Why Modern Baseball Pitchers Can't Stay Healthy: A Deep Dive with Chris O'Leary

The alarming rate of arm injuries in baseball isn't just bad luck—it's the predictable outcome of fundamentally flawed mechanical approaches dominating the sport today. In this eye-opening conversation, Chris O'Leary returns to explain why modern pitchers can't stay healthy and what can be done about it.

O'Leary presents compelling visual evidence of what he calls "Flat Arm Syndrome"—a timing problem where the pitching arm is parallel to the ground (not up) when the body begins rotating, creating devastating stress on the elbow and shoulder. Through detailed comparisons of classic pitchers like early-career Verlander, Nolan Ryan, and Tom Seaver with today's injured stars, he demonstrates how modern mechanics have fundamentally changed for the worse.

The discussion doesn't just identify problems but explains their origins. The "Inverted W," "Tommy John twist," and other mechanical shortcuts promoted by velocity programs are systematically breaking down pitchers at all levels. Perhaps most troubling is how these flawed mechanics are being taught to young athletes as the path to success, creating a pipeline of arm injuries waiting to happen.

What makes this conversation particularly powerful is O'Leary's predictive track record. He's correctly identified injury risks in numerous pitchers before they broke down, including Sandy Alcantara and Spencer Schwellenbach. These aren't coincidences but the result of understanding how mechanical flaws inevitably lead to physical breakdown.

The solution isn't complicated training protocols or exotic conditioning—it's about returning to fundamental athletic movements that work with the body's natural biomechanics rather than against them. As O'Leary puts it, "There's no free lunch" in developing velocity; sustainable speed must be built through patience and sound mechanics rather than shortcuts.

Ready to understand baseball's injury epidemic and protect the arms of the next generation? Listen now and discover why the difference between healthy and injured pitchers often comes down to just a few critical mechanical distinctions that anyone can learn to identify.

Transcript

Introduction and Guest Welcome

Speaker 1 0:02

hey everybody, this is dr kevin mcgovern with another velocity rx podcast. Uh, bringing back special guest chris o'leary, the pain guy. But before we do that, I want you to go over here and subscribe to the channel so that you get all the latest information. And um, chris was with me three or so months ago, maybe. Um, a lot of you april, april.

Speaker 1 0:25

A lot of, uh, a lot of, you know the haters were out, but the haters are always going to hate. Um, at that time he had a. He had a slide deck of some really great information and he has since added to that and we're gonna he's gonna present that today and I'm going to listen intently and ask questions. So, chris, welcome, thank you again for coming on. I truly appreciate, appreciate your time.

Speaker 2 0:47

No, thanks for the opportunity. It's, you know, it gets me going and, as you know, it's kind of a depressing situation. It breaks some of the inertia. It, you know, it's. It's good to talk to someone else who believes that this is a problem, who cares that this is a problem. So let me, let me go through. So the last time I had a deck that was kind of kind of ad hoc. This is a little bit more put together. I will Put myself in there just so I can, so I can gesture. Ok, you got me. Yeah, it looks like it.

Speaker 1 1:27

Oh, look at that, you're in gesture. Okay, all right, you got me?

Explaining the Pitching Mechanics Epidemic

Speaker 2 1:29

Yeah, it looks like it. Oh, look at that, you're in there, yeah. So the idea, the purpose, is to try to explain the epidemic, explain what's going on, why baseball pitchers can't stay healthy and what to do about it. You know the fundamental questions are why can't modern baseball pitchers can't stay healthy and what to do about it? You know, the fundamental questions are why can't modern baseball pitchers stay healthy, why are so many baseball pitchers getting hurt and what can we do about it? Just to establish a little bit in terms of credentials. You know I'm on Twitter and I'm widely criticized on Twitter, but I'm on Twitter to basically make these predictions, to try to establish my model, that my model, that I know what. I'm on Twitter to basically make these predictions, to try to establish my model, that my model, that I know what I'm talking about when I talk about the model, when I, when I make these predictions, when I talk about what's going on and why. You know, most prominently, kind of most recently, as Sandy Alcantara, I saw this picture of him, this the sequence of him, this video clip of him, and I knew that this was going to be. I knew he was in trouble and I'll explain why. I knew that in a little bit To a point we were talking about before we got started.

Speaker 2 2:36

I take a lot of flack. This is some flack that I took yesterday from a guy that parallels something that Brandon McCarthy told me, and I had some conversations with Brandon McCarthy like 10 years ago or so. You know. The gist is you should start actually offering solutions. Well, I do offer solutions. The problem is that they're not always taken, they're not always followed, and a lot of my solutions come down to patience and athleticism and training and strength and conditioning and those kinds of things which aren't necessarily popular because it's a lot of work. But the general idea is stop trying to throw much harder over just a weekend. And I think that's where a lot of the haters and the problems come from, because people are trying to sell Velocity over a weekend and I understand.

Speaker 1 3:27

Increased Velo five miles an hour. In a weekend I've actually had, you know, two good guys left with a little bit more Velocity and both left with Tommy John surgery. That was their parting gift. So you know.

Speaker 2 3:43

You know there's no free lunch, as I say. You know, if you want my summary of what I should tell you to do, I tell you to study Earl this Chapman. He's the only active pitcher who moves well and classic. By that I mean Tigers era Reeboks wearing Justin Verlander, as we discussed last time. And then there's Nolan Ryan, tom Seaver, bob Gibson, a few other guys, but that list is getting shorter and it's not getting longer. I'll tell you that.

Speaker 2 4:16

So kind of the TLDR is that the reason pitchers can't stay healthy is because everybody's running everything to the red line. You know there's a red line there for a reason to an analogy I've used with the guys in Washington DC. You know NASCAR can get away with running to the red line because they can swap out an engine if they blow an engine. That's very different. That's much more difficult with a human being, as you know. You know you're spending guys. You know half your business, if not more, is working with guys who have gone to the red line and have blown out. And there are things you can do, but there's only so much that you can do, especially in certain situations. You know, as things get badder, things get harder and harder to fix A little bit of history.

