IS THE CONDITIONING OF YANKEE PITCHING PROSPECTS BACKFIRING?

 

(In Photo: Manny Banuelos)

With Manny Banuelos being shut down for the rest of the season (Read HERE), you really have to start questioning whether or not the Yankees have a true grasp on how to shape their minor league pitching crop. This is now yet another "top prospect" that has essentially shit the bed. Jose Campos was also shut down last month after having arm trouble since May, (Read HERE.)

(In Photo: Jose Campos)
I think it's time to stop giving excuses suggesting these prospects have had streaks of bad luck, and instead start to question just what type of training, strengthening and conditioning is going on down there on the farm. I'm not saying what they are doing with these guys is wrong. All I'm saying is, how is it being done and why are all these guys getting hurt so often? I don't think I'm out of line asking. After all, it only appears to happen when our pitchers are young and working their way up the ladder.

(In Photo: Bill Masse)
I bring up Bill Masse from time to time and I know, many of you think the guys a turd and should just go away. I don't. I took what he said seriously about the Yankees handling of young pitchers in the minor league system. Just to review, Masse was a Yankee minor league coach when Phil Hughes was coming up. He openly questioned the way the Yankees babied their prospect pitchers... (Warning, the following scene is vulgar and violent.)

  
 Then, much like Stacks from Goodfellas, Masse was "whacked" so to speak, and asked to leave the Yankees organization, probably for speaking out of turn, or in my mob world...Masse left his prints on the wheel and was caught.  Obviously this is all speculation, but I almost feel like there is some type of truth to what Bill Masse believes and spoke about and the "family", the Yankees didn't like it. In the end, Masse went away and the Yankees got their "coffee to go"... they moved on the way they saw fit with their pitchers.

(In Photo: Phil Hughes)
Here, yet again, is what Masse said of the Yankees and the handling of Phil Hughes and other Yankee pitchers in the minors:

“We get so ridiculous with this dumb pitch count stuff… Somebody came up with a pitch count thing (like) this is going to decide if a kid’s arm is going to be healthy or not. It’s like predicting the weather sometimes. ‘If he throws 66 pitches, he will be fine, but if he throws 81, he is going to get hurt.’ No one can predict that.”

“The only negative you run into is that he never learns how to pitch when he is tired. He never learns how to pitch when he is a little bit fatigued. I think you run into those problems because he is always fresh. Also, he is never in trouble. He needs to learn how to pitch out of his second or third jam in the seventh inning with two outs and he’s throwing 90 mph instead of 94.”
The full piece is HERE, by Anthony Coleman at NJ.com.

But even if you think Bill Masse is a fruit loop and you don't take his theory seriously, then how about you instead take on Nolan Ryan's theory. Ryan was not only a huge success in baseball, he pitched until his arm fell off and guess what?  He can still probably pitch. Why? Conditioning. Nolan Ryan doesn't believe in babying these young pitchers either.  This is what Nolan Ran said about it from his own experiences: "(I) had to develop stamina because my intent was to pitch a lot of innings." 

Mike Maddux, the Rangers pitching coach said of the training of the Rangers pitchers: "The ceiling is off...This is a mental thing we have to overcome. We have to change the attitude of the starters to want to go deep and believe they can." (The full article is HERE.)

Look, is there a connection to the proper conditioning of young arms and the flare up of recent injuries? I think there is. You can disagree and you're entitled too, but let's not sweep this under the rug and call it bad luck.  There's something more to it. I truly believe that and I can't believe more people aren't talking about this.

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