Baseball Still Struggling to Find the Best Way to Develop Pitchers

When Nolan Ryan returned to the Rangers organization as the club's president much was made about the impact that move would have on the team's pitchers. No more pampering of young arms was the new touchstone, and it has been music to the ears to a certain generation of baseball fans and writers who have never stopped remembering when Ryan and his peers would throw 300 innings in a season.

To help establish their new system, the Rangers have allowed Alan Jaeger to start working with many of their young pitchers. Jaeger espouses a philosophy that encourages throwing more and resting less than the established norm around the major leagues.

Mychael Urban profiles Jaeger in an article for MLB.com. If there's a quick way to summarize Jaeger's beliefs it is that major league teams treat pitchers like their arms are hurt instead of being healthy.

"Why on earth would you rehab a healthy arm? It's crazy," Jaeger said. "Instead of giving players the freedom to throw according to the individual needs of their arms, they are being forced to throw according to someone else's arbitrary set of rules, which places extreme limits and constraints on the arm. They are putting these arms in harm's way. Like any other muscle, the arm wants to stretch out, expand, and condition. It wants to be used, not coddled."

He's very convincing, especially when he cites the durability of Dan Haren and Barry Zito, each of whom follow his teachings. The article comes on the heels of an article in this weekend's New York Times Magazine, however, which paints a very different picture of how to treat the arms of young pitchers.

In that article, Ron Berler speaks to Dr. James Andrews about the sharp rise in shoulder and elbow, particularly Tommy John, surgeries on teenage pitchers. Andrews, the go-to guy for sports medicine, has sponsored research that's found that overuse is a direct factor in the rise in these kinds of surgeries. Berler also speaks to the Rangers' trainer and reads him pitch counts from a Little League pitcher and, in an interesting counterpoint to his boss, the trainer expresses concern for the young hurler's arm.

Obviously there are differences between 13-year-olds, 18-year-olds and 23-year-olds, but there are also differences between two different pitchers at any of those ages. While Haren and Zito have avoided injury, Joel Zumaya, another Jaeger devotee, has had his career sidelined by several arm injuries and there are plenty of pitchers who have followed more traditional methods without any negative outcomes.

The real takeaway from all of this, and you might as well throw in Daisuke Matsuzaka's comments about training in Japan vs. training with the Red Sox, is that there a lot of ways to skin a cat. What works for one pitcher isn't necessarily going to work for another pitcher.

The problem is that no team has enough staff or time to come up with completely individualized workout schedules for every pitcher in the organization, which means you figure out what works best for the most and go with that. It's worth listening to everyone before making that decision, though, and Jaeger's should be part of the discussion.