Speaker 2 5:04

You know this whole process, this insight, started with these two exact pictures I was studying this is classic Justin Verlander notice the Reeboks and then Kerry Wood, and this is like 15 or probably at least 15 years ago, and I just noticed this difference between their arms. I was studying Verlander for his hip to shoulder separation, his efficiency, uh, which is different than Kerry wood, but then I noticed this difference in the position of their arms, were Verlander's pitching arm is up and Kerry woods pitching arm is flat. I didn't have it.

Speaker 1 5:38

And I will also tell you that Verlander, center of mass is is more on his back leg than versus. Kerry Wood, which is on his front leg, which is part of my theory of drift, drag and shrug.

Speaker 2 5:54

No, and there are a lot of pictures of Kerry Wood with a locked out, fully extended, completely unathletic back leg, and I know exactly what you're saying and I know those pictures because they look so terrible. They look so terrible, it's well, it's, unfortunately it's classic Tom house where he's trying to do, you know, because you can't trust everybody to have athleticism basically house couches the athleticism out of guys and gets them into these very rigid, very gimmicky positions and it just you know, then you have to throw completely with your arm.

Speaker 2 6:29

And the alternative, the right way to go about things, as Verlander used to do when he was wearing Reeboks with the Tigers, as Roldy Chapman still does is to get into the back leg, the core to collapse, the back leg to do a lot of things that people would say is bad. But you know, the fact is that what people say is bad is actually good. Just to kind of illustrate this with a couple more modern pictures, and this is you know, I spent 2016-2017 chasing Verlander around. Basically, whenever he made a start in Detroit, I would go out, I would drive up there, I'd leave at 8 o'clock in the morning, be to Detroit by 6 o'clock, catch you know the innings that he threw and then get back in the car and get home by 4 at night, 4 in the morning.

Speaker 1 7:14

Wow.

Speaker 2 7:15

Well, you know, but it was Verlander and he was great and he was going to get traded and it was only seven or eight hours for me, right, seven or eight hours for me. So but you know, you've got this classic position where, to your point, he's kind of he's more back, his arm is up, his glove side is still closed, a la Mariano Rivera with the gun sight, kind of idea. And this is the picture on the right is the one that really kind of helped me see this and put this together and coined the term flat arm syndrome. That's a minor leaguer named Trevor Clifton who never really made it anywhere because instead of his arm being up, his arm instead is flat. And that's where the term flat arm syndrome comes from.

Flat Arm Syndrome vs. Classic Mechanics

Speaker 2 7:55

This is Shane Baz of the Baz or Baz of the Rays, with the same kind of thing flat arm, a little bit of a Tommy John twist. If you compare the two, you can see Verlander's arm is up, his weight is still back, he's still athletic, baz isn't as kind of forward as Kerry would, but you know he's still got the flat arm syndrome A la Clifton. You know Clifton never actually made it to the big leagues because I would argue his timing problem is even worse than Baz's. Spencer Schwellenbach just broke the other day. This is one of the things that I was kind of texting you, or I was texting or DMing you saying you know, I can't keep up with this stuff. I've updated this presentation 10 times getting ready for this.

Speaker 1 8:44

I don't know if you saw, but I had the guy who runs the Tommy John site on Instagram. As soon as I see it, I go and he already has it up and he just started, like I did, predicting guys to get hurt. Well, I predict the guys to get hurt, but he follows because he's at a keeper league in fantasy baseball. So that's how he started and that's how I got into. You know, predicting guys like oh, should we draft jabba chamberlain? I'm like oh no no, no, no, never.

Speaker 1 9:12

Why? Well, because his arm blah, blah, blah. How about johan santana? No, no, no, no. And that's how, that's how I kind of I got started predicting people. Same thing, right you know.

Speaker 2 9:23

but you know, just compare Verlander Classic Reeboks, although this is actually Under Armour Verlander, so this is 16 or 17. But you know, verlander, with the Tigers, at least his arm was up, he's got the Mariano Rivera gun sight. And Schwellenbach, you know he is doing the gun sight but his arm is flat. You know, maybe Schwellenbach isn't as bad as Strider and some of the others, but Schwellenbeck's not pitching right now.

Speaker 2 9:48

His elbow broke. That's the reality of things. I'm trying to make this relevant. I'll go back and kind of the theory and the basics, but let's try to illustrate the theory.

Speaker 1 9:59

I see this, chris. To me this is the equivalent of a seven or eight year old smoking his father's crack pipe in the Bronx in New York. Like how do you not stop this? Like how do you look at that and be like, oh yeah, that's okay.

Speaker 2 10:16

No, you know, and this and I you know, the older guys. We'll see Joel Zumaia and a whole generation of guys.

Speaker 1 10:22

This is so this is Mizorowski. He's the next big thing. It's going to last about 12 minutes.

Speaker 2 10:29

Yeah, hopefully he'll make it to the end of the season. This is I would. When I was getting started, I would call this the inverted W. Technically this is the inverted V, which is only half of an inverted W, but he's got the point that matters where he's got this kind of hiked up elbow in a position of hyperabduction.

Speaker 1 10:54

And bone on tendon in his shoulder.

Speaker 2 10:56

Right, just setting himself up for an impingement injury. Maybe he's got an acromion that'll allow this, where this won't be as big of an issue as it would be for other guys. He'll break in a year rather than a month, but this is not a good position and honestly, I thought we were done with this stuff. I thought this is how Max Scherzer came out of college and Max Scherzer, in order to be Max Scherzer, had to get away from this stuff. That's the only reason Max Scherzer has lasted his. He did this kind of stuff at Mizzou and he got away from it. I can't believe that people are still teaching this.

Speaker 1 11:32

This is Mark Pryor right.

Speaker 2 11:34

Right, same position, and it's and it's incredibly hard to watch, because the problem is, you know, as I as I said back in 2010 to the junkies in DC, the problem isn't this position by itself. The problem is that what this position puts you in, so that by starting here with the elbow, by hiking the elbow so high, the pitching arm can't get up in time that the front foot plants, the glove side starts to pull and the start to turn, so that Mizorowski's got this classic flat arm syndrome all set up by this kind of elbow hike, this inverted V elbow hike, and you can see this just whenever you're just watching him elbow hike, foot's down the arm is flat. There's a little bit of Tommy.

