My Take on 'Why' So Many Pitching Injuries Today

Welcome back to the SHOW! In the 5th Episode of Season 9 I’ll be giving my personalized opinion on the matter of ‘Pitching Injuries’ in the game of Baseball today and why we might be seeing more devastating/season ending injuries more in today’s game than we ever have before. I also share my own experiences and thoughts on how the game has changed over time, focusing more on throwing hard in an effort to get a job and even sustain a job. 
Being someone who has over a decade of experience at the professional level, I’ve had my fair share of pitching related injuries as well as been around a lot of individuals who have gone thru the same process. This has equipped me to share insights with you in hopes that you’ll be better prepared in your journey! 
We also discuss the risks of throwing too hard and how players seeking to find a balance to stay healthy should maybe look at their overall stress adaptation to meet the workload that their team requires. In relation to this episode, I'll talk about injuries in young players in a future episode and ask listeners to share their stories.
If you've dealt with injuries in baseball or have thoughts on how young players can stay safe, I'd love to hear from you. Visit therobbyrowshow.com/ask to share your ideas and join the conversation. Let's work together to make baseball safer and more joyful for everyone.

Topics of Today’s Episode👇

• Discussions about the rising rate of injuries in baseball, particularly among star pitchers
• Robby’s personal experiences with injuries and training methods
• Disconnection between organizational messaging and emphasis on velocity in his early career
• Discussions about the body's need to adapt to increased stress from throwing harder
• Discussions about the trade-offs between throwing harder and sustaining performance
• Challenges of transitioning from the off season to spring training
• How changes in mindset and training approach may contribute to injuries

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I hear you're doing leader listening tooclear. Listen, Robbie Rose, what's
going on? Guy? As yourboy? Robbie Row here on another segment
talking about injuries in baseball. Sothis is super popular, obviously with everything

(00:21):
going on nowadays with injuries, starpitchers in the big leagues going down,
with injuries, missing years, TommyJohn's the goods. So I'm not going
to come on here and talk asif I know the answer to no injuries
whatsoever. I just want to givemy two cents and if you guys want

(00:41):
to hear it, that's why you'rehere. Great. If you don't,
no worries at all. But Igot some experience in the subject obviously with
my career, with my injuries,with throwing hard, with not throwing hard,
what it takes on the body,And I just want to give my
opinion, honestly on the matter becauseit's a really interesting subject and it sparks
really really good conversation. It's workedreally good for really intense debating as well.

(01:03):
So I want to talk first aboutthe why, I would say behind
why injuries are occurring at a rapidrate in the big leagues. I said
this on a podcast the other day. To understand that is to understand that
baseball, whether we like it ornot, over the past few years,
past few decades, has changed fromobviously like the way the game is played,

(01:23):
but also the simple fact that theplayers have changed a little bit.
There's been a more demanding physical presencefrom players these days. Right. The
advancements in training, the advancements inthe personalization of one's training reasurement is very
very much so advanced more today thanit has been over the last twenty years.

(01:48):
That is going to be a hugepiece to why the velocity is the
way the velocity is nowadays. Now, I want to let you guys in
on a understanding that is really interestingto talk about nowadays because as it feels
like yesterday, I was just drafted, but I was drafted in twenty ten.
It's eighty eighth overall, third round, and I threw pretty hard like
I got drafted. There was timeswhere I hit ninety four ninety five in
high school as an eighteen year old, and that was great. Right.

(02:12):
The first thing, not the firstthing, but one of the biggest things
that jumped out to me when Ifirst got to the Arizona Diamondbacks system,
and like just started becoming more ofthe po in an organization and learning about
the ways of a picture, havingconversations with a lot of the pitching coordinators
and rovers and all those you know, big brass, and it dawned on

(02:32):
me that there's this big like disconnectin affiliated baseball. And I'm speaking from
like the time in which I waseighteen nineteen twenty twenty one, because every
time you'd have a meeting with peoplethat mattered, right, people in the
organization that had something to do withyour career. And this is just my
experience, so don't take this forabsoluteses. And it's obviously different now,

(02:53):
but every time I had a conversationwith those individuals at that time, it
was never about velocity, it wasnever about power output. It was about
getting out. And it was honestlykind of more so about getting out in
a way that was effortless and simplistic. And three pitches are less winning the
and the one to one counts,hitching to contact like these are all things
like I still have a booklet formy first couple of years and seeing the

