GLENDALE, Ariz. — Tyler Glasnow has been searching for answers ever since the first twinge in his elbow.
He thought he had found them in August 2021 when he had Tommy John surgery. The hybrid version with a collagen band reinforcing the ulnar collateral ligament left Glasnow saying he felt “night and day” better. Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes even went so far as to say the team had looked into it before acquiring Glasnow in December 2023 (and signing him to a five-year, $136.5 million contract extension) and felt the surgery had “handled” Glasnow’s recurring issues.
“I think I just always thought I’d thrown so hard for so long I could get the surgery and go back to normal. I’d get the surgery and I could fix it all,” Glasnow still says now.
But his elbow started hurting again last summer. He threw a career-high 134 innings but only 31 of them came after the month of June. In September, he was about to throw a simulated game during the Dodgers’ series in Atlanta when the elbow discomfort returned as he was warming up. He never made it to the mound at Truist Park that day and was shut down for the season with a “sprained elbow.”
Once again, Glasnow was the pitcher with the best stuff on the injured list.
“I think having that happen it was time to say, ‘Alright, I need to change something,’” Glasnow said.
Encouraged by a follow-up MRI that indicated there was no new damage to the UCL, Glasnow went looking for non-surgical ways to get and stay healthy this time. A look at the biomechanics of his throwing motion offered him something to focus on – the angle of his spine as his front foot lands on the downslope of the mound sometimes gets too extreme, causing his arm to drag behind in the kinetic chain. That puts added stress on the elbow ligaments.
“It still wasn’t a super, in-depth deep dive,” he said. “I just wanted to find some things I could address that weren’t super crazy overhauls. It seemed to be agreed upon by a lot of people and it was such an easy adjustment that I wanted to try.”
The focus this spring has been on getting in “a healthier, more linear position” that allows him to remain “athletic” in his delivery.
“You can see it a little bit. It’s subtle,” Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior said. “He’s made some adjustments in his arm and where he’s at at different points in his delivery. He’s refining it. The next step is when he goes into a game. Even in spring training when a hitter steps in the box, things happen. Your mind reverts to old habits. My guess is he’s going to come in and out of some of those changes as we go through spring training.
“You get under stress, you get under competition, you revert to a little bit of a survival mode. And sometimes that’s not what you’ve been working on. It’s more of how do you compete and just get outs. Then it’s about layering that on and getting him to repeat in games what he’s been working on.”
The changes in Glasnow’s mechanics might be subtle. The changes in the Dodgers’ starting rotation around him are not.
The additions of Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki, the return of Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May and Shohei Ohtani’s imminent return to pitching reduce the pressure on Glasnow. He was the clear No. 1 starter in last year’s rotation and started both the season-opening game in South Korea and the domestic opener a week later.
This year, Glasnow is just another member of potentially the best rotation in baseball.
“Obviously it’s nice to be thought of as a No. 1, but I don’t think that’s ever been a huge thing,” Glasnow said. “Whatever number I line up as, I can only control how I pitch. They can only control how they pitch. The best thing would be me being a No. 6. I can only control what I can control. I hope everyone just dominates and I’m a No. 6.”
A healthy Glasnow is better than that – “he has some of the best stuff in the league,” Prior said. Keeping him healthy remains an even bigger challenge than hitting against him.
“Yeah, it sucks. It’s very frustrating,” said Glasnow, who made 17 consecutive starts at one point last season before the injuries. “I’m just glad I feel good now. I want to look forward. I don’t want to get stuck with all the past and how frustrating it was. I think if I can keep doing these steps and do a healthier mechanical throw, I’ll be fine.”
