Baseball Coaching Insights: Injury Prevention, Pitch Counts, & Strength Training with Ryan Crotin

Moore to Consider (00:02.499)
Okay. Welcome to another edition of Moore to consider. As I've mentioned in past shows, I'm big into baseball and I played in college, been coaching for years, and I meet a lot of really interesting, neat people. I've been friends with Tom House for about 30 years. I'm at an event in Katy, Texas a couple of years ago, and I meet our guest today. Ryan Croton, he's from his website, Wealth of Baseball Experience, being a coach. He's been a player. He's played professionally.

He's worked in the Los Angeles angels, organization with strength and training. I could get into a lot, Ryan, I really want a lot of this from you. So we meet a lot of positive energy, great guy, lot of knowledge about injury. So when you're at the professional level, you know, obscene amounts of money are being paid and yet guys are breaking down and it kind of becomes for a business standpoint. How do we keep guys healthy? Little League high school.

College guys are hearing don't overpitch the guy there's pitch counts. Do they really have any basis in science? Is it just somebody spitball and do they know Ryan? Welcome to our show. Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got involved with this

Ryan Crotin (01:11.554)
Yeah, I mean, I've been involved in baseball for quite a while. I was in school for 16 years after high school, studying what we're talking about are fatigue induced injury mechanisms for throwing athletes. And, you know, the biggest thing is lack of monitoring.

You don't have the right tools. And this is why I helped develop with some people the education and some of the deeper layers of armcare.com. That's kind of how we met. That's the biggest problem is we're missing opportunities to correct. The pitch count standards that are put out there, they do have some kind of a medical basis. However, we have players that it's scaled by age designation.

It's not looking at a player's velocity or body weight or height or injury histories. And so, you know, the biggest problem that I see with all of this is there's a lack of specialization. My heuristics are that, you know, generalization equals hospitalization, individualization equals optimization, and those are the things we need.

And through my experience that I saw, we took a lot of different avenues. I'm trying to tell people, I always say strength matters most. I'm not saying that nothing else matters. It's just that we've tried so many things. My experience like range of motion, let's just say. Players are considered tight. We expand the range of motion and the injury data gets worse. Or we take a biomechanical approach. We take a movement first approach. And sometimes it's

Moore to Consider (02:43.438)
Mm-hmm.

Moore to Consider (02:49.593)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Crotin (02:56.112)
not wired in the athletes' brain and body and they're outside of how they prefer to move and we encourage more fatigue. And where it comes down to is that if you know strength and you're testing it before and after these high performance bouts, you know, you're going to really be able to understand where that's happening. I have also a consulting business I've had for quite a while and it's a mainstay with what we use at the arm

Moore to Consider (03:01.839)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Crotin (03:26.032)
We test our athletes, I test them after training to make sure that I'm actually giving them enough of a training stimulus. And that's the other thing too. You can undertrain athletes or overtrain them. They're both a problem.

Moore to Consider (03:44.697)
Yeah. And I think that you'll agree with me on this because again, I'm kind of in the middle of this, you know, I'm legally educated. I'd like to think I'm at least halfway bright, but when I run into Tom house, he's on the front edge of really being the guru of biomechanics. It's like teaching pitching mechanics. And I get into that. Now, of course he is also heavily, we both know him well. He's heavily into how to guys break down, what are the fatigue factors, et cetera, but you go back 30 years, most coaches at any level.

We're trying to get Timmy's head online or figure out when to turn, know, so you're thinking from that. I would say anecdotally too, in my history, the more I got guys into what I thought were sound mechanics, the healthier they seemed to pitch. I mean, you know, now, but I think part of what you just said too, yes, there's some science based evidence to support pitch counts or pitch per inning. That being another thing with Tom, you throw a 50 pitch inning.

It's an entirely different thing than 50 pitches over four innings. If you have a fatigue inning, a kid could really massively go into fatigue. Plus they're stressful pitches. So there's all of this stuff that comes into play. But I think part of what you're saying is it doesn't apply all the way across the board because Timmy at 12 and Billy at 12 are two entirely different kids.

Ryan Crotin (04:45.56)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Crotin (05:01.868)
Sure, yeah, I it's...

Like what you're saying too, there's this added stress. You know, if you have a 50 pitch inning, that means you're probably having a lot of runners on base, you know, and to me that gets that agitates the system. And as you're going up in levels, you hit college, you know, you hit pro ball. I was on the weekend seeing a Savannah banana game. They're pitching with such short rest, you know, you know, some guys are releasing the ball at 12 seconds. They're hurrying themselves.

You know, so those are things that kind of you know, they they add into it But you know, the biggest thing is that we have the technology now that arm cart the arm care calm platform I'm telling you there's an individual pitch tracker And we use it that scales all the USA baseball standards the pitch smart guidelines And it will create the adjustment based on is the athletes strength and velocity ratio their pounds per miles per hour

if that's going down or they're not recovering from session to session or the last session they showed a lot of fatigue, you know, that's a big piece. And what happens to what you're saying is that a pitcher might go into the game. That's why around my business, there's a lot of communication with our athletes, especially the ones that pay for the service to have a team around them. They're saying that, hey, I didn't I might have got knocked out of the first inning with 35 pitches.

well, the next day that we go back and it's a starter and they might be scheduled to throw 115 pitches, there has to be some scaling in the middle of the week to get that athlete to not have such huge jumps. You see, that's like almost a four fold increase in workload and that's also can be shocking to the body.

Ryan Crotin (06:55.822)
So, you know, those are all important elements like the designation of knowing your pitch count standards, but also having something to scale it. And a lot of athletes, they're after a game, they're wrapping up, they're leaving. That's a place to test, where's my neurological system at? So that it can be forecasted what's coming on with my week.

You know, and I always say to people too, you know, please test, please test the day after you pitch, especially reliever.

Moore to Consider (07:26.954)
Let's get in, right. Let's get into that a little bit. I'm Joe high school coach. I'm hearing you and you're like, wow, you're making a lot of sense. And in today's environment, like I was in Virginia last year, saw a kid sitting 91, 94 that's 16. And he could be top five picks here in a couple of years. He's going to probably go to school, but now you're that high school coach. You throw him the, you mentioned this when we were in DC at the coaching convention. If he throws the 87th pitch and breaks down.

There's a lawsuit. Mommy and daddy are seeing a kid that's going to make a lot of money one day and you're sitting there weighing, okay, somebody somewhere. What was the number 85? Was it 80? I don't know, but I know we're in the state playoffs and we're trying to win. And I have to balance, you know, this is something 30 years ago, coaches weren't thinking. So I'm that coach today. I hear you today and I'm hoping this is going to be part of the listenership. How do I access what you do?

Ryan Crotin (08:21.804)
Yeah, I mean, there's there's

lots of ways. on armcare.com, know, getting a sense starting out getting a sensor and the compatible training that's inside the arm care platform, you know, as a way to test consistently now with what I do with RC 13 sports, we build in the entire training model around it. So it's not just the arm care or programming that you know, might not need a weight room. have weight room related stuff. We have in home training. There's

a lot more emphasis on speed development and what I do because I noticed too, especially with pitchers, they don't apply force quickly. So sprinting and sprint related training is a big piece. And even with armcare.com, when we do our in-person education events, there's a heavy emphasis on sprint development. And with athletes, like my training philosophies with RC13 sports with my staff is we have to get our athletes to run better.

meaning sprinting, they have to jump.

better in multi-planes. And the throw part is that the throwing musculature has to be rocket strong. And so with parents out there, you know, when you're evaluating a training program and you might find the allure of getting under a barbell right away, heavy squatting, heavy deadlifting, the transfer of training has to be on run, jump, throw, because that's what sustains the athlete for greater amount of health. A lot of our players, at least I work with, we have a lot of

Moore to Consider (09:43.051)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Crotin (09:56.064)
hitting based programs because there are two ways. You see at the high school, a small level, a small college level, a lot of the players, I got a lot of two-way players that they need preparation for hitting, they need preparation to help them as a defender, and of course they're throwing, you know, the outfield pitching combination.

those athletes need a lot of monitoring because each day getting their arm right, they are gonna probably throw with an older case 225 feet to feel the ball, to feel the length because you go into a game as an outfielder and you're making one throw deep, that could be a shock to the system. So you gotta put all the pieces together and I think at the very basic level, you gotta have the arm care plan.

Moore to Consider (10:25.28)
Yeah. Yeah.

Moore to Consider (10:36.939)
Sure.

Ryan Crotin (10:45.372)
and you got a test, know, missed observations. That's, that's, you know, the problem is we just don't know enough about our players arms.

Moore to Consider (10:56.001)
So what I'm asking on that point too, I'm the high school coach, I'm the mom and dad with the prospect kid. Is this a subscription service? there, okay, so I can buy into the subscription service, but I can go to the site and get some general information.

Ryan Crotin (11:10.198)
Yes, yes, yes, yeah. Everything really works on subscription. mean, with Armcare, that's right now a one-time subscription for the year. With what I have, it's monthly because my staff and I are dynamically changing training, not only just for the throwing arm, but in the weight room as well. That's key. That's a big factor. Parents that are out there, they may be seeing that they're not shifting their shoulder balance, but when they are

Moore to Consider (11:14.687)
Gotcha.

Ryan Crotin (11:40.863)
connecting and communicating with the strength coach, that's essential because they could be at odds. That's why I like doing everything here is that we can control when to remove front side exercise or when to remove backside exercise to fix some things. So that to me is a big deal.

Moore to Consider (11:48.49)
Mm-hmm.

Moore to Consider (12:00.319)
You know, another thing I think you would agree with when I think of guys I know that are up in age that play pro ball. And it was just part of the demographics of the United States. Your average M1A1 player was a factory worker from one of the cities or a farmer. lot of kids out of the country. And what are they doing? They're reaching for that bale of hay and they're putting it on the truck. There's a lot of back exercise going on.

You know, you don't want to dump on the kid today. He's playing a lot of video games and if he's not playing baseball under a controlled environment with a coach, he's not doing it at all. They're not playing in the backyard. It's not the sandlot environment where kids throw constantly. And I want your views on the multi-sport athlete because I've heard the studies that say playing multiple sports greatly reduces your risk of injury and you picked up a lot of motor skills from the other sports. Do you agree with that?

Ryan Crotin (12:48.942)
Yeah, I mean, that's one of the things that I build is a multi-sport athlete. I played two sports in college. I was a college baseball player and college volleyball player. So the training, yeah, yeah. So the training has to be both horizontal shins for baseball. You we move laterally when we throw a hit and then vertical shins because we actually have to elevate. And so that training, you know, has to happen. And, you know, some sports like I got multi-sport athletes,

Moore to Consider (12:58.333)
Really? Okay. Yeah.

Moore to Consider (13:04.883)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Crotin (13:18.896)
that are quarterbacks per se, and also maybe pitchers, you know, with volleyball, again, that's an over-extremity, an overhand sport, upper extremity sport, and then you're focusing a lot on.

Moore to Consider (13:20.34)
Yes.

Ryan Crotin (13:33.046)
you know, just making sure that between those sports that throwing arm doesn't weaken because some of them just you can play sometimes to at to at one point. The one point that you made and I want to get back to the free education. We have newsletters that are weekly. We're writing tons. There's like 100.

85 articles that we've written there's maybe 40 hours of free content on on YouTube We have you know, if they pay for courses if people pay for courses, there's roughly 40 hours there But what's happening is that athletes are under trained like what you're saying playing in the you know Going to play on the sandlot people had to pitch to the other player now they go to an engage They're not throwing as much and we're taking the ball away constantly not knowing whether the athletes strong or weak That's why we got to test them in the video game play

Moore to Consider (14:11.23)
Yeah.

Ryan Crotin (14:20.688)
You know the players are just under stimulating their throwing arm, but they're overstimulating their inner digits We just wrote an article on that about you know the fatigue Yeah, the fatigue of the forearm flexors. You know when I started when I played video games it was a Crosshatch where you were using that to move a character, and then you had three buttons Let's say it was the Sega Genesis. They were so big you used your thumb. I never had the flexor issues You know but today

Moore to Consider (14:29.375)
I saw your article on that. I thought that was quite interesting. Yeah.

Ryan Crotin (14:50.608)
the inter digits like buttons on top inside like you're using your hands so much more

And when that's unmonitored, know, and the guys, I had some guys, they were telling me, hey, when I push down like this on my finger from the top, just with my fingertip, player was telling me, this is just lighting up down here right by my own, their collateral ligament. And it was a forearm flexor strain, but it's like from trigger finger. So, you know, that's a big problem. The kid's got to get outside. I mean, that's just an issue.

Moore to Consider (15:06.419)
Mm-hmm.

Moore to Consider (15:23.999)
We got about five more minutes. Good. Okay. Ryan, I want to ask you this question because I've gone out to work with the college team that I told you about that I wanted to, we were going to speak some more on, you know, their junior college team, see some pretty good arms, pretty good arms. I see some velocity and I was talking to the kids yesterday. None of them can pitch. None. I mean, they, have no idea how to pitch. So I'm talking to them the other day and I'm like, it's not your fault. You're in a generation. There are pitching mills everywhere.

Ryan Crotin (15:25.901)
Yeah.

Moore to Consider (15:52.519)
I call them like a pitching mill and you're getting the message. You won't go to university, fill in the blank unless you throw X. So they are just naked is all they have thrown as hard as they can with no feel. And, this it's becoming, I think an epidemic problem. Are kids throwing harder? Yeah, maybe. But at the expense of they don't throw strikes. And I think they're going to probably run into walls of injury. I'm old guy, get off my lawn. I'm much older, but I can tell you in my day.

We knew velocity mattered. didn't see guns the same. We didn't see scouts as much, but you kind of figured out how to get people out. Add in, subtract away, whatever. You had to kind of, they have no concept and they cannot hit spots. So talk to me about that.

Ryan Crotin (16:34.478)
I think that's a problem. think velocity gets a bad rap for injuries. I don't think it's velocity at all. know, there's a small, there's been some, maybe at younger levels, higher levels, doesn't explain a lot of the injuries, like less than 5 % if you just look at velocity alone. The problem is, and you got to think about it, people ask me, hey, what's the biggest predictor of injuries for pitchers? Well, it's pitching. If they don't throw the ball, they don't get hurt. And the problem that happens is the lack of accuracy. So when they're K %

Moore to Consider (16:41.086)
Okay.

Ryan Crotin (17:04.432)
percentage goes down, their ability to locate pitches goes down, they're naturally gonna throw more and when you watch pitchers that are trying to do whatever they can do to muster velocity, that the thing that happens that I see first and it's a it's a very strong trait is that the knee angle can sometimes change by 20 degrees. So from foot contact, weight bearing foot flat, here's their knee angle and what happens is these athletes become like a pole vaulter. They come in low and they really

come in then their energy is sent up and so that change in dynamic of the head level trying to generate you know trying to transfer more energy to the arm you know they ends that they tend up to miss high you know and then all of a sudden you you couple that

Moore to Consider (17:49.394)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Crotin (17:51.88)
with a directional issue, you know, and now and we're talking about stuff where some guys have not only heavy velocity, but super heavy spin. And that's also another thing is players are gripping the ball harder than ever now and they have less rest, right? Because you can't use the sticky tack. So, you know, the combination of big movements, stuff plus, you know, this just been shown as an injury risk factor, the stuff grade, which we want all our guys to have. It's a problem because there's no premium

Moore to Consider (17:53.853)
Mm-hmm.

Moore to Consider (18:05.811)
Right.

Moore to Consider (18:10.333)
Right.

Moore to Consider (18:14.631)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Crotin (18:21.904)
on accuracy. And that comes from strength. These athletes that are throwing hard without strength, they're manipulating joint speed. They have to move things, their knee angles fast, their hip extension, know, their trunk rotation. There's nothing that's regulated. And when you have good strength and stability, and I talked to another guy who's a, we have a very similar acronym, who's the head pitching coach of the A's named Scott Emerson. It's a force power.

and posture. This is my focus and training too is not only not force and generation, the negative force in breaking, right? The power, the deceleration, not the accelerative power, but you know, how am I slowing down velocity fast? And then the posture being able to hold posture so that you have consistency, consistency in my release point, consistency in where my body's positions are at different parts of the delivery, like foot contact or

Moore to Consider (19:04.785)
Right, Mm-hmm.

Ryan Crotin (19:21.594)
maximum external rotation or ball release or maximal internal rotation, those things are what's being lost, you know?

Moore to Consider (19:29.606)
Yeah. And what I find with kids too is they don't play catch well. You know, mean, you know, and then this is something I certainly learned from Tom too, but you can see it in all the pictures and it might've been, we were at Katie. He's showing a series of hall of fame pictures and one thing common across the board is at foot strike ball out. They're all eye level to the horizon. So even though they might've looked a little bit more violent, one guy versus the other, they have a commonality of they're in a certain position with their head. When the ball comes out.

And if the kid is completely tilted in things, to me it just looks like there's gonna be a sequencing issue where they're not gonna have command because they're not in the right place at the right time. And I think some of that, would you not agree, comes with effort. Yeah.

Ryan Crotin (20:09.646)
Dude, I'll tell you what, the catch play thing, you can see I have a very small logo here, right? Cause I'm about to play with a pitcher and it's left side, chest level, it's my glove side. But what I want them to do when I play catch with them, tell them aim small, miss small. I have to give them something very small.

Moore to Consider (20:15.397)
Yeah, right.

Ryan Crotin (20:29.804)
to look at and catch play, you're seeing kids throw in a huge field, you know, a view. And, you know, I'm watching, you know, guys from 60 feet jumping.

Moore to Consider (20:35.004)
No doubt.

Ryan Crotin (20:41.452)
for balls. the problem is, is that we don't have that focus mentality like a Navy SEAL, I'm going to aim small miss small so that we have consistency in throwing. That's the premium on catch play. It's not going in there to just get your arm loose. That's a bad process. Communicating to the athlete that every throw matters. Every throw has a goal and the goal is to hit the mitt where it's located. You know, it's even then like you watch a player, let's just say you're

coach in the dugout there's a big difference between a an umpire is called strike or where you see the ball and the glove interact you know if the gloves doing all this right and umpire is calling strikes all over that that that is maybe a strike but that's not the command we want we want small movements no more than like 11 inches of where the glove moves you know

Moore to Consider (21:34.684)
Yeah, I talked to a major league catcher a few years ago, a guy I know that said he was talking about kids trying to frame because look at the big league level, there's a dugout. And if you're jerking the middle round and making movements, it might even be a strike. But now you made him look bad because what he doesn't want from the other dugout, you better catch it quiet. He goes, what I want to teach you as a receiver. And so to be quiet, the ball's got to kind of be in the right place. But he said the big league level, I'm just trying to present. I'm not trying to cheat. I'm not trying to jerk the middle round.

But if guys miss big, I have no prayer. It may even be in the zone, but I have no prayer on that pitch. Ryan, I greatly appreciate it. We're going to end things right now. Let's get together again soon. Want to get you out here sometime so we can do some stuff together. And all right, so the show's over. I will edit the rest of it out. I lost a guy the other day because after I hit record, I think he got out too soon. So hold your spot. I'm going to end the record. I'm going to end.

Ryan Crotin (22:28.788)
Okay. Okay.