(03:15):
between stuff on there, it's interesting. But the biggest disconnect back then was
these people, these higher ups inthese affiliates, in these organizations, they
would approach somebody as if like velocitydidn't really matter, And it was this
untold lie at the time that theydidn't care about the velocity. They wanted

(03:35):
guys to get outs right. Andthat was the simplest message as you can
get. That was a lie.It was a lie because we saw it
over time, and I got tospend a few years in extended spring training,
so I saw it over time thatthere was these individuals that would go
out and they wouldn't do good,and it would be pretty relevant that they're
not performing well, they're not gettingthose outs right, but they're fricking throwing

(03:59):
hard, and next thing you know, their next year, they're here,
next year, they're here the nextyear, and they're staying around, they're
sticking around. And it was justcool in the position that I was in
because I was somebody that was like, all right, whatever it takes to
please you guys, like I canbe a chameleon. I'll adapt and do
whatever it takes. So being inthere and just kind of hearing after all

(04:21):
these conversations like hey, we don'tcare about velocity, get outs and it
was like, boom, got it. I'll be that guy. I'll go
out and I'll pitch the contact andI'll induce contact within three pitches of area
bad. And that took a mentalkind of break pedal approach to my velocity,
my mechanics. And then obviously overtime, you know, fast forward
about twenty fifteen, then that wholeapproach kind of changed. And I would

(04:43):
say that that's the timing in myjourney in my career in which and around
twenty fifteen that data started to becomemore prevalent. The stack cast era had
just launched, so there was alot of these metrics coming in. And
it was right around that time whenI went to Saint Louis that it wasn't
necessarily anyone saying like, you needto throw harder, but they encouraged it,
right, And it was more sothem encouraging proper throwing programs, long

(05:08):
toss, you know, incorporating pulldowns, doing what you need to do
in the weight room, the trainingroom setting to influence your potential power up.
And I think, and again thisgoes back to the entire underlying reason
why I wanted to hop on hereand talk about this was because as soon
as I told my body, like, hey, our task now isn't necessarily

(05:32):
this, right, It's not gettingout. It's like throwing as hard as
you can. You know, thebody is so adaptable, and if you
have a specific goal and intention towhat you're doing and why you're doing it,
I do believe that a lot ofthings are attainable and accomplishable. That's
a word. But this is whyI wanted to provide context before I give

(05:54):
my actual opinion on the matter.But I just believe it's in EPs and
flows, so to speak, inthe way that the game is played.
Obviously, nowadays you can't watch agame without seeing a guy throw a hundred
and all the players are basically doingthe same thing that I did in twenty
fifteen, in the sense of,all right, the task has changed.

(06:14):
It's not necessarily about getting out,It's about throwing as hard as humanly possibly
can. And then what happens whenyou do that is your body is now
under a different stress. It's undera different load. There's different forces being
applied to different ligaments, and youknow, when these forces are amplified,
it's going to take time for thatbody. Whatever the part of the body
and I'm not trying to speak likea doctor or a therapist or anything,

(06:38):
so don't take this for absolutes.But whenever there's this process of like stressing
with more force, now there's anadjustment period. And I speak from personal
experience because that year in twenty fifteen, Yeah, I started throwing harder,
got it up to ninety nine.And then right when I was getting ready
for spring training going into twenty sixteen, it was gonna be my first big
league spring training, That's when myelbow oh kind of did its thing,

(07:00):
which is still weird to this day. It just wouldn't straighten. And I
got in, I got bone spursremoved, but now I lost all range
of motion in my not all.I lacked like thirty degrees about low extension.
But this was just over the years. Me going back and forth with
this story is like, Oh,this makes sense why this would happen to
me if you look at the journeythat I had, where I had my

(07:21):
body so prepped and accustomed to let'ssay eighty eight ninety three ninety four on
certain occasions, and again I wasa starting picture early in my career,
so it's a different kind of workloadso I got my body adjusted to that,
and then fast forward to now whereit's like, all right, if
I still want to play this gameright at a high level, the adaption
I have to do. I haveto go through this to put myself in

(07:43):
a better position to continuously play thisgame at a professional levels. It's got
to be throw harder, boom,mental switch. Now the task is throw
harder, body adapt boom. Didit? Got it? Now? There's
that period of time in which youhave to sustain it and you're consistently and
constantly adapting, And then there's theperiod in time in which there's that adaption

(08:05):
is now turning into absolute like thisis what we can take. And then
the phase in which it's like we'vebeen trying to adapt to this higher force
production and maybe amplified external rotation.The things that your arm gets, you
know, the positioning and the loadand the tolerance that it gets under when
you start throwing harder and harder,Like it's crazy to see it in real

(08:28):
time if you shot like slow motionvideo of your mechanics. And granted I
have done that, so it's coolto look back at certain points in my
career when I was throwing harder andjust see these certain positions and see,
dang, that's more that my bodyhas to take on than it is when
I'm like eighty eight. So thisis I'll let you guys in a little
secret. Twenty twenty two, whenI was pitching coach and starting pitcher terrible

(08:50):
season. I got my freaking statsright there. Twenty one games started,
one hundred and twenty two innings andone hundred and forty two hits. I
suck, got it. But whathappened, like looking back at that year,
was subconsciously, I didn't really putan emphasis on like throwing hard.
My job was to go out everyfifth day, sometimes go out every three
days, like I wanted to pitchso much. And the mental emphasis at

(09:11):
that point in my career was likevolume wraps, right, be the guy
on the team that can go outanytime you want. And that just naturally
developed a more kind of brake pedaldelivery in my mechanics that wasn't going to
be putting a ton of stress onmy body, and I just slowly but

(09:31):
surely started seeing eighty six, eightyseven, eighty eight, flash of ninety
one, It felt like ninety nine. You know what, I mean,
and then I remember after that year, I was like, all right,
going a winter ball, I'm gonnabe a reliever. How this mental emphasis
becomes throw harder, and it's likeboom saw ninety four start creeping back in
there ninety five. I always tellpeople, if you truly want to throw
hard, then just fricking throw hard, like get your body and brain just

(09:56):
used to it. And the fasterand more consistently you can do that at
the more I think production you'll seenow this we'll go back into a full
circle now and give this understanding orreasoning I have on why this has happened
at the big league level is becausenow you have like the secret is out,
the secret of it's not about throwinghard. It's about getting out.
That's out. It is about throwinghard. You have less reaction time and

(10:18):
that's the ultimate trump card. Sonow the requirement to play the game that
everyone loved at a professional level isto throw hard. So everyone's consistently adapting
to this. They're getting the results, and the sustainability might not be there.
Are people fine with that? Maybethat's what we got to understand is
there's a certain sacrifice you got tomake if you want to play this game
at a professional level or just likethe highest level possible. And a lot

(10:43):
of people, a lot of athleteswill look at that right in the face
and be like, yep, Iwill take that sacrifice. I will make
that sacrifice, and I will dowhatever it takes. And that's great.
That gives purpose and that's what peopleneed. But I don't think it's something
that is just going to stop overtime. In terms of injuries are always
going to be a part of anyone'sathletic journey. It's just the nature of

(11:07):
the beast. I do believe thatas we progress in especially at the big
league level, Like I was watchingZach Wheeler the other day, I do
believe that they are going to getto a point in which they can see
like, all right, you knowI can throw one hundred, Zach Wheeler
I think. I do believe ZachWheeler can throw a hundred, but he
can go out also and throw seveninnings sit in ninety three, ninety four.

(11:30):
Allen's a good example of that.Cole with glass Now, Blake Snow,
these guys are good examples of guysthat can throw freaking a zillion miles
an hour, But you know,will I think eventually tone down the exertion,
tone down the power output for sustainability. And that's just the way I
think baseball is in terms of adapting, right, It's like a dapt or

(11:52):
die. The next thing, obviouslyto cover in this whole understanding is what
about the kids? And I canhonestly tell you that I am so torn
on where I want to go withthis particular topic, and I think I
do want to save it for maybea few weeks down the road because it's
very sensitive and I want to makesure that I know exactly what to say

(12:15):
before I say it, and bevery careful with how I word certain things.
So be on the lookout that thatpodcast will come out soon. I'm
not going to talk about it today, but I did want to just jump
on here and give my two centson the matter. The nature of the
beast is that if we demand aspecific tolerance from our body, there's going

(12:37):
to be a point in time inwhich the body just says, hey,
we physically can't do it, andwe got to shut down. That's the
reality, and I think that's justa testament too why we see injuries at
this time of year because you know, at least this is my personal experience,
and I've talked about this with acouple other buddies in the game,
but you got to remember, whenyou get done with a season in baseball,

(12:58):
your so mentally taxed, like it'sphysically taxed, but it's more mentally
in my experience, that the lastthing you want to do is kind of
dive back into it. So youdo take a little bit of time off
from the physical movements of baseball,but more so for the mental aspect of
it. And then when you dostart giving back into the preparation, your
preparation is a slow ease in process. And then as soon as you get

(13:22):
to spring training, as soon asyou get into that game environment, you're
adrenaline spikes and you become that frickin'just beast like. It's so hard to
contain or control that exertion, thatadrenaline. So what happens is you just
start getting back into those freaking positions, posters, alignments that are taking on
a ton of force without having totruly been adapted to it yet due to

(13:45):
the time off. So then youhave this weird mixture of shoot, we're
stressed to the max and we physically, like the body physically can't absorb and
truly express it and handle all thisforce and energy that it breaks down.
Remember when the forces greater than thecapacity, you have the breakdown. Right,
That's just the fundamental law of howyour body operates. And the reason,

(14:07):
like I said, this is allopinions, but I believe the reason
why that happens is I've been anindividual. I've been a player in spring
training that's prepped, you know,going into it. That's why I always
say the best years that I feltin spring training have been the years that
I'm coming off a winter ball seasonbecause there's limited time off. The worst
years I felt in spring training arethe years where I took time off.

(14:28):
I took a month or so offof throwing, and then got back into
it with catch plays, long tossbullpens and then boom, how I'm back
into a game. And those Itell you what, dude, those spring
trainings. I'm like, my firstouting is eighty five, eighty six,
you know, my first four years, this could be a whole nother podcast.
My first four years that always comeout slow in spring training, and
it was because I like when Iwas a high schooler did I didn't take

(14:50):
time off. I just played.I just played with buddies, and if
I wasn't playing baseball. But thisis the freaking the side notion of this
whole thing, because then it's like, Okay, Robbie said this this,
and it's like, just what Itook away from this podcast was just adapt
your body. Yeah, one hundredpercent right. But then the continuous adapting
is the continuous stressing of the organism. And then you can make the argument,

(15:13):
well, too much stress over along period of time, whether it's
low tolerance stress or high like itis, it is stress. I'm reading
a book right now, it's theSauna Read and it's like, I think
it's called what Doesn't Kill You MakeYou Stronger, And it's talking about environmental
hormesis and the stresses that our bodyhas to endure through the environment. And
as we progress over time and getsofter and softer, our bodies limiting the

(15:37):
adaption to all these stresses. Andnow we have all these autoimmune diseases,
we have depression, anxiety, obesity, all these things. Whereas our warrior
ancestors who were fricking just studs outof the womb, you know, like
had to survive in the environment,whatever that environment consisted of, without having
the luxury of air conditioner and allthat stuff. You know what I'm saying,

(15:58):
And it's really interesting to tie backinto baseball. You may not think
it applies whatsoever, and that's fine, but I really do because I'm just
a byproduct of my personal experiences,and my personal experiences have painted this really
clear picture of how this whole thingworks. And that's why I try to
provide a lot of context for youguys along the way and get all sidetracked,

(16:18):
because I want you to have thisother picture going into my opinions,
because then you'll see it from myangle on like thing. You know,
if that happened to him, andit happened once twice three times, probably
mean you know, because I datedback to my injury when I was with
the Rangers too in twenty eighteen,when I blew out my lap right,
I went from being a starting pitcherin Indie Ball with a requirement of you

(16:40):
know, somewhat lower power output.I remember that year, I was still
throwing pretty hard. I'd get itup to ninety five and starts. But
then when I got signed by Texasduring the middle of that Indie Bowl season.
I remember, shoot, now Igotta go and impress. I'm an
affiliated ball. I gotta throw onehundred, you know. And so the
mental intent changed in a short timeperiod, and it was like, yeah,
pedal, let's ride, and mylat blew out. I think my

(17:04):
second or third outing out of thebullpen, and I was up to ninety
four, ninety five, ninety six, like same velocity, but just a
different overall intent for each pitch.I'd say that sounds like a personal problem,
don't it all right? That'll wrapit up. But I know I
just rambled on for twenty minutes,probably didn't even answer the question like WHI
are injuries happening? Maybe I didanswer, who knows? Maybe you can

(17:26):
get something from that, like Isaid, opinion. If you guys wanted
it, then you got it.If you didn't, then you shouldn't have
listened. I do want to hopback on and talk about the injuries at
the youth level, because there aresome things that I'm consistently going back and
forth upstairs, and I'm like,did I say that publicly? Do I
not? I don't know that?Is it? Hey, Guys, the
Robbie Roshow dot com slash ask askme your questions. If you want me

(17:48):
to piggyback off anything I said today, That's where you can reach me.
All right until next time. Godbless love you guys. Thanks for letting
me come on here and rant withmy new microphone and new little earpiece with
no mustache because allergies suck. Guys, see you, I'm out