A Glimpse at Potential- Rodons weekly routine.

[Frank_Thomas]

Tom Holliday wants to take care of all of his pitchers, but he understood this spring that he had a responsibility worth millions of dollars.

 

Carlos Rodon, his junior left-handed pitcher at North Carolina State, was widely expected to be one of the very top picks in the June draft. Even now, with Thursday's draft fast approaching, Rodon remains under consideration by the Houston Astros, who own the top pick overall.

 

Holliday, NC State's associate head coach and pitching coach, has a unique perspective. He has 35 years of college coaching experience. His brother Dave is a major league scout with the Atlanta Braves, and his son Matt is an All-Star outfielder with the St. Louis Cardinals.

 

He wanted to give Rodon the best possible chance to become an All-Star himself. That meant helping him develop as a pitcher.

 

It also meant keeping him healthy.

 

Holliday came under some criticism this spring for allowing Rodon to throw more than 120 pitches in several starts. Rodon threw 134 pitches in one game against Duke, more pitches than any major league pitcher has thrown in a game so far this season.

 

Holliday resents the criticism, and also that none of those who expressed it bothered to call him and ask about Rodon's usage. He points out that while professional pitchers normally pitch on four or five days' rest, Rodon almost always had a full week between starts.

 

Bleacher Report did call Holliday, who outlined Rodon's schedule, which was set up to limit his other throwing and prepare him for heavier work in his once-a-week starts.

 

 

 

Weekly Workout Schedule

 

Friday: Game day. Rodon normally pitches the first game of each of NC State's weekend series. He made 14 starts this season, going 6-7 with a 2.01 ERA, with 31 walks and 117 strikeouts in 98.2 innings.

 

Saturday: No throwing at all. Early morning cardio work, with a rubdown.

 

Sunday: No throwing at all. Another early morning (8 a.m.) cardio session, and a late-afternoon two- or three-mile jog.

 

Monday: Stretch, run and play catch on flat ground, from 30, 60 and 90 feet. "No spinners, no changeups, just catch—C-A-T-C-H—for 15 minutes, while I ask him how he feels," Holliday said.

 

Tuesday: Stretch, catch and long toss, 25 throws from about 150 feet.

 

Wednesday: A 25-pitch bullpen, throwing five of each of his pitches from the windup, then two from the stretch. "And then he's done," Holliday said.

 

Thursday: Complete day off.

 

Friday: Game day.

 

 

 

[ptatc]

Tom Holliday wants to take care of all of his pitchers, but he understood this spring that he had a responsibility worth millions of dollars.

 

Carlos Rodon, his junior left-handed pitcher at North Carolina State, was widely expected to be one of the very top picks in the June draft. Even now, with Thursday's draft fast approaching, Rodon remains under consideration by the Houston Astros, who own the top pick overall.

 

Holliday, NC State's associate head coach and pitching coach, has a unique perspective. He has 35 years of college coaching experience. His brother Dave is a major league scout with the Atlanta Braves, and his son Matt is an All-Star outfielder with the St. Louis Cardinals.

 

He wanted to give Rodon the best possible chance to become an All-Star himself. That meant helping him develop as a pitcher.

 

It also meant keeping him healthy.

 

Holliday came under some criticism this spring for allowing Rodon to throw more than 120 pitches in several starts. Rodon threw 134 pitches in one game against Duke, more pitches than any major league pitcher has thrown in a game so far this season.

 

Holliday resents the criticism, and also that none of those who expressed it bothered to call him and ask about Rodon's usage. He points out that while professional pitchers normally pitch on four or five days' rest, Rodon almost always had a full week between starts.

 

Bleacher Report did call Holliday, who outlined Rodon's schedule, which was set up to limit his other throwing and prepare him for heavier work in his once-a-week starts.

 

 

 

Weekly Workout Schedule

 

Friday: Game day. Rodon normally pitches the first game of each of NC State's weekend series. He made 14 starts this season, going 6-7 with a 2.01 ERA, with 31 walks and 117 strikeouts in 98.2 innings.

 

Saturday: No throwing at all. Early morning cardio work, with a rubdown.

 

Sunday: No throwing at all. Another early morning (8 a.m.) cardio session, and a late-afternoon two- or three-mile jog.

 

Monday: Stretch, run and play catch on flat ground, from 30, 60 and 90 feet. "No spinners, no changeups, just catch—C-A-T-C-H—for 15 minutes, while I ask him how he feels," Holliday said.

 

Tuesday: Stretch, catch and long toss, 25 throws from about 150 feet.

 

Wednesday: A 25-pitch bullpen, throwing five of each of his pitches from the windup, then two from the stretch. "And then he's done," Holliday said.

 

Thursday: Complete day off.

 

Friday: Game day.

Not a fan of three full days off from throwing during the week. The amount of cardio is great.

