We asked our MLB experts to talk to a handful of pitchers about what they believe is behind the rise — and what steps they would take to solve the growing problem.
How bad is MLB’s pitcher injury problem right now?
Trevor Rogers, starter, Miami Marlins: It’s definitely something that’s alarming. A fan that wants to see a game, it’s different when [Jacob] deGrom is on the mound or Gerrit Cole or Sandy [Alcantara]. Guys consistently going down is alarming.
Caleb Ferguson, reliever, New York Yankees: I definitely think it’s more now. And, to your point, it’s definitely the faces of the league.
Kirby Yates, reliever, Texas Rangers: I don’t know where the numbers are, but I think over the last two or three years, pitchers have been getting hurt at a very, very high rate [34.4% of MLB pitchers in 2022 and 35.3% in 2023 had undergone Tommy John surgery, according to baseball injury researcher Jon Roegele]. It’s getting magnified now because some of our best have been getting hurt. It’s definitely a concern. But with the way the game is going, and the way velocities are, how good hitters are, how small the strike zone has gotten, I don’t how you change it.
Max Fried, starter, Atlanta Braves: There are injuries every year. There are definitely more high-profile injuries this year, but it’s definitely a tough subject just because there are so many different variables for why players get injuries.
Clarke Schmidt, starter, New York Yankees: It’s definitely scary and it’s something you definitely have to be cognizant of. But, obviously, you can’t just sit there and worry about it all day long. But I think it’s in the back of guys’ minds. But it’s just part of the game. Definitely a factor — and a little scary that they’re picking up a lot.
Velocity has been cited as one of the factors in rising injuries. How much do you believe that plays into the problem?
Ferguson: There’s a common theme with all these guys that are going down: They all throw 100. We’ve pushed velo so hard in the game that this is where we’re at and we have to try to figure out how to fix it.
Fried: There’s a correlation to it: The more velocity you have, the more stress it puts on joints, ligaments, etc. It’s obviously something that’s part of the equation.
Rogers: The past two years I was hunting velo and I got hurt. Thankfully it wasn’t season-ending. It was something I had to learn — that velo helps, it always plays. But there is more than one way to get a guy out. That’s by pitching and having velo. If you just focus on velo, it’s only a matter of time.
Drew Smyly, reliever, Chicago Cubs: Players know that “the harder I throw, the nastier my pitches are, the more money teams will throw at me.” That’s a real thing, too, and something every team promotes. The time of commanding pitches down and away and mixing speeds, that’s just not how the game is. Players know how to make money. That’s another element. There is so much information now. It goes all the way down to the high school kids. They know what spin rate is, what vertical movement is and what velocity they need to get to.
Steven Wilson, reliever, Chicago White Sox: There is a strong correlation between velocity and arm injuries. But there is also a strong correlation between velocity and people not hitting the ball. Guys want to get paid so they’re chasing velocity, which I don’t think is wrong. And I don’t think it’s going to change because if it is harder to hit, that’s what we’re trying to do.
Will Smith, reliever, Kansas City Royals: Velo is king right now, that’s for sure. Guys are chasing the high velo, and it makes sense. It’s harder to hit. I mean, if you give a guy less time to make a decision, they already don’t have much time to make a decision with the 90 [mph] now, and 100, 101 just cuts it in half almost. … When you see results like you do, you can’t help but to chase it down.
What about the pitch clock?
Mark Leiter Jr., reliever, Chicago Cubs: It’s probably the main factor. You have less time to recover. It’s really like we’re a big experiment and they’re seeing what they can do.
Fried: I don’t think [the pitch clock] is the sole reason, but it’s one of the variables. I think there’s a certain way to pace yourself, but any time you have to speed up and you’re tired and out of sync, you’re more susceptible to get out of rhythm.
Smyly: There are times throughout the game you definitely feel rushed or tired and not able to catch your breath, which could promote an injury. Our trainers say there have been studies that the oxygen in your [shoulder] muscles — when you’re doing something quick without a chance to recover — that could increase your chance for injury. With the pitch clock, sometimes you don’t have that time to take a deep breath.
Adam Ottavino, reliever, New York Mets: I don’t buy it as, like, the reason. But we don’t know the effects of the pitch clock. I mean I personally haven’t felt like it’s putting that type of stress on me, like, acute fatigue or whatever, something that would lend itself to me getting really hurt. But at the same time, if you have a really long inning out there and you have a hard time stopping yourself — you can get pretty gassed. Maybe that has some effect.
Ferguson: I think they made it too quick [by taking two more seconds off]. I’m telling you right now, my pitches in between innings have never felt more rushed. And like when I run out from the bullpen, I’ve never felt like I’ve been as rushed as what I have these past couple years — this year especially. … It’s just like, at what point are we just doing too much harm to put more butts in the seats?
