The 2025 MLB season has delivered thrilling games but has also been marred by numerous injuries, particularly to the pitching staff. What could be the possible reason? Well, teams in modern-day baseball are focused more on velocity than anything else. Control? That’s probably not at the top of their priorities. Per a top columnist, the insistence on sheer velocity is the primary reason why the pitchers are consistently blowing out, leading to the agents’ concern.
“Throw your best fastball, put it in a good spot, and make them hit,” that’s the advice Greg Maddux, the Braves icon, used to share with the young pitchers. But this theory doesn’t seem to be prevalent in the modern era.
Rather, with high velocity and lack of adequate rest, pitchers now end up on the injured list quite often. And, this is not the problem of a specific club; rather, it’s a league-wide crisis.
The ‘controlled fastball’ has become a thing of the past. It’s all about relentless pursuit of velocity now, which is not just leading to a decline in pitching quality, it’s also causing injury concerns. And the agents are now looking to protect their players. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale dived deeper into this glaring issue while sharing his thoughts on Foul Territory.
“You talk about the scout and go to the facilities, and everybody’s high-flying, everybody, whether you are throwing 98 mph. The ball may be 20 feet off the catcher’s head and he has no idea where he is throwing but you know, kind of a, say, throw as hard as you can. If you blow out, you blow out; you get your money first. Ahh, that sort of thing. So I think that’s a problem now. Hardly anybody knows how to pitch,” Nightengale said.
Some agents don’t want specific teams to draft the players they represent because of the way they handle pitchers, says @BNightengale.
“Hardly anybody knows how to pitch.” pic.twitter.com/4E78eaEgDE
— Foul Territory (@FoulTerritoryTV) June 9, 2025
And, that definitely makes sense. There’s so much more to pitching than just velocity. Talk about pitch location, trajectory and efficiency. But velocity has taken precedence over everything else in the modern day game.
Last year, MLB unveiled a comprehensive 62-page study on pitching injuries, conducted over a year. That report pinpointed the pitchers’ relentless pursuit of higher velocity, both in competition and practice, as the primary factor contributing to the surge in arm problems.
The study, which involved interviews with over 200 baseball professionals, including former pitchers and biomechanics experts, also highlighted issues at amateur levels.
No wonder the agents are worried about their pitchers being misused now. Not to forget a couple of big teams in MLB this season have been going through a pitching crisis.
Pitching debacle: A looming threat in this 2025 MLB season
Let’s talk about the Los Angeles Dodgers, whose pitching lineup has been plagued by injuries. The workload for their pitchers has been massive. And quite expectedly, a lot of them have got injured – Blake Snell, Roki Sasaki and, recently, Tony Gonsolin.
Even Shohei Ohtani has been playing only as a hitter for the Dodgers and is yet to pitch.
The New York Yankees, meanwhile, have a pitching problem of their own. Their inability to consistently find the strike zone are costing them dearly in runs.
It was starkly evident in their game against the Red Sox, where Kristian Campbell hit a two-run homer off Rodon in the fifth, followed by Abraham Toro and Trevor Story’s back-to-back solo shots off Jonathan Loaisiga in the eighth.
Do you think insistence on velocity rather than skills is leading to a decline in pitching quality in MLB and is also causing more injuries than ever before? Well, the trends suggest so. It’s hard to disagree with Nightengale’s assessment.
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