[caulfield12]

http://www.npbtracker.com/2014/01/masahiro...3-pitch-counts/

 

We all know what happened with Dice-K. Those are some SCARY pitch totals for Tanaka last year.

 

 

http://kansascity.royals.mlb.com/news/arti...na&c_id=ana

Pitching coach Mike Butcher has an interesting theory about those pitchers (majority) with TJ issues.

 

 

And just as importantly, Butcher says too many professional pitchers are throwing from the opposite side of the rubber (meaning, a right-hander throwing from the first-base side and a left-hander throwing from the third-base side).

 

Butcher has found that more than 30 of the pitchers who have undergone Tommy John surgery this year fit that description.

 

"Some guys do it because they feel like they'll be in the strike zone more, they'll have better command that way -- there's all sorts of different philosophies about it," Butcher said. "But for me, if you're on the opposite side of your throwing arm on the rubber, you are constantly pronating your arm at a higher rate than if you are on the other side. There's no leverage behind the baseball.

 

"There's guys who have been very successful doing it, who have maintained their health. But I think for the most part, the guys that are on their throwing-arm side of the rubber are less prone to injury because there's less stress on the arm."

 

 

 

“With the physical strength players have today and the amount of torque they’re putting on their elbow the amount of strength required to maintain, to hold up under the day-to-day rigors of throwing 90-mph-plus fastballs is a lot,” Mozeliak said. “It may be too much. It’s a fragile ligament. I don’t think anybody knows how to strengthen the ligament before you begin the process. You strengthen muscles before you do anything, but not the ligament.”

 

That hints at one approach the Cardinals have adopted in hopes its preventative.

 

The reality of an injury to a pitcher is such that it’s virtually a given, and it is reflected in contracts. The Cardinals have drafted a player after he had the surgery (John Gast), traded for a pitcher coming back from Tommy John (Westbrook) and rewarded a pitcher (Wainwright) just back from Tommy John with the richest contract ever for a Cardinals pitcher. Mozeliak said signing long-term deals with pitchers “is a matter of probability. Few tend to go cradle to grave without something. You need to bake-in some DL time.”

 

The club took great care last season to wrap Wacha and, to a lesser extent, Miller in virtual bubblewrap at times to protect them from overuse, strain. The Cardinals chart pressure-filled innings for their young pitchers, knowing that the wear from all pitches and all innings are not created equal. Miller and Kelly recall a policy that yanked them from low-level minor-league games if they had a single inning of 30 pitches.

 

While former team physician Dr. George Paletta, an accomplished Tommy John surgeon, helped the Cards craft their rehab program, they also have looked into what protective steps can be taken. Mozeliak described how the Cardinals have “an internal belief and approach of having a balanced body.” The starters have between-appearance maintenance work that stresses total-body flexibility and strength, not just arm strength. The idea being that the more even the strength is the less strain it will put on the weakest link, be it ligament or something else. The trainer staff is constantly testing flexibility, range of motion and strength.

 

“We’ve looked a lot at it,” Mozeliak said. “There’s no silver bullet.”

 

Such measures started young for the youngest of the pitchers the Cardinals are counting on. Miller did not throw a curveball until high school, and his adviser once expressed displeasure when he had 160 pitches in a game. Wacha’s father didn’t allow him to throw a curve until he was an upperclassman in high school, even when the young righty pleaded that his peers were doing it. He was just fine and healthy working with a fastball changeup.

 

Though they couldn’t argue against it, both flinched when Kelly spoke up (saying TJ was inevitable, like taxes and death).

 

They’d rather not wait for the inevitable.

 

“That’s just … scary,” Miller said. “I don’t even want to think about it.”

 

That’s OK. Everybody else around him is.

stltoday.com (D.Gold)

Edited June 7, 2014 by caulfield12

[ptatc]

http://www.npbtracker.com/2014/01/masahiro...3-pitch-counts/

 

We all know what happened with Dice-K. Those are some SCARY pitch totals for Tanaka last year.

 

 

http://kansascity.royals.mlb.com/news/arti...na&c_id=ana

Pitching coach Mike Butcher has an interesting theory about those pitchers (majority) with TJ issues.

 

 

And just as importantly, Butcher says too many professional pitchers are throwing from the opposite side of the rubber (meaning, a right-hander throwing from the first-base side and a left-hander throwing from the third-base side).

 

Butcher has found that more than 30 of the pitchers who have undergone Tommy John surgery this year fit that description.

 

"Some guys do it because they feel like they'll be in the strike zone more, they'll have better command that way -- there's all sorts of different philosophies about it," Butcher said. "But for me, if you're on the opposite side of your throwing arm on the rubber, you are constantly pronating your arm at a higher rate than if you are on the other side. There's no leverage behind the baseball.

 

"There's guys who have been very successful doing it, who have maintained their health. But I think for the most part, the guys that are on their throwing-arm side of the rubber are less prone to injury because there's less stress on the arm."