Speaker 2 12:21

John twist in there, but as the glove side is opening the arm, instead of being up, it's flat. He's also a little bit of Tommy John twist in there, yeah, but as the glove side is opening the arm, instead of being up it's flat. He's also a little twisted, which makes things even worse, and it's you know. You know this is, this is where you get into labral injuries and impingement injuries and you're, you're as you said, you're rubbing tendons up against bone and that's a bad sign.

Speaker 1 12:45

And then, of course, you're starting in that position and then you're making a max effort movement from that bad position.

Speaker 2 12:54

Yeah, not just 95, but 100 or 102. Right, right, and I'll show you some videos. So just to kind of sum up, this is, you know, classic Verlander 1617. Verlander with the Tigris the arm is up, mizorowski with the arm. Yes, I use still photos to illustrate concepts, but I also use video when I'm doing my analyses.

Speaker 1 13:30

But a video is a bunch of still photos put together.

Speaker 2 13:33

Right.

Speaker 1 13:35

And when people say that. I said okay, fine, Every photo should be an athletic position, Right no and that's a good point, but the thing you need to understand, is as soon as you extract that frame from the video, you've destroyed all validity right.

Speaker 2 13:52

It's now a still photo and you cannot trust it anymore it's ridiculous so don't don't trust anything that I'm saying here, because these frames have been extracted from a video clip and which ruins all their validity.

Speaker 1 14:05

There's throwing uphill. There it is.

Speaker 2 14:07

Yeah, so this is Mizorowski at the All-Star Game throwing 102. Classic elbow hike. That's the point of the line is to trace the elbow hike as it goes up and it's getting into this kind of hyperabduction. I can't even do that. It hurts my shoulder.

Speaker 1 14:24

No, so that is hyperabduction, right. So that means the shoulder blade hasn't moved to clear out of the way. Internal rotation of the arm. I mean again I've said this, this is a submission move in jiu-jitsu. This is a kimura right, this is where you put someone's arm in and hold it and they tap out, and now you're going to throw from this position.

Speaker 2 14:45

Yeah, that seems like a mistake.

Speaker 1 14:48

Yes. And as he rotates the arm, accelerates uphill.

Speaker 2 14:52

Right and so because he hikes so much as the foot's coming down, the arm doesn't have time to get up. So now his foot is down here and his arm at best is flat as the rotation starts. And you can watch the B on the chest as he's going from flexion to extension and then rotation, the B blurs and you can see that this is load here happening and his arm is coming under load. His, his arm, his shoulder, his elbow is all coming under load, while the pitching arm is flat and not up, which is the definition of flat arm syndrome. As a result, the thing that we're going to look for is external rotation is kind of our double check to make sure that this is actually bad. And there it is. He's in a very ex, you know kind of extremely 200 degree externally rotated position, which is really really hard on the arm, extreme degrees of labor, that's, that's tough that's tough to watch, right to watch.

Speaker 1 16:02

yeah, it's uh you tough to watch, yeah it's bad, but you know, it lit up the radar gun so everybody was happy about it, right? And then they'll wonder what happened. He's out, he got hurt, Right.

Inverted W and Tommy John Twist

Speaker 2 16:14

And this is really the telltale position where you know the elbow has come off the line, so we know rotation is happening. The B is blurred out, so we know that there's rotation happening. And the pitching arm is what is that? It's like 15 degrees of external rotation. So the pitching arm is going to flop over backwards especially hard, which is going to give them a lot of stretch, which is going to give them a lot of velocity. But the human body can't handle that and I don't care how many weighted balls you throw, there are hard and fast limits to the level of force that the human body can tolerate 100%.

Speaker 2 16:53

Yeah, okay, so a little topical, I'll get a little homer on the Cardinals. This is Liam Doyle.

Speaker 1 17:00

So it's a homer for here too, because I just realized someone sent me a note. I guess he's from Derry, new Hampshire, which is about an hour and a half drive from where I'm at.

Speaker 2 17:09

And that's the worst, because guys from the north are supposed to be good. You're supposed to get your pictures from the north because they're not as screwed up. Yeah, so this is Liam Doyle, the number five pick taken by the Cardinals. I don't see anything of any interest. Well, I, you know this to me, says Zach Thompson, who was the Cardinals pick of you know, like six years ago or so. Zach Thompson's on the disabled list. He's put up, I think, 0.7 wins above replacement for his career. I don't see Liam Doyle being any better because he actually throws harder and he actually he's more tricky with his pitching mechanics. You know, this is, this is every trick in the book picked up, I guess, at Coastal Carolina and at Ole Miss and now Tennessee. And this is. You know, it's just, it's bad. You're seeing they're seeing the same kind of flat arm syndrome pattern, lots of pulling on the glove side.

Speaker 2 18:06

uh, I haven't looked at his back leg to see. Well I actually his lower body isn't terrible. It's not carrie wood bad, but you're seeing this kind of same. Well, he's got.

Speaker 1 18:17

He's too much of his weight forward right like I always say like again, we talk about still photos. I always say every photo you should be athletic. So if you go, go, go back one. Go back Like what can you do? Note one, when he's wearing the white what the home uniform, go back. So what can you do from that position without having to make another preparatory move? You couldn't kick somebody.

Speaker 1 18:40

You couldn't run, you couldn't do anything right like you're you're. If you did this in hitting, it's stepping in the bucket. If you didn't, in golf you'd shank into the woods right and here it is dragging the back leg too far away forward, arm down, no bueno right, yeah, well, and you know we both have.

Speaker 2 19:01

You know that's one of tom house's big points is keeping the back foot on the ground and coming up with this drag line, and that's just. I don't have any.

Speaker 1 19:09

I've got to get it Like. So. You know, I did take physics, but I got to. We need to look into a physicist. When you have rotation, you should rotate around one stable axis.

Speaker 1 19:22

When you put another point on the ground now you're dividing that force and that force goes up the kinetic chain and you'll see, it causes extreme layback. I just am not good enough to know, if you have a 200-pound man, 75% of his weight's on his front leg, 25 on the back, what that does. I probably should look into college for it. I'm sure it's a quick physics. Uh, you know problem to solve, but you need to spin around one leg. You can't, you cannot drag the back leg and like maybe it's a toe touch. But these guys are look at his sneaker like he has got weight on that back leg.

