LOS ANGELES – Clayton Kershaw sees the wave of throwing injuries that have dominated the conversation around the sport and has some thoughts. Among them: He has no answer.
“If someone said, ‘I got it,’ I wouldn’t listen to them,” Kershaw said. Athleticism. But the three-time Cy Young Award winner and longtime face of the Los Angeles Dodgers franchise is ready to listen.
“I’m very wary of people who think they have it all figured out when all of this is still happening,” he said. “If you had figured it out, you would have told someone and you would have made a billion dollars. You know what I mean? Nobody knows.”
Kershaw acknowledges that this feels like a real push. Atlanta Braves ace Spencer Strider underwent surgery to repair his ulnar collateral ligament after previously having Tommy John surgery on his ledger, his club announced Saturday. New York Yankees star Gerrit Cole was shut down this spring due to a cranky elbow. The Miami Marlins, always so careful with valuable pitcher Eury Pérez, still lost the right-hander due to Tommy John surgery. Cy Young Award winner Shane Bieber didn’t allow a point in his first two starts for the Cleveland Guardians this season before also succumbing to Tommy John surgery. Houston Astros ace Framber Valdez was placed on injured reserve this week when his elbow started barking.
The scars, in many ways, surround him. Kershaw spoke Friday, hours after teammate Shohei Ohtani completed the most recent step in his throwing progression since his second major elbow procedure. That night, Walker Buehler made his third minor league rehab start as he continues his recovery from his second Tommy John surgery. Of the 28 pitchers listed on the Dodgers’ 40-man roster (and on the 60-day injured list), 12 have already undergone at least one Tommy John surgery to rebuild ligaments in their elbow, and four have undergone some form major shoulder repair.
That group includes Kershaw, who went under the knife for the first time at age 35 last winter to repair the glenohumeral capsule and ligaments in his left shoulder. He hopes to return at some point this summer. But he’s surprised by the glitches that destroyed some of the game’s most notable weapons.
“Everyone has theories,” Kershaw said. “It’s probably a combination of what everyone is talking about, whether it’s increased speed, weighted ball programs too young, whatever people are talking about. But in the end, no one knows. No one knows the perfect formula, and if they did, they would do it. So I think the question we need to ask ourselves is: how do we fix it? And then someone has to be brave enough to take a risk and try something different.
“Nobody cares about old guys,” Kershaw joked, referring to himself as well as multiple Cy Young Award winners like Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer, who are each on the board to start the season. Even as Kershaw put miles on his arm during his 20s and early 30s, he said, “I never threw 100 (mph).”
Rather, it’s what happens to stars like Cole, Strider, Bieber, Valdez and Cy Young Award winner Sandy Alcantara (who underwent Tommy John surgery last fall) that poses the greatest threat to the sport .
Looking at these cases, Kershaw struggles to find real answers. He has long admired Alcantara, which he says has “perfect throwing mechanics” that apparently puts minimal strain on his arm. Strider’s lower half, he said, is theoretically supposed to help prevent his arm from breaking again like it did.
Dueling public statements between MLB and the MLBPA have shifted some of the conversation to the pitch clock, sparking speculation that reduced time between pitches, coupled with maximum-effort pitches, contributed to the breakdown .
“I just think it’s silly between the two of them,” Kershaw said.
Whenever Kershaw returns, he will do so with a Dodgers rotation that attempts to maximize rest as much as possible to maintain his delicate but potentially electric rotation. Tyler Glasnow has never exceeded 120 innings in a season. Yoshinobu Yamamoto is acclimating to Major League Baseball. James Paxton has a history of injuries. Buehler, Kershaw and maybe even Dustin May could return from surgery. So the Dodgers sought to create a near-six-man rotation, including running a bullpen game in their first full round of the rotation to ensure at least five days of rest whenever possible. However, the answer may not lie in more rest. Just ask the Marlins, who handled Pérez with gloves and still watched him explode after 283 professional innings at just 20 years old.
The conversation around throwing with maximum effort is equally complicated.
“I try to throw every pitch as hard as I can every time,” Kershaw said. “I’ve always done that. I don’t think the amount of effort you put in – I know the old guys will say, “I pitched that fast and then when the game got to the seventh, eighth, that’s when I really sped up.” We can’t do that. We will be eliminated in the third round if that happens.
Kershaw doesn’t have the answers. Nobody seems to do it. And it creates a massive existential crisis that has long loomed over the sport, but now seems omnipresent.
“At the end of the day, we just want the best players on the field,” Kershaw said. “This is true for all sports. So if there’s a way to make things better, I hope MLB, the union and everyone can all agree to find a solution. I just haven’t heard anyone tell me definitively what would help me.
(Top photo: Jae C. Hong / Associated Press)