Wilson: For lack of a better term, we s— the bed with that. We reduced the game by 37 minutes last year and they wanted more? How about a 20-second pitch clock all the time? There is a reason powerlifters don’t go rapidly. There needs to be a certain amount of recovery time in between max effort. Being fatigued can put you in a bad spot mechanically, and you can do it on one pitch.
Gerrit Cole, starter, New York Yankees: It is something that we have to adapt to. And every time you adapt to something there is a cost. I can’t sit here and show you exactly what the data is that says what exactly the cost is. … Everybody’s talking about the effect of the pitch clock just in one year. But what are MRIs going to look like 10 years from now? Five years from now? What are guys’ elbows going to look like pitching under the pitch clock for a prolonged period of time?
Is the baseball itself part of the problem?
Yates: I didn’t pitch for two and a half years [due to a 2021 Tommy John surgery], and when I started pitching again, there was a noticeable difference. Sometimes you get seams that are super high that kind of hurt your finger, and other times, you don’t have any seams. Sometimes the cover is really slick, and sometimes they are rubbed up well. There are inconsistencies all across the board. We deal with it every day and so we’re kind of used to it, but you know, it’s definitely frustrating.
Wilson: Yes. The clubbies are rubbing these balls up at noon. We’re getting the ball at 8:30 at night. When we get it, it’s basically covered in loose dirt. The mud has since dried. I’ll throw a ball out because there are no seams. The next one could be a high school ball with the seams. It’s very inconsistent.
Fried: To be completely honest, that’s not necessarily something that I notice. Do I think that sometimes the balls on some days, am I sweating a little bit more and I have a little less grip on the ball? Absolutely. Other days, are there days when I feel great and the ball feels great? Yes. I think this is in the category of “these are the conditions you have to play in today and you have to make the most of it.” The conditions are never going to be the same. … For me, there’s always been a varied state of baseballs, and I just have to try to make the most of it.
Chris Flexen, starter, Chicago White Sox: It’s impossible to make zero imperfections, but the differences this year are not different than in the past. There are irregularities with the ball. Sometimes you get a ball that feels larger in the hand. Sometimes the laces feel higher. Sometimes there are no laces. Sometimes it feels like a cue ball.
Jordan Wicks, starter, Chicago Cubs: I think the ball is fine. Balls are going to be different. You can’t make every ball the same. They tried last year at Double-A, that was terrible. Balls in April, in Boston, are going to feel different than balls in Miami in July. That’s just a part of the game.
What are some other factors contributing to the rise?
Ferguson: Analytics. Not to beat a dead horse — but I think Verlander’s interview was spot on with it. I think it’s a combination of everything that you put into the game now. The pitch clock. The sticky [stuff]. The analytics. The baseball. Everything is different. … Now it’s not about pitching. It’s just about the stuff.
Garrett Crochet, reliever, Chicago White Sox: I think it’s a culmination of everything. When I was in youth baseball, I didn’t throw hard. And when I was in high school, I wasn’t chasing velocity or spin rate or anything. It was just, “Oh, that looked good.” The accessibility to all the technology has changed things. … Everyone wants to throw the grossest pitch possible and now you have numbers that you can literally chase.
Cole: In 2017 I finished the year with a 4.20 and led the league in games started and had over 200 innings. It would be hard for somebody in this game right now to run a 4.20 out there, and their club’s going to push them for 33 starts and over 200 innings because the standard of performance is higher. The league is demanding that you throw your best pitch every single time because the hitters are better, the strike zone is smaller, the balls are different, the bats are different. We’ve just evolved into just a higher performance product, which is good. …
When guys were more healthy, we weren’t able to go into a pitching lab and concoct a new pitch and then use that at a 35% clip for the next six months and only have practiced it two months before we roll it out. Like we have no data on that. … It’s certainly a variable that’s out there. Along with the importance of spin, the importance of velocity and the importance of location … They’re all contributing factors.
Yates: The strike zone has gotten smaller, and guys are pitching to the computer — having to spin the ball to a certain amount, to make them break a certain amount. Hitters are really good in the strike zone. So you have to be really good in the strike zone, and everything you throw has to be nasty, with high intensity. … You don’t really have a grace period off the strike zone. In the past, with some umpires, you’d get the outside corner, but they wouldn’t give you the inside corner. Stuff like that. Now, you have to get the ball over the plate, and you have to be really good over the plate. You can’t really trick anybody. It’s really hard to do.
What is the first step you would take to address MLB’s pitching injury issue?