Speaker 2 19:59

He is dragging that like a, like a landmine well and I I see you know there's there's good stuff to see in here. You know the separation, but he's completely fighting himself. I actually see a pitcher who has potential and if he had, if he'd had patience and didn't want to pitch in the sec and I think the sec is a real problem because you know, that's where all the tricks and shortcuts come in is, these guys want to be an sec superstar but and they and they are. You know he had a, he had a good season with tennessee, but I don't I'd be really surprised to be successful in major league baseball, if he even makes it to major league baseball because of all the tricks and shortcuts and what did they give what?

Speaker 2 20:40

did they give him seven, six point nine, I think, think 6.9,. Wow, yeah, but right, so he's set for life. And this is like Forrest Whitley. People are like, boo-hoo, forrest Whitley's got $3 million. Yeah, but Forrest Whitley isn't able to pursue his dream. And Forrest Whitley at least doesn't have a legion of Tennessee fans who are going to buy him drinks whenever he goes out to dinner, because Forrest Whitley was drafted out of high school.

Speaker 1 21:05

Right. Well, I mean Steven Strasberg has got $50 million, but he doesn't have any use of his right arm.

Speaker 2 21:11

Right, and it's debatable whether he can actually hold his children or his wife Right.

Speaker 2 21:16

It's horrible, horrible. So just this kind of basic pattern of the foot's down and the shoulders are turning and the arm is flat and not up. Uh, it's just. You know, you've got the tommy john twist here. You've got a lot of internal rotation, not nearly enough external rotation. Yes, he does achieve good separation, but his glove side is dropping, his front shoulder's dropping. He's not doing what Mariano Rivera did, he's not doing what classic Verlander did. Let me. Let me take a step back, and I don't know if we talked about this, were you taught to throw at all?

Speaker 1 21:58

no, there wasn't, like there was no. When I was coming up in high school, there was no one like me around, right, I mean, we were lucky if our school had, like an athletic trainer, you know the only. I graduated high school in 89. So the only like travel sports was basketball. They had five-star basketball camp, right, that's when that's what I remember the first time people went away for sports. Um, but no, you play in your town league and then maybe your town had an all-star travel team and yeah, there was no one. You do things, naturally, but that's what I say. No, no kid in the world picks up a ball and gets into an inverted W None.

Speaker 2 22:39

And this is a kid throwing. Very naturally, he's making the classic mistake of trying to pull his shoulders around with his glove, which is something that you've got to clean up, but this is a natural, slightly longer arm action and this is what most kids will do. When, when I was a kid, uh, we just, we just paired up. Mr blackburn, at the start of the season, would have us pair up and we would just throw and we throw, and we throw, and we throw, and we throw, and he wouldn't teach us anything other than you know, try to hit the other guy in the gloves. So the other guys always hit the target.

Speaker 1 23:11

Follow through. You know my dad be like. You have to follow through.

Speaker 2 23:14

Bend your back that kind of thing.

Speaker 1 23:16

But nothing like what's happening today, but then again, everything is statusized today, right.

Speaker 2 23:24

Well, and so I actually know, when I was coaching at Harris Stowe I met a guy who said he knew kind of how Justin Verlander was taught, and I believe this guy and basically Verlander wasn't taught anything. Justin Verlander was taught and I believe this guy and basically Verlander wasn't taught anything. Justin Verlander wasn't taught anything. Ben Verlander was taught all the nonsense and I would argue that's why Ben Verlander never went anywhere and why Ben Verlander moves so completely differently than Justin Verlander, because Justin is like 10 years older than Ben and Ben was taught all the tricks and the shortcuts.

Speaker 2 23:57

And the Verlander brothers really do illustrate how much things have changed. You know, justin had a very natural kind of arm up, slightly longer arm action, the Mariano Rivera gun sight kind of thing, but the foot's down, the arm is up. There are no tricks and shortcuts. You've got this longer. You know, mostly natural arm action. I don't really it doesn't really matter to me whether you're short arming like a catcher or long arming like Verlander is just kind of stay away from 90 degrees, but most importantly, get that pitching arm up.

Speaker 1 24:30

But now, verlander is much different than this picture, right?

Speaker 2 24:34

Yeah, I've got pictures that show the changes. And that's one of the things that came up yesterday.

Speaker 1 24:40

He's driving that front leg into extension. I know that.

Speaker 2 24:43

Yeah, he did do that, which isn't any good for the knee or the hip, although it hasn't really kind of hurt him. Most of his issues so far have been shoulders, although you could argue that that kind of rigidity on the lower half can cause problems, that kind of flow up the chain, so great, yeah, that's. That's not a good thing, but but so the difference is we went from this kind of old bottle where kids just threw and they threw probably, you know, 80, 90% of the kids through naturally Well, like Verlander, to now you've got all these tricks and shortcuts being taught. Uh, you've got all these tricks and shortcuts being taught. You know Tom House's flex T position, the power T, the idea of pointing the ball at second base or the center field, which leads to what I call the Tommy John twist, and then you've also got the inverted W. You know and it's illustrative to compare Matt Harvey to what this kid is being taught, and unfortunately, matt.

Speaker 1 25:39

Harvey Right.

Speaker 2 25:43

And then look at that foot drag, kind of locking up the hips and everything. Unfortunately, neither Matt Harvey nor his dad were as skeptical as this kid. I love the kid's eyes. He's like what are you talking about this?

What Happened to Justin Verlander

Speaker 1 25:53

feels great, I know. So I mean classic. You don't go to the heart surgeon who's had three heart attacks and a bypass right.

Speaker 2 26:22

So I but you know they were showing.

Speaker 1 26:23

Otani of what to do. I'm like, oh, hitting. They're like no, I'm like no pitching. And I'm like, how can and this is nothing against Otani but how are you, as a pitching coach, in good conscience, showing Shohei Otani, who's blown out twice and will, for all intents and purposes, is on the road to do it again as a model?

Speaker 2 26:42

of what to do.

Speaker 1 26:44

Well, I'm assuming, probably now, that UCL is probably, you know, like a vacuum band. It's probably about that thick right. God knows what they have in there.

Speaker 2 26:55

Yeah, I don't know whether he internal braced or not.

