Tyler Glasnow is one of the most talented pitchers in baseball when he’s on the field, but all too often the right-hander has been sidelined by injuries.
Since his