 

 

 

“With the physical strength players have today and the amount of torque they’re putting on their elbow the amount of strength required to maintain, to hold up under the day-to-day rigors of throwing 90-mph-plus fastballs is a lot,” Mozeliak said. “It may be too much. It’s a fragile ligament. I don’t think anybody knows how to strengthen the ligament before you begin the process. You strengthen muscles before you do anything, but not the ligament.”

You can strengthen ligaments. You do this by putting stress on it in a direction consistent with the fiber of collagen. ACL protocol are designed to slowly add stress to the ligament so it responds by aligning and adding collagen due to the stress. This can be done manually for the UCL or light throwing.

 

Everything else in the article is dead on. You need to have the overall conditioning and balance so there isn't too much force focused on any one area, whether it be the hip, knee or elbow.

[Marty34]

You can strengthen ligaments. You do this by putting stress on it in a direction consistent with the fiber of collagen. ACL protocol are designed to slowly add stress to the ligament so it responds by aligning and adding collagen due to the stress. This can be done manually for the UCL or light throwing.

 

Everything else in the article is dead on. You need to have the overall conditioning and balance so there isn't too much force focused on any one area, whether it be the hip, knee or elbow.

 

What, if anything, concerns you about Rodon's training, physique, or mechanics? Too me, his follow through stops too abruptly which would seem to put more stress on the arm.

Edited June 7, 2014 by Marty34

[LittleHurt05]

Not a fan of three full days off from throwing during the week. The amount of cardio is great.

I think it was Steve Stone that said pitching is such an unnatural body motion, the only way to prep the body for it is to pitch more and more. Your body needs to get used to throwing so hard, taking several days off makes it a sudden shock to the system.

 

 

[caulfield12]

In the quarterfinal of the 1998 Summer Koshien, Matsuzaka threw 250 pitches in 17 innings in a win over PL Gakuen.[3] (The previous day he had thrown a 148-pitch complete game shutout.) The next day, despite trailing 6–0 in the top of the eighth inning, the team miraculously won the game after scoring 7 runs in the final two innings (four in the eighth and three in the ninth). He started the game in left field, but came in as a reliever in the ninth inning to record the win in 15 pitches. In the final, he threw a no-hitter,[4] the second ever in a final. This performance garnered him the attention of many scouts.

 

wikipedia

 

On the other hand, quite a few articles have been coming out recently saying the rate for Japanese TJ surgeries is 1/4th or 1/3rd what it is in the US, so they must have a better handle on how to develop pitchers. Of course, over there, there's much more emphasis on movement and it's very rare that any pitchers throw 95-100 in that league...whereas every MLB bullpen these days has at least 3-4 guys throwing in that range.

Edited June 8, 2014 by caulfield12

[ptatc]

I think it was Steve Stone that said pitching is such an unnatural body motion, the only way to prep the body for it is to pitch more and more. Your body needs to get used to throwing so hard, taking several days off makes it a sudden shock to the system.

Not so much pitch more but throw more. I'm in the camp of the harder you throw more often the more likely you will have an injury. The over exertion aspect. If you throw more at a low level of intensity the stronger everything, including ligaments, become.

[ptatc]

In the quarterfinal of the 1998 Summer Koshien, Matsuzaka threw 250 pitches in 17 innings in a win over PL Gakuen.[3] (The previous day he had thrown a 148-pitch complete game shutout.) The next day, despite trailing 6–0 in the top of the eighth inning, the team miraculously won the game after scoring 7 runs in the final two innings (four in the eighth and three in the ninth). He started the game in left field, but came in as a reliever in the ninth inning to record the win in 15 pitches. In the final, he threw a no-hitter,[4] the second ever in a final. This performance garnered him the attention of many scouts.

 

wikipedia

 

On the other hand, quite a few articles have been coming out recently saying the rate for Japanese TJ surgeries is 1/4th or 1/3rd what it is in the US, so they must have a better handle on how to develop pitchers. Of course, over there, there's much more emphasis on movement and it's very rare that any pitchers throw 95-100 in that league...whereas every MLB bullpen these days has at least 3-4 guys throwing in that range.

They also, like college pitcher, typically have more days between starts.

[ptatc]

What, if anything, concerns you about Rodon's training, physique, or mechanics? Too me, his follow through stops too abruptly which would seem to put more stress on the arm.

I know you've read this from me before but I'm not a fan of what he does with his trunk during the follow through. His arm motion is fine but he doesn't flex his trunk so he finishes standing almost straight up, very similar to Peavy. This to me puts additional stress on the shoulder than what's needed.

 

Will this lead to an injury?, who knows. However it is something to watch.

 

 

[caulfield12]

They also, like college pitcher, typically have more days between starts.

 

 

They also use six man rotations, as well.