Speaker 1 27:03

Oh, I'm sure he's got screws, wires, he's got everything well. And I said to someone the other day I'm like he's gonna do something that's gonna cause nerve damage and then it's gonna affect his hitting and then someone needs to go to jail right and I've got, I've got, I've got video or I've got frames of otani.

Speaker 2 27:16

Now I've extracted them from the video.

Speaker 1 27:18

So you know, people will tell us.

Speaker 2 27:21

That's invalid. Let me keep going.

Speaker 1 27:24

I'll get to the Otani stuff.

Speaker 2 27:27

But so I actually, you know, I actually talked to Ed Harvey, matt Harvey's dad. Ed wanted me to look at Matt for the inverted W. Matt Harvey did not do the inverted W, he was clean. But the problem is that what Matt Harvey did was the Tommy John twist which Ed got from watching Roger Clemens. And Clemens did do it, at least to a degree, although Clemens had to take steroids in order to survive his injury problems.

Speaker 2 27:57

So Clemens, you know, clemens had to take steroids in order to survive his injury problems and Clemens was a little bit different, such that with the Yankees, clemens' Tommy John twist didn't create a timing problem. You know, while his arm would be here to start, by the time he got to foot plant, he was more here like a catcher, as you can see in this kind of picture with the Yankees, matt Harvey was taught just every horrible thing in the book. This is the power tee. Different people call it, different things, but this is the idea of trying to stay long and fingers on top of the ball into foot plant, into heel plant, and this is really what started with Matt Harvey is, you know, this idea of trying to stay long, holding this tee as long as possible. And Matt Harvey used the Tommy John twist to help create this resistance which, yes, helped him throw harder at a younger age, but it worked by overloading the pitching arm. Then you get into the inverted.

Speaker 1 28:57

W.

Speaker 2 28:59

This is Brandon Woodruff, who just came back. But how long will he be back with kind of the classic inverted W where he's lifting both arms above the shoulder and again, god, that hurts to do. Now, imagine trying to throw 95 miles an hour. It's not good. Here's Mark Pryor with the classic inverted W, with the elbows above the shoulder.

Speaker 2 29:22

Here's where we're getting into the problem with Mark Pryor, where he's still, you know, his shoulders are starting to turn and his elbow is still well above the level of his shoulders. You can see here, you know, this is the real problem with Mark Pryor. And again to the points about impingement that we've been talking about. You know, the problem isn't just that Mark Pryor's arm is flat when his foot is down and his shoulders are going to start to turn. The problem is is how high Mark Pryor's shoulder or elbow is above the level of his shoulders, which is a problem that I've identified with Paul Skeens at a minimum. I don't know if Skeens is going to go full prior, but I certainly have concerns for Paul Skeens in terms of hyperabduction and impingement injuries.

Speaker 1 30:08

Talk about redline. He's redlined with his workouts right Everything is like full, full, full everything.

Speaker 2 30:20

I mean he's just everything is like full, full, full, everything. Well, and that's, and that's I. So I had another guy kind of come after me trying to say the problem is these guys aren't strong enough, and I think that's, I think that's nonsense.

Speaker 1 30:27

Absolutely nonsense.

Speaker 2 30:28

Right, there's. Strength is good. Nolan Ryan was had a lot of functional strength, tom Seaver had a lot of functional strength but there's only so much that you can do to minimize, to deal with, to try to condition your way around a problem like what Mark Pryor was doing. Conditioning is good. You can get a lot of conditioning from throwing. There are specialized exercises that guys like you can provide that can help target specific stuff. But there's only so much that that can do. You have to move fundamentally well and move from good positions and you know my real concern with the state of the art of things is that kids are being taught these bad positions. Here's a kid being taught to move like Matt Harvey did and people will say you know, I'm teaching you to move like Matt Harvey and the thought I always have and you will have is, yeah, but Matt Harvey's out of the league and he, you know, he had a couple of good years and then he was done.

Speaker 1 31:23

I mean it's like a rib, a thoracic outlet. I mean it's just, it's like incredible.

Speaker 2 31:28

Right, I think that having to have surgery in order to survive your pitching mechanics, I think that's a big deal. It's, yes, very much, very much, you know. Again, I'll try to go back to my credentials a little bit. You know I do a lot of this tweeting and it's I'm not, I'm not pounding on guys, I'm trying to make these predictions and if you can predict stuff, that means that you can prevent it, you know. So here's, you know, schwellenbach and Strider moving basically the same, and this is me pointing this out before Schwellenbach broke, before his elbow broke. We'll see what else breaks with Schwellenbach.

Speaker 1 32:06

Yeah, what's his? How long is he out for?

Speaker 2 32:10

It's at least for like a month or so because, he's got to let his elbow heal, but I think there will be follow on injuries after that. You know, here's a little kind of another summary. It's not just the higher velocities, it's how the higher velocities are being achieved. I don't think velocity is the problem per se. I think there are two paths to velocity. You've got the Aroldis Chapman classic, justin Verlander, nolan Ryan, tom Seaver path to velocity which is athletic and patient, and then you've got the kind of the modern approach to velocity which is very tricky. It's all tricks and shortcuts. It's the weekend velocity bumps and the drive lines of the world. They're trying to compensate by throwing in weighted balls and weighted ball problems.

Speaker 2 32:57

And it just doesn't work.

Speaker 2 32:58

You know, fundamentally the problem is modern pitching mechanics. The problem is driveline, the Texas baseball ranch which got Verlander Tread, and most of the people you know, most of the velocity gurus, are teaching bad stuff. Even some of the guys that I've liked in the past are now teaching the bad stuff, I guess because that's where the money is. You know, they see it as easy money and again, this is the difference. What's changed in the game? This is Justin Verlander, I think 2009, versus Kerry Wood, in the same kind of time frame, and you could see these problems coming in advance because they were in just fundamentally different positions. Could see these problems coming in advance because they were in just fundamentally different positions. And again, you can see some of this kind of this lack of athleticism in Kerry Wood how kind of tall and upright he is versus Verlander, who's a little bit lower, got a little more flexion, and you know there are other parts of Verlander that are a lot more athletic.

Speaker 1 33:49

Wood looks very, very rigid.

