Daisuke Matsuzaka – Change Agent?

Yesterday I met two of my friends form my White Sox days for lunch. They both now work for the Houston Astros, Dewey Robinson is the Pitching Development Coordinator and Jaime Garcia is his assistant. They were talking about an article in Sports Illustrated about the Japanese pitcher, Daisuke Matsuzaka, who is now pitching for the Boston red Sox. I had not read the article, but when I got home from workout I read the article. It was a breath of fresh to me. Matsuzaka training habits and his ability to achieve high pitch counts in games and then do a high volume of throwing between starts has caused quite a stir in the closed conservative world of baseball. If you get a chance read the article in the March 26, 2007 Baseball Preview issue of Sports Illustrated. The following are my comments stimulated by the article and reflecting my personal experience and Director of Conditioning for the Chicago White Sox for nine years and as Director of Athletic Development for the New York Mets for eight months.

Will Matsuzaka training habits and approach to pitching change the American approach? I hope so, because change is needed. We have put the pitcher on a pedestal and forgotten to train him and then marvel at the extent and severity of the injuries that continue to occur. In reaction to the injuries we have them throw less. We must train to tolerate the demands of pitching. We must recognize the demands of pitching as a ballistic explosive activity and train for those demands. Matsuzaka also does not ice after he throws. I really do not know what that is so revolutionary; we instituted that as a policy in the minor leagues with the White Sox in 1989. I thoroughly researched the physiology of icing then and have continued to follow the research and there is not a physiological reason to ice a healthy shoulder or elbow. In fact it may be counterproductive. I am glad he is getting publicity for that because maybe it will force people to reevaluate icing.

As far as the amount of throwing he does in the bullpen and in long toss, it certainly does not seem unreasonable to me for someone who has progressed to that level. The key here is to progress to that level. Our young players pitch too much and do not throw enough. They need to condition to throw and then throw to condition. Throw anything when they in their developmental stages, softballs, football, rocks, just play throwing games where they have use to use different angles and positions of the body. That will prepare them to pitch. Instead we train them in a phone booth. We teach them a narrow rage of throwing skill called pitching mechanics and lock them into that movement repetitively and then wonder why they get sore and hurt. In essence we are cloning pitchers so they all look alike. There is no model, let them find their pattern and then condition them to withstand the forces.

Throw away the radar gun! The obsession with velocity is the root of all evil. Everyone in the game preaches location and control and the ability to throw strikes, but then judges the pitcher on velocity. No one really knows how hard Bob Feller or Sandy Koufax threw, did it matter?

Forget the argument that a pitcher has only so many pitches in him – that is absurd. The fact that Doctors have said this has lent credibility, but there is no science behind this. That reminds of the argument before Roger Bannister broke the Four Minute barrier in the mile that there are only so many heartbeats, so don’t use them up by training hard!

Here are five rules for training the pitcher:

Build the pitcher form the ground up. You can’t launch a cannon from a canoe, build strong legs

Train toe nails to fingernails – train all the links in the chain to produce and reduce force

Train for power and explosiveness, not endurance

Train the core as a relay center. The trunk positions the arms and transfers force from the legs

Focus on the big picture - recognize that that the shoulder and elbow are the last links in the kinetic chain

Recognize also on this issue that you have many ‘experts” weighing in on this argument that have no background in sport science or training. They have never had to produce by keeping a pitcher healthy and developing a young pitcher. You can look at all the stats you want, but you must know the individual pitcher, understand biomechanics of throwing and pitching and have a principle based program.

In many respects this comes back to physical education. Get them moving and playing. Put the softball throw back into the presidents Fitness test, you will see throwing improve.

I sincerely hope that Matsuzaka has success because it may force the sport to take a hard look at training. Knowing baseball, and the conservative nature of the game I really doubt that any change will occur even if he wins twenty games. Baseball is a game defined by failure. Secretly you can bet that everyone in the game is wishing he will fail so that the can keep doing what they have always done. Spit, scratch and chew