FanPost

Royals Organization Ruining Pitchers Arms

Leon Halip

On a recent KC Baseball Vault podcast, guest Kevin Scobee was on the show discuss the Royals pitching development of Kyle Zimmer, among others.

As some of you may know, the Royals plan for Kyle Zimmer is to (a) reduce the amount of throwing he will do this season, and (b) reduce the amount of lifting of weights he will be allowed. The thought is that the Royals want Zimmer to be available late in the season for a playoff run, so they want to limit his innings early.

Scobee stated this is the exact opposite of what should be done. He likened it to a long distance runner training for a future race. If a runner is training for a race, is he going to run less or run more? Is he going to do weight training less or more? The answer is obviously "more" in both cases.

He stated the plan with Zimmer should be for him to throw and lift weights more rather than less, and his arguments made sense. Scobee blamed the thought process on Bill Fischer, the aging wise sage who followed Dayton and crew (I believe) from the Atlanta Braves organization.

What are your thoughts on whether the Royals are ruining the arms of its pitchers? We either had or now have the following recent pitchers with pitching arm problems (past and present):

Danny Duffy (TJ)

Luke Hochevar (TJ)

John Lamb (TJ)

Blake Wood (TJ)

Joakim Soria (TJ)

Felipe Paulino (TJ)

Kyle Zimmer (general arm/shoulder problems)

Add to this list the pitching prospects that have failed to produce, such as Mike Montgomery and Chris Dwyer, and it is clear that what they are doing to develop pitchers is not only not working, but appears to be causing their arms to be more prone to TJ surgery. Now, obviously the Royals can't be totally responsible for pitchers they didn't develop fully such as Wood and Paulino.

My view is that it's to GET RID of Bill Fischer (or politely ask him to retire), and call out JJ Piccolo, Dayton Moore, and others in the organization for their failed pitching development that has led to multiple early Tommy John surgeries. And if they screw up Zimmer's arm (and then, God forbid, Manaea's arm), you might as well blow up the team's future.

What are your thoughts?

David

This FanPost was written by a member of the Royals Review community. It does not necessarily reflect the views of the editors and writers of this site.