Speaker 2 33:51

Right, right, and here's Nolan Ryan. This is the picture of Nolan Ryan that really kind of blew my mind, First and foremost from a timing standpoint. The front foot is almost down and the pitching arm is almost up. That's why did Nolan Ryan last, and it was because ground Nolan Ryan's back leg is, his knee is. This is kind of the drop and drive, Tom Severy, more athletic, throw with your whole body, throw with your core, not just with your arm, kind of approach that Verlander used to do doesn't do as much, you know, in terms of flat arm syndrome, what I call a timing problem. Again, you know, Nolan Ryan, the foot's almost down, the arm's almost up. Nolan Ryan with the Astros the foot is down, the arm is up. Justin Verlander.

Speaker 1 34:46

Down arm up.

Speaker 2 34:47

Yeah, verlander, the arm is up. And then we get Kerry Wood the foot's down, the arm is flat. And you know what happened to Kerry Wood, what happened to Mark Pryor. This is what happened Berlander, the arm is up, kerry Wood, the arm is flat. These are very obvious differences and you know really what's changed over the past 20 years. This is what's changed.

Otani's Mechanics and Japanese Pitching

Speaker 2 35:09

You've got 90 degrees of external rotation. Basically, you know, all modern pitchers are throwing from this basic flat arm position, the same position that got Kerry Wood. Hardly anybody is throwing from this arm up position, not even Justin Verlander, and I've got some slides that go to that. You know, flat arm syndrome, flat arm syndrome, walker Bueller. What's going on with Walker Bueller? Well, he's got this Tommy John twist where the thumb comes down, and you're trying to point the ball at second base and that's a bad for Walker Buehler because it limits the external rotation at front foot plant. So that increases the overload which allows Buehler to throw hard. But you know it's a trick and shortcut and there's no free lunch. Kumar Rocker's the same kind of thing. The Tommy John twist, the thumb is down, the arm is flatter, it's just, it's all kind of overload. And you can see these differences when you compare Rocker classic, verlander and Buehler. These are very, very different, fundamentally different movement patterns. Absolutely, absolutely. These are great, chris, these are great. Yeah, thanks for goading me into doing this. Schwellenbach versus Verlander, up versus flat.

Speaker 2 36:23

So let's get to the question of what happened to Justin Verlander. If I like Justin Verlander so much, what the hell happened to him? As I was tweeting yesterday, I flipped to sell on Justin Verlander right before he broke. So I actually know Brent Strom. We've had a lot of conversations about, you know, mark Mulder and pitching mechanics when Strom was with the Cardinals. So I was emailing Strom in 2019, 2010, when Verlander was trying to boost his velocity and was talking to driveline, and I'm like Brent this is bad stuff talking to driveline, and I'm like Brent this is this is bad stuff. I can't believe that anyone would mess with Justin Verlander, but Ron Wolfer, the Texas baseball ranch, did, and you can see these differences here.

Speaker 1 37:06

He he just for a timeline. He changed him and then he blew out Right.

Speaker 2 37:13

Right, yes, Well, in Verlander. So actually Verlander tweeted at the. At the end or after just after the end of the 2019 season, Verlander tweeted I'm going to make some changes to try to boost my velocity and stay healthy. And all those changes completely backfired. So then Verlander needed Tommy John surgery in I think it was 2020 or whenever, whenever, kind of like shane beaver same thing let's win some.

Speaker 2 37:39

Let's win some cy young awards, and then let's change right like, and the difference is verlander is now this is verlander, with the giants is now doing the tommy john twist, whereas verlander was in this kind of like high five position. Now he's twisted and he's rotated his palm 90 degrees, which is completely consistent with the conventional wisdom, but it's also limiting verlander's external rotation, creating a timing problem, and this is why verlander is having trouble getting back to health, and you can actually see that verlander lately has been actually kind of doubling down on this. This is is pretty bad, but this is even worse.

Speaker 1 38:21

Look at all of his center of mass. He won't catch up. He can't catch up.

Speaker 2 38:29

It's the worst thing. Verlander is doubling down on the conventional wisdom and the conventional wisdom is absolutely destroying him. I did see a tweet from a Giants reporter suggesting that Verlander maybe was trying to work with his timing, changing his timing and his location of his handbrake. So maybe Verlander is queuing into some of this stuff. But you know, justin, give you a call, I can explain what's going on, right, and you know. Just look at you.

Speaker 2 38:57

Know what's the difference with Justin Verlander. Why isn't Justin Verlander of the Giants the same as the Justin Verlander of Detroit? Look at his pitching arm, look at his palm. Here he's pointing the ball at third base in a very neutral natural position, and here Verlander, his fingers on top of the ball, pointing the ball at second base or center field. You know that pronation difference leads to a timing difference which leads to just kind of everything falling apart. Verlander looks a lot more like Kumar Rocker and Walker Bueller than the Justin Verlander of old and it's really horrible and tragic that someone has actually done this to a pitcher like Verlander, who can't actually get a freaking win anymore. He's never going to make it to 300.

Speaker 1 39:45

No, no one will ever make it to 300. No modern day person might make it to 200, besides the guys in the league. Now I think 100 is in question as well.

Speaker 2 39:53

Besides the guys in the league now I think 100 is in question as well. That's yeah and that's how fast things are changing and collapsing. But again, verlander pointing the ball at third base, verlander, fingers on top of the ball pointing the ball at second base or center field. I will say, the Dr Mike Marshall guys will tell you that they know everything.

Speaker 1 40:20

I think it's obvious that they don't they're really just kind of crazy. Some guy I try to read his stuff. I'm like dude, what are you talking about? No-transcript. Well, that's so kinetic like you're making up words.

Speaker 2 40:39

Well, and that's. You know, that's kind of a mark of insecurity. I am smart enough that I know that I'm smart and I'm willing to use small words. And you get these insecure Dr Mike Marshall guys who can't get away from the gigantic made up words.

Speaker 1 40:53

You know kind of made up words.

Speaker 2 40:55

Right. Some of this is that late is bad. Late, the flat arm syndrome. What got Justin Verlander? What got Schwellenbeck? What got Strider? What's getting everyone? That's bad, but getting the arm up early is just as bad.