Cole: Well, we can start by having more helpful conversations and not pointing fingers. And not saying that it’s absolutely this or it’s absolutely not that. And we can make it feel like players aren’t necessarily caught in the middle of all of it. Especially because pitchers are so different. Each guy is different. Some guys train better with high volume and low intensity. Some guys train better with low volume and high intensity. It’s just different organisms. So it’s not a blanket thing for the league. One of these rule changes — or one of these variables could’ve affected a certain group of guys more than another group of guys. And vice versa. … We need to get on the same page to at least try to fix it.
Ferguson: I think with pushing velo and pushing stuff as hard as what we have, now we have to figure out how to bring it back but keep everything else that’s been added to a pitcher’s routine before he throws a pitch. You gotta figure out how to keep all that and bring back down all the injuries.
Ottavino: Ultimately, [it’s] never going to stop until they engineer the game to take some of that out of it, whether it’s rule changes or roster limits, that kind of stuff, which is probably going to come down the pike at some point. I also think scouts just decide, “We’re not interested in high school guys that throw 95,” which will probably never happen. But if they were prioritizing a guy who can grow into his body but had the pitchability and threw like 90, 94, I feel like that type of trajectory lends itself to maybe having a little more of a chance of staying healthy. I worry about guys that throw 100 in the minor leagues. How long can you do that for?
Yates: We — pitchers — have complained about pitchers having a grip on a baseball for years and they’ve done absolutely nothing to help out with that, it’s actually the reverse. We could start there. If they addressed the cover of the baseball and we could hold on a little bit better, it might make us spin the ball a little bit better.
I do think there was a point where the stickiness got carried away — I do agree with that — but as pitchers, it’s a very uncomfortable feeling when you don’t have a good grip on the baseball. When you don’t have a good grip, you tend to squeeze the life out of it. I’m not an expert, but I think that just based on feel, and having to grip a baseball really tight, when you wake up the next morning, your arm does feel a little bit different. Fix the baseball, start there. And then you see what happens.
Wilson: A lot of it is individual. Each guy’s body moves differently. Each guy’s arm moves differently. I think it’s up to the individual to find a good strength and conditioning program to get their body right, to get their mechanics right. We need to be in good, healthier positions. There is enough biomechanical data to know there is less stress on the arm if it’s higher up and foot plant. Nothing will eliminate TJ [Tommy John surgery] — but things like this could help.
LAS VEGAS — Josh Berry raced to the first Cup Series victory of his career, taking NASCAR’s oldest team to victory lane Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Berry, in his first season driving the famed No. 21 for Wood Brothers Racing, had the first victory for a Ford team through five races this season. William Byron opened the year with a Daytona 500 victory in a Chevrolet and Christopher Bell in a Toyota won the next three races.
Berry, meanwhile, had to run down Daniel Suarez following a restart with 19 laps remaining to take control. Although Harrison Burton won at Daytona last summer for the Wood Brothers, Berry’s victory is the first not at a superspeedway since Ryan Blaney won for the team in 2017 at Pocono.
It was the 101st victory for the organization spanning 20 drivers.
Suarez in a Chevrolet for Trackhouse Racing finished second, followed by Ryan Preece in a Ford for RFK Racing. Byron was fourth for Hendrick Motorsports, followed by Ross Chastain of Trackhouse, Austin Cindric of Team Penske and Alex Bowman of Hendrick.
Joey Logano had late control of the race until Las Vegas native Noah Gragson hit the wall with 25 laps remaining to bring out the ninth caution of the race. Berry was in second when the caution came out and second behind Suarez on the restart.
Berry won in his 53rd Cup race and just his fifth race with the Wood Brothers, the team that signed him when Stewart-Haas Racing shuttered at the end of last season.
The 34-year-old Tennessee driver was a 40-1 underdog to win Sunday’s race and his win put the Wood Brothers back into the playoffs for a second consecutive season.
Bell to the back
Bell came to Las Vegas on a three-race winning streak with an opportunity to become the first driver since Jimmie Johnson in 2007 to win four consecutive Cup races.
But his chance to extend his streak was stymied when Joe Gibbs Racing had to change the throttle body on the No. 20 Toyota after Bell qualified 13th and the penalty dropped him to the back of the field for the start of the race.
He never recovered in what was an overall subpar day for the four-driver JGR contingent.
Bell, who complained about the handling of his car most of the race, finished a team-high 12th. Only eight drivers have won four straight Cup races in the modern era of NASCAR that began in 1972.
Chase Briscoe was 17th and Ty Gibbs, who rolled a sprint car Saturday night at the dirt track at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, finished 22nd. Denny Hamlin, winner of more than $200,000 over two nights of playing slots in the Las Vegas casino, couldn’t convert his luck to the track and finished 25th.
Up Next
The Cup Series races next Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway, a track that had been in the playoff rotation the last three years but has now been moved to a spring race. Tyler Reddick won last October and Bell won in 2023.
LAS VEGAS — Christopher Bell will have to start from the back of the field in his attempt to win a fourth consecutive Cup Series race after NASCAR penalized the Joe Gibbs Racing driver on Sunday for making changes to his Toyota.
Bell had been set to start 13th at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, where he is trying to become the first driver since Jimmie Johnson in 2007 to win four consecutive Cup races. But JGR changed the throttle body on the No. 20 Toyota after qualifying, resulting in Bell forfeiting his starting spot.
Bell came to Las Vegas coming off victories at Atlanta, Circuit of the Americas in Texas and Phoenix. Only eight drivers have won four straight Cup races in the modern era of NASCAR that began in 1972. Among those who have accomplished the feat, seven are in NASCAR’s Hall of Fame and six are Cup Series champions.
Bell’s three straight wins are the Cup Series’ longest streak since Kyle Larson won three in a row twice in 2021, and Bell is the first to do it in NASCAR’s Next Gen car, which was introduced in 2022.
His three wins this year tie his career-high victory tallies set in 2022 and matched in 2024. At Las Vegas, Bell has five career top-10 finishes in 10 starts and three poles. He was the runner-up in Vegas’ past two fall races.
Spire Motorsports’ Michael McDowell captured pole position for the seventh time in his career during Saturday’s qualifying session for the Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
It’s the first pole for Spire, which has shown stark improvement with an infusion of cash brought by new majority owner Dan Towriss, who also controls Andretti Global in IndyCar and the Cadillac F1 team set to debut in 2026.
McDowell’s previous six poles all came during the 2024 season, his 17th in the Cup Series.
Christopher Bell qualified in 13th position but will start from the back of the field as he searches for a fourth consecutive win. NASCAR penalized the Joe Gibbs Racing driver Sunday for making changes to his Toyota.
He could become the first driver since Jimmie Johnson in 2007 to win four consecutive Cup Series races — an accomplishment that only eight drivers have achieved in the modern era of NASCAR that began in 1972.
Lackluster qualifying hasn’t been a deterrent for Bell thus far, as he started 19th before winning at Circuit of the Americas and 32nd before winning at Atlanta.
Joey Logano will start Sunday’s race alongside McDowell on the front of the grid, qualifying in the top two at Las Vegas for the third time in five races. Austin Cindric will start third, while Las Vegas native Kyle Busch starts in fourth.
Bell has received a congratulatory text message from Johnson after each win in this three-race streak, and he is hoping the seven-time NASCAR champion hits that send button again Sunday.
“It is still the coolest thing in the world to me that I have Jimmie Johnson in my phone,” Bell said. “He has talked to me, he has sent me a text message after every win so far. I’m still shocked every time I see his name pop up. I respect the heck out of him. It’s an honor to know that he thinks of me after the race to send a text message. That is so cool.”
Bell’s three straight wins is the Cup Series’ longest winning streak since Kyle Larson won three in a row twice in 2021, and Bell is the first to do it in NASCAR’s Next Gen car, which was introduced in 2022.
The three wins this year tie his season-high set in 2022 and matched in 2024, and setting a new mark isn’t out of the question at Las Vegas, where he has five career top-10 finishes in 10 starts and three poles. Bell, in his No. 20 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing, was the runner-up in Vegas’ last two fall races.
He is not considering a fourth consecutive victory a lock, even as he has dominated the first month of the season.
“One thing is for sure: Nothing that has happened the last three weeks means anything for this week,” Bell said. “Everything is still ahead of me and nothing is set, and we have to go out there and perform. This has been a strong track for us in the past, but I’m just trying very hard to not get ahead of myself and understand it is a new week. It’s a different race, and everyone is going to be bringing their best stuff to try to beat me.”
Perhaps the greatest threat to end Bell’s hot streak is Larson, who has won at the “Diamond in the Desert” three times since joining Hendrick Motorsports. Larson’s first win with Hendrick came at Las Vegas in March 2021, and he has claimed two of the previous three races held at the track, winning the South Point 400 in October 2023 and the Pennzoil 400 in March 2024.
“I think since joining Hendrick Motorsports in 2021, it’s probably been our best racetrack,” Larson said. “Getting a few wins, I think two other second-place finishes in that time has also been really good. The track is great, but getting to come to the city and have fun on the Strip and all the stuff that it has to offer, it probably makes it one of my three favorite races to get to.”
Logano is the most recent winner at Las Vegas, as his victory at the South Point 400 in October propelled him to his third NASCAR title.
The Associated Press and Field Level Media contributed to this report.