Keeping Jacob deGrom Healthy for Baseball and the Mets with this Simple Adjustment
Major League Baseball and its fans will have to continue to wait to watch Jacob deGrom pitch again. deGrom arguably baseball’s best starting pitcher has a stress reaction in his right throwing shoulder and will be sidelined indefinitely.
Maybe the Mets have had a terrible string of bad luck since the Mid ’90s, but they seem not have all their star pitchers healthy at the same time. I’m a Mets fan at heart. I grew up outside Norfolk, VA, which is home to the Norfolk Tides, an affiliate of the New York Mets Organization from 1969 to 2006. During the mid-90’s I was fortunate to see “Generation K” which consisted of pitchers Bill Pulsipher, Jason Isringhausen, and Paul Wilson all pitch for the AAA Tides. Unfortunately, throwing injuries to all three pitchers derailed the high expectations, and Mets fans were never able to witness years of potential greatness and success. This exact tale played out again from 2014 to 2019 with highly talented pitchers Matt Harvey, Zack Wheeler, Stephen Matz, Jacob deGrom, and Noah Syndergarrd. The group was unable to stay healthy consistently, but the one year they did, they advanced to the World Series in 2015.
But this isn’t really a Mets issue, it’s an issue throughout all of baseball. Are organizations capable of keeping their top arms healthy? Or are injuries just a part of the game?
Pictured above (left to right): Jason Isringhausen, Paul Wilson, Bill Pulsipher. Pictured below (left to right): Bartolo Colon, Matt Harvey, Noah Syndegaard, Jacob deGrom, Stephen Matz, Zach Wheeler
I recently read an article titled Chasing Velocity by Kevin Kernan. Great article. I strongly encourage you to read it. At the conclusion of the article, he says, “he (deGrom) should make the adjustments that need to be made to make sure he remains healthy. And the biggest adjustment is stop chasing 100 miles per hour. There is no need for that stress on his arm and his body since last July when everyone was going crazy over his 100 mph heater. Slow down”
It’s true, not just Jacob deGrom, but a vast majority of the current throwing/pitching culture are chasing the never-ending velocity rabbit. “Train to throw as hard as you can, throw as hard you can” because the culture says this is successful. Wrong. We have billions of dollars of lost wages to tell you this philosophy is hurting the game of baseball and a never-ending turn style of pitchers coming and going but never really staying. How hard do you need to throw to succeed at the highest level? The analytics department of every MLB Organization can tell you what pitch metrics are most successful and will make player decisions accordingly. Still, they haven’t figured out the metrics that keep pitchers on the field and how to not lose their organization millions of dollars.
In this case, the Mets lost over $14 million last year and just lost $180 thousand in 1 day because deGrom cannot pitch. In addition, the Mets will likely lose over $10 million in lost wages before deGrom returns. But why is Jacob deGrom hurt yet again? He had an entire second half of a season combined with an off-season to recover from a shoulder injury suffered last season? All signs this spring training indicated deGrom was his vintage self and ready to regain his Cy Young status. Yet he’s hurt again and possibly out two months. It doesn’t make sense, or does it?
As referenced above, Kernan stated, “make the adjustments that need to be made to make sure he remains healthy.” I don’t know Jacob deGrom, nor do I know his entire training program, but a sequencing adjustment that can be made to help deGrom to stay healthy is reducing the amount of shoulder retraction that occurs before the shoulder begins to rotate externally. I’ll provide extensive detail, but the needed adjustment stems from years of studying, observing, and validating movement patterns that, over time (innings), can lead to a throwing injury.
deGrom’s injury is a slow manifestation of the shoulder joint manipulating itself to handle the demands of high-intensity pitching. Minor throwing injuries tend to surface before a significant throwing injury. Scientifically, the muscles and tendons surrounding the shoulder are working to prevent the shoulder joint from flying off the body and have a threshold before the joint integrity of the shoulder becomes a weak link in the kinetic chain surrounding the pitching delivery. deGrom will likely return to pitch for the Mets this season, but can his shoulder handle the demands of a starter moving forward? The adjustment discussed below can only help.
THE ADJUSTMENT
Over the next month, deGrom will be shut down from throwing. Still, during this period, the adjustment in the sequence of deGrom’s pitching delivery referenced above can easily be implemented as part of his return to throwing program. But first, let us discuss the particular timing issue in Jacob deGrom’s pitching delivery leading to increased tension in the shoulder capsule before the external rotation of the shoulder each pitch.
TIMING ISSUE
To simplify it, I have provided a short video to overview what I will be referencing in deGrom’s delivery.
Here is a summation of key points to be understood from the video above.
deGrom is likely a highly mobile athlete who can achieve high ends of the range of motion throughout his body, leading to increased shoulder retraction.
deGrom’s torso delays in flexion too long before moving into extension
The delay forces the throwing arm to retract into periods of high tension in the shoulder capsule.
The shoulder is in prolonged tension before maximally externally rotating.
The shoulder will fatigue faster due to the timing issue, especially when asked to stabilize a 100mph fastball.
To see the level of shoulder retraction from a different vantage point, I’ve synced up deGrom in 2021 from both the 1st and 3rd base views below. Again, pay close attention to the position of deGrom’s forearm right as his front foot is settling into the ground.
To help better understand what the simple adjustment looks like in a game, I have provided a comparison video between Jacob deGrom pitching in 2021 and a video of Mariano Rivera pitching in 1997.
CONCLUSION
The game of baseball is deprived of one of the best, if not the best, starting pitchers in all of baseball for an indefinite period of time. So maybe, just maybe, this simple adjustment of how he transitions through his pitching delivery can benefit deGrom, the Mets, and baseball?
I may be the only person to look at deGrom’s injury situation from this lens, but I know the adjustment can only help him. The adjustment doesn’t have to alter his skill or change his pitching delivery; it’s a simple understanding of when and how to transition from one movement to the next to help sustain the throwing shoulder and elbow functionality. It’s all awareness and understanding. You would hardly be able to tell the difference to the naked eye once correctly implemented. The challenge is all the preconceived notions when telling someone to change that it may hurt their performance and take away from his 100mph fastball.
As Kernan mentioned, deGrom may want to consider scaling back his average fastball. Can he achieve similar success if his average fastball velocity decreases 3% 5%? I want to think so. The ability to throw 100mph will still be there; just dial it up when you need it. The history of baseball is filled with pitchers who get outs in various ways. The separating factor becomes how long you can do it.