Speaker 2 41:11

You know, dustin May, there are a lot of pitchers out there. This is actually. This early thing is what led me to get a little skeptical about Dr Mike Marshall and kind of clued me into okay, he's maybe not, he's not all that he says he is and he's not all that his guys think he is. This is Freddy Garcia with the White Sox, who Dr Mike Marshall at the time would say Freddy Garcia moves basically perfectly because his arm's up, his arm isn't just up on time, it's actually up early and that's good and I'm like, okay, well, so obviously Freddy Garcia is going to be completely healthy. Well, you know, a year after winning the World Series with the White Sox, freddy Garcia went down with shoulder problems and never really came back from those shoulder problems. He went through the Yankees and, you know, did nothing with the Yankees because his shoulder was fried.

Speaker 2 42:02

He was hurt, right, and that was not because his arm was late, but because his arm was early. Here's Dustin May, and this is some of what happens when the arm gets up early. So when your arm gets up early, you then often have to do things to kind of create tension and allow your arm to kind of reload. So what happens is Dustin May's arm gets up and then it has to flatten out again. And this is where you can see Dustin May is flattening up, flattening out again, and this is why May can't stay healthy, because he gets his arm up early. So then he has to create a timing problem in order to kind of refine that energy. If he would just kind of be smooth and get his arm up on time, he'd be having an easier time staying healthy. Uh, you know TLDR. You know what's changed? This idea of just throwing? You know lining up and throwing as I was taught, as it sounds like you were taught, versus all these tricks and shortcuts.

Speaker 2 43:02

I found this picture the other day which kind of sums up the state of the art of things. This is, you know, from a tweet by the RBI program, which is great, but look at what people are being taught. Look at what this kid is doing Pulling hard with the glove side while the arm is flat, drift, drag and shrug Right exactly. You know this poor kid is not copying Justin Verlander, he's copying Schwellenbach and his glove side is actually worse than Schwellenbach's. You know these kids are never going to make it out of high school, if they even make it to high school, because they're being taught to overload their arms at a very young age. You know, look at the glove side. You know here's Verlander doing kind of a Mariano Rivera gun sight thing. This kid could never do that because his glove sight is actually long gone.

Speaker 2 43:51

Some of the names you know Paul Nyman is really kind of the Johnny Appleseed of a lot of the worst stuff. You know he invented the inverter W and scap loading. Ron Wolferth in the Texas Baseball Ranch is the guy who got Justin Verlander. Tom House is the guy who got Mark Pryor. Fortunately House isn't really doing baseball anymore, thank God. And then you've got Kyle Boddy of Driveline. All these guys are kind of doing the same thing. Kyle Boddy made one argument that actually made sense, which is Boddy tried to combine the mechanic stuff of Paul Nyman and the conditioning stuff of Dr Mike Marshall to see if Marshall's conditioning stuff would allow pitchers to stay healthy and to survive the Paul Nyman, tom House mechanic stuff. And obviously that's been a failure. It doesn't work.

Speaker 2 44:42

There's, you know, conditioning is good to a point but you can't compensate for fundamentally flawed movement patterns. You know the problem isn't necessarily velocity, it's quickie velocity versus patient velocity. You know the difference between throwing and pitching. I think throwing is a natural action. The problem is is that pitching is what's unnatural. You know, all this kind of regimented doing it a hundred times at maximum effort. That's very different than throwing stones at a rabbit until you kill it. Those are very different things.

Speaker 2 45:17

You know, in fundamentally this is a an economics point, which is there's no free lunch. People are selling a free lunch. They're selling the tricks and shortcuts. This is a quote that I just got from someone which is saying that the bodies are going to revolutionize the game of baseball and really fundamentally they've done that by teaching everyone to move like a reliever and not a starter. And fundamentally there's no free lunch. Some of the answer is athleticism, like you see in Aroldis Chapman, natural mechanics, patience.

Speaker 2 45:47

I had a brief conversation with Justin Verlander, I think, when he was on a plane and he really kind of stressed the importance of patience to his development. You know, and as we said last time, I think you know, verlander did go SEC. He went to Old Dominion, which is not exactly a baseball powerhouse, but that gave Verlander the time to develop. But even Justin Verlander wasn't JV until his second year of pro ball. That level of patience is lacking, you know.

Speaker 2 46:17

In contrast, you've got the Alex Reyes's who never went anywhere, unfortunately, because he was all tricks and shortcuts and injuries. And I'll go back to credentials. You know I never liked Alex Reyes from the beginning. The first time I saw Alex Reyes, in March of 2014, I thought he made me nervous for both elbow and shoulder reasons, and that's exactly what happened to Reyes. You know, and you can compare the twisty flat Reyes arm action versus Seaver, who got his arm up, koufax, who got his arm up, ryan, who got his arm up. I will say, you know, I actually know Kyle Boddy from 2008. Kyle Boddy came to me for help and I have a real problem with Kyle Boddy because Kyle Boddy is selling the stuff that got his own shoulder.

Speaker 1 47:07

I find that that story is amazing. It truly is amazing.

Speaker 2 47:13

Basically for people who haven't heard the story, kyle Boddy learned the inverted.

Speaker 1 47:17

W. This is his email, right, he sent it.

Speaker 2 47:19

This is the exact email you can email him back. You've got his email address right there.

The Human Cost of Bad Mechanics

Speaker 2 47:23

There you go. So I was working with Kyle Boddy or talking to him via the Baseball Fever website, which he references here, in 2007. And Boddy was taught the inverted W and did it and screwed up his shoulder. And then Boddy came to me and I'm like, like you can't do the inverted w. The inverted w is what's causing your problems. And so I taught him a bunch of. I basically gave body an early version of this presentation and body tried it and it worked on himself and body doesn't teach that body teaches just the opposite, or he teaches and they call it what?

Speaker 1 47:56

the, the staircase or something.

Speaker 2 47:58

Right the spiral staircase. Let's talk about you know, jeff Passon has written about me. Jeff Passon is a liar. You know I called the Matt Harvey injury for a writer named Matt Giles. This is New York Magazine. I think let's talk about Otani, since people we've already gone through Mizorowski, here's Otani. So you've got the same kind of Otani isn't quite as inverted as some people and Otani is more of a horizontal W than an inverted W, but Otani has the same basic problem where. So here Otani is at roughly zero degrees of external rotation. Otani's pitching arm is relatively flat and that, unfortunately, is when his pitching arm starts to come under load. His front foot plants, his shoulders start to turn. Watch the D kind of move as he moves from flexion to extension and watch how much his elbow is moving here, which leads to the external rotation. So this is why I don't think Otani is going to last with the Dodgers. I don't see any significant change.

Speaker 1 49:14

It made nothing, nope, nope.

Speaker 2 49:18

And this is you know. This is something that is actually taught in Japan, pretty widely taught. Most of the Japanese players will do the inverted L or the inverted V, if not the inverted W, and one of the differences is that they're pitching every seven days, not every five days.

Speaker 1 49:35

They only pitch once a week, like in college.

Speaker 2 49:37

And that's a big difference, and that's the same thing. It's the same thing for Liam Doyle in the SEC and in college. They're only going, you know they're the Friday night guy or the Saturday guy. They're going every seven days. Those two days makes a real difference in terms of rest and recovery. I don't have any belief, any faith in Otani's ability to stay healthy because his you know, his pitching arm is flat and not up when his shoulders start to turn. All right, what, what do you want? To what do you any things?

Speaker 1 50:10

you want to talk about. No, I think I mean you covered this this beautifully. I mean, it's just, I just I don't know how. Anyone just can't see it. I don't understand why there's an argument, I don't understand why there's an attack and the only thing I can come up with is you know, I've traced some of these trolls that have gone after me and it's all about money, right, you'll find out. They've learned from Tread, they've learned from Driveline, and one of my buddies once said he was involved.

Speaker 1 50:39

Someone, someone we knew, got hooked up in like a multi-level marketing ponzi scheme and lost a bunch of money. And he said dude, no grown man is ever going to want to admit out loud to themselves that they've been hoodwinked, right, so they're gonna have to lash out and and make you the. You know where'd you get your pt degree? Like dude, I forgot more. I forgot more about human movement than you'll ever know. Um, I just know that you can't throw a baseball from excessive abduction, internal rotation it is the worst position for the shoulder to be at. And if you're that, you are insane and you're injuring people.

Speaker 1 51:22

And I, you know people get to major leagues. That's 0.001% of the population. Good for them. They've made money, god bless them. But you don't teach Chris sales mechanics to a kid, right? You don't teach Mark Pryor's mechanics to a kid. And? And there's therapists, there's people who do what I do, who are literally teaching that nonsense to adolescents. Maybe for the, you know, lights up the radar gun for a few, but I want to see what happens when they're, when they're 20, and we never, we never see. Oh, you know so and so did this. Well, we're so. And so two years later, like I know where all my players are Right.

Speaker 1 52:00

They're all healthy. They've chosen to stop playing if they're not playing.

Speaker 2 52:10

And that's one of the things that really bothers me. You know, I'm still bothered by the story of Bobby Madrich from 20 years ago, who was with you know, an inverted V guy with the Mariners. You know, these guys still bother me. I still think about Joel Zumaia. It really bothers me how quickly people can kind of throw away players. You know how quickly they disregard these players. You know these are human beings. And to the point about Strasburg, you know this is a guy whose life is changed.

Speaker 1 52:35

Yes, he's rich, but Well, what's the value of your right arm, Chris Right, If today you lost in a freak woodchipper accident?

Speaker 2 52:45

well, what's the?

Speaker 1 52:46

value of your right arm.

Speaker 2 52:47

In constant pain. You know how much pain is Strasberg in, you know, and whenever I see guys dying of overdoses, I wonder, you know, are they in constant pain? Is pain the reason that they ended up overdosing? You know what? What was it about how they moved that led to this constant pain, that put them in this position of constant pain, that led to their overdosing? And that really bothers me and it keeps me up at night and that's kind of why I'm at it and that's why I appreciate you know what you're doing, because we're kind of the the lonely voices in the wood.

Speaker 1 53:18

Yeah, oh, absolutely, yeah, absolutely, but you know people are starting to listen because we're kind of the lonely voices in the wood. Oh, absolutely, yeah, absolutely. But you know people are starting to listen Because once you show them right because everything I'll bring them in, I'll prove. Okay, look, let's put you in this position. Let me test your strength. You have none. Now what if I just did? Look how strong you are? Why would you throw from that position?

Speaker 2 53:37

I know just ever.

Speaker 1 53:40

Just you are.

Speaker 2 53:41

Why would you throw from that position? I know just ever just dropping from here. Just do this here. Yeah, right, right. And people like right do you? Are you gonna punch a guy from up here? Are you gonna punch a guy from down here? Never, never.

Speaker 1 53:50

But, like I said, most of the trolls. And now you know, is it felsic, the guy who's like splic watch the money with that guy. Something's going on there. Now he's talking about that. You know plyo balls are good. All of a sudden what?

Final Thoughts and Closing

Speaker 2 54:05

you're gonna give a kid with who can't move and throw them plyo balls, come on he was dr james andrews, biomechanics guy, and now that that, now that the andrews gravy train is drying- up, I see Faisal, all the money. Right.

Speaker 1 54:21

All the money.

Speaker 2 54:22

He is following the money and there are other guys that I used to respect who are following the money and teaching the bad stuff, teaching the quickie stuff, and it's a real problem Big time, like you say, there's no free lunch.

Speaker 1 54:35

Well, chris, thank you again. We have to do this. We should definitely do this every so often. Well, chris, thank you again. We have to do this. We should definitely do this every so often. We've got to educate parents. Right, everything starts. I don't know how many parents are brainwashed by this nonsense and it's all the. You know they want to do right by their kid, but there's just so much bad stuff out there that we need to you know, yell loud and get people to wake up and be like no, this is crack.

Speaker 2 55:01

We don't do crack. Well, I'll start putting together an end season, uh wrap up. That kind of shows the pattern so you can follow all right here. Here are all the guys who broke just this year and notice how they're all doing the same thing. And you know, we'll come back and the end of the season. Sometime during the off season we'll hit it again and hit it again.

Speaker 1 55:18

I appreciate your time, sir. Thank you, no, thank you. Well, guys, again, thank you for listening. Please like and subscribe. Visit velocity rxorg and help us save 1 million arms, one at a time. Thanks for listening.