injury on Friday.
Spencer Strider on pitcher arm injuries: “We shouldn’t want guys to stop throwing hard. We should want the environment to be conducive to player health.”
Strider made one thing clear on Friday: He’s not interested in pinning pitcher arm injuries on pitchers wanting to throw hard. He also made it clear that he’s frustrated by people using his injury to start the conversation, which Strider believes many are speaking on without the proper expertise.
“Yeah, there’s just so many people in any topic, in any field, that are being a little disingenuous and probably speaking out of their depth,” Strider said. “The death of expertise, I think, is a sad reality for society these days. I’m not saying I’m an expert, I’m saying that I just think there’s a lot of people who are quick to assume that they have the answers. And the public discourse on this topic matters. And so that’s what’s frustrating.
“You know, we want to solve this problem. I also think there’s an element of randomness to injuries. If instead of the game’s top pitchers, it was a bunch of guys that nobody’s heard of, I don’t think we’d be having this conversation.”
Many pundits have blamed the rash of pitcher arm injuries on the desire to add spin and velocity inside pitch labs, but Strider insisted that these arm injuries are about more than guys wanting to throw harder. He named the pitch clock, the baseball condition, the shrinking of the strike zone, and the banning of substances that help pitchers gain grip as contributing factors. He compared the idea of telling pitchers to stop trying to throw harder to prevent these injuries to saying that football players would be injured less if they removed helmets.
“That’s pretty silly. Guys are bigger, faster, and stronger than they’ve ever been. I mean, you can’t take that away. You don’t want guys to compete below their potential, below their ability, just to prevent injuries. The game environment should be such that guys can compete at their highest ability and stay healthy or have a chance to. So, it’s a long conversation.”
Strider’s sticking point was, “It’s a long conversation.” He wants to be clear that there should be a conversation, but it should be long and held by experts on the topic. He also shared an analogy on the subject from a recent discussion that he had.
“Somebody told me pitchers’ arms are kind of like cars,” he said. “You go buy a Subaru Outback, I mean, that thing’s going to run. You can drive it off-road. You can beat the crap out of it. I had a Subaru Impreza for a long time — I threw a kayak on top, dented it, put stickers all over it, and took it to get maintenance once a year. I mean, it goes. It’s not flashy, it’s not going to win any races, but it’s dependable.
“And then, if you buy a Ferrari, you better take good care of it. You’ve got to do a lot of work, and even still, it might be temperamental; it’s going to break down. But if you want to run a race, you want a Ferrari. You know, I think that’s where the state of the game’s at. Teams are looking for Ferraris, and they’re hard to maintain.”
It’s easy to try to villanize the “new” way that pitchers train, using state-of-the-art technology to zero in on how to get the most spin and velocity on their pitches. But as Strider pointed out, pitchers were getting hurt long before the world knew what things like Rapsodo were.
“People were getting hurt in baseball way before we were putting velocity on the screen. And I think that the environment of the game is such that certain things are valued, and we’re able to understand why velocity is valued. We can make guys throw harder. But velocity, in and of itself — we shouldn’t want guys to stop throwing hard. We should want the environment to be conducive to player health. And I think that’s a different conversation.”
Strider underwent an internal brace procedure—as opposed to the typical Tommy John surgery—at the hands of Dr. Keith Meister, who removed the piece of bone and attached a fiber-tape suture to reinforce the UCL, a less invasive procedure than Tommy John surgery.
Shohei Ohtani passed Hideki Matsui for the most home runs by a Japanese-born MLB player over the weekend.
On Sunday, Shohei Ohtani took an 0-1 slider from Mets pitcher Adrian Houser out of the ballpark. The 423-foot home run in the third inning was Ohtani’s 176th career MLB home run, surpassing Hideki Matsui for the most home runs hit by a Japanese-born player.
Shohei's record-breaking 176th homer was a sight to see. pic.twitter.com/hHJEk4i9IP
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) April 21, 2024
Matsui hit 175 home runs in 5,066 MLB plate appearances in parts of 10 seasons with the New York Yankees (2003-09), Los Angeles Angels (2010), Oakland Athletics (2011), and Tampa Bay Rays (2012). Ohtani has surpassed Matsui in just 2,981 MLB plate appearances over seven seasons with the Los Angeles Angels (2018-23) and Los Angeles Dodgers (2024).
Ohtani is slashing .368/.431/.663 with five home runs and 13 RBI in 24 games with the Dodgers this season after signing a 10-year, $700 million deal during the offseason. Ohtani has a wRC+ of 197 and is making a strong early-season case for his third MVP award, even without touching the mound this season. Ohtani would become the second player in MLB history to win the honor in both the American and National League’s. The only other player to do so is Frank Robinson.
Extra Innings
