Cody Snavely
There have been many storylines across Major League Baseball this season, but perhaps the biggest has been the exponential increase in pitching injuries. All thirty major league clubs have suffered a large magnitude of pitching arm and elbow injuries.
As of September 18th, there have been three hundred arm injuries reported. Ninety-five are elbow, one-hundred-sixteen are shoulder, sixty-four are forearm/arm, and twenty-seven are season-ending/recovery from elbow Tommy John Surgery.
However, one team has been hit the hardest in the pitching department this season: the Los Angeles Dodgers. They have placed a total of twenty-five players on the injured list this season and have lost a major league-worst 2045 total days on the injured list, along with $51.089 million in payroll.
As discussions around the league keep coming up, many in baseball are starting to view the Dodgers as the epicenter of the pitching elbow outbreak. In a recent conversation with former Tampa Bay Rays and Los Angeles Angels manager Joe Maddon with Super 70s Sport, Maddon issued the blame strictly on Los Angeles for their recent pitching woes.
Right now I’m listening about the Dodgers and their concerns going into the postseason; They don’t have enough starters. And even if they did, they don’t pitch deeply into the game and then you’ve got a worn-out bullpen. It’s their own fault. Don’t blame it on anything else.
Maddon continued to preach a sentiment that has been talked about by many of baseball’s veterans, stating that the organization’s chasing of velocity is really leading to a lot of injuries along with some horrible pitching mechanics. It’s a no-brain answer to why so many players blow out their elbows and shoulders.
The criticism is valid as just this season alone, the Dodgers have lost pitchers such as young righty Emmet Sheehan and River Ryan to season-ending surgery. Dustin May has missed the better part of two seasons dealing with multiple elbow injuries. Tony Gonsolin, after a career-high in innings during the 2022 season, missed all of 2024 after undergoing TJS in 2023. Before that, the Dodgers also lost right-handed pitcher Walker Buehler to TJS, the second of his career, and is trying not to be another statistic for players failing to perform after two surgeries.
Entering the final month of the 2024 regular season, the Dodgers have suffered another series of massive losses, losing Tyler Glasnow for the rest of the season as the righty nurses a right elbow sprain while hoping for the best with rookie right-handed pitchers Gavin Stone and Yoshinobu Yamamoto can make an impact in October.
After Gavin Stone’s injury, the Dodgers media pressed Dodgers President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman on the number of arm and elbow injuries the Dodgers have had in the last two seasons.
“It’s been a really challenging year on that front,” Friedman admitted. “It’s something we’re going to need to spend a lot of time on this winter, from when we onboard a pitcher through their development path at the major league level.”
However, the comments from Maddon are incredibly jarring, given the relationship between Andrew Friedman and Maddon.
Friedman, 47, took the reins of the Tampa Bay Rays from 2004-2014. His meteoric rise within the organization is a testament to his talent and dedication. From 2004 to 2005, Friedman served as the director of baseball development for the Rays. He was then promoted to the position of executive vice president of baseball operations and general manager after the 2005 season, at the age of 28, replacing the club’s first general manager, Chuck LaMar, who was fired following the club’s eighth losing season in its eight years of existence.
Maddon, who served as the Tampa Bay Rays manager from 2005 until 2014, and Friedman, worked hand in hand to transform the Rays into the statistical juggernaut they continue to be today. Their joint efforts, particularly in the pitching department, stand as a testament to the power of collaboration in the world of baseball management.
Sabermetrics, a key phrase in the mid-2010s, was something Freidman and Maddon extensively used. Friedman himself was a massive supporter of Driveline Baseball founder Kyle Boddy, who has been an integral part of training the new wave of baseball pitchers.
Friedman carried that thinking to Los Angeles, even hiring Driveline employee Rob Hill to be the Dodgers’ director of minor-league pitching development.
While the comments will raise eyebrows, they are valid. The Dodgers and Major League Baseball clearly have a problem that must be addressed, but that topic is far more complicated than one article alone can solve.
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I’m pretty sure that any Dodger fan who’s paid attention to the team’s recent experience with pitchers has come to the same conclusion. It might not be appropriate for Joe Maddon to say it about Andrew Friedman’s team, but that’s low on the list of challenges for the Dodgers.