OutKick Exclusive: Why Are Younger Pitchers Getting Hurt More?

With the Major League Baseball season currently underway, one of the hottest topics has been what's been happening on the pitching mound - but for all the wrong reasons.

Within the last 13 months, at least 38 MLB pitchers have undergone some sort of elbow surgery. The term "Tommy John surgery," which used to be dreaded in the sport, has become something of a commonplace these days - for better or worse. In the past few weeks elbow injuries have sidelined Cleveland Guardians 2020 Cy Young Award winner Shane Bieber, last year's MLB win and strikeout leader Spencer Strider  and even one of the league's best in Gerrit Cole. 

Although everyone agrees that something is wrong - the baseball world can't collectively agree on what is causing so many young pitchers to have arm issues at such an alarmingly high rate.

Let's see what some of the best are saying about it.

TOM GLAVINE - HALL OF FAME PITCHER

In an exclusive interview with OutKick, I spoke with former Atlanta Braves and New York Mets 10x All-Star, 2x NL Cy Young Award Winner, World Series Champion Tom Glavine about what he believes the issue is.

He summed it up rather simply: Pitchers aren't being taught how to pitch anymore.

"Kids these days are being brought up knowing the importance of velocity, and I'm not so sure how much they're being taught to throw the ball to corners… everything they do is just geared to velocity," Glavine said. 

"These young kids in high school that are throwing 88, 89, 90mph - their bodies can't handle that. Same with the pitchers in the Big Leagues - you throw the max effort long enough, your body is going to give out - it has to. And the first thing to go is going to be something on your arm."

‘MORE MONEY IN THE LONG RUN’

When I asked the pitching great about the pressure of social media and the younger generations' obsession with going viral, he had these words of advice:

"If you're chasing the 2-or 3-year money hits from Instagram or Twitter, I'd argue you're in it for the wrong reason…To me, I don't think my mindset was different from [some of] the young ballplayer's mindset today - I want to play a long time… and make as much money as possible."

"In today's game, you have an opportunity if you stick around to make a whole lot of money - I would be more interested [in focusing on that] and my longevity and changing my velocity [in order to last and make the biggest contract possible.]"

Shohei Ohtani underwent Tommy John surgery this past offseason.  (Photo by Jayne Kamin-Oncea/Getty Images)

JUSTIN VERLANDER - 2x World Series Champion, 9x All-Star

Justin Verlander blamed it on one thing and one thing only: Velocity. 

"The biggest thing is the style of pitching has changed so much. Everybody is throwing as hard as they possibly can and spinning the ball as hard as they possibly can. It’s hard to deny those results, obviously," Verlander said.

He alluded to what he dealt with back in 2016 when the baseballs were changed and seemingly were getting rocketed over outfield walls on off-speed pitches at the time. The only way to get people out from a pitcher's perspective was to gas your arm and throw it by them as fast as possible, according to Verlander.

ALEX WOOD - 2020 WORLD SERIES CHAMPION

In a series of tweets, San Francisco Giants starting pitcher and 2020 World Series Champion Alex Wood blamed a lot of the problems on scheduling and the fact that, for high school and college players, baseball has now become a year-round sport.

Wood says that "If you told a young player today that they had to take 8-10 weeks off throwing in the offseason… they would think you were crazy." 

Wood also says that pitchers are experimenting with too many new types of pitches - but doing so while on the mound, and thus throwing at a higher speed and ‘intent which wasn't happening in the past.

TONY CLARK - MLBPA PRESIDENT

Meanwhile, Major League Baseball Players Association President Tony Clark released a statement saying that the players union believes that the league shortening the time between pitches due to the pitch clock is to blame.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

Others, like ESPN's Jeff Passan, have demanded that MLB "do something" in order to lessen pitchers' injuries." 

However, as we've heard from some of the best to ever do it - it's not clear what "that something" is. 

Personally, I believe that the issue isn't when they get to MLB, it's what happens before they get to the big leagues. Unfortunately, there will always be pressure for the short term benefit rather than the long term. Just look at football players competing despite the risk of multiple concussions.  

What do you think is happening to today's pitchers that the likes of Bob Gibson, Roger Clemens, Nolan Ryan and Mariano Rivera didn't have to go through?

THOUGHTS? SOLUTIONS?  EMAIL ME: Michael.Gunzelman@OutKick.com or Tweet me: @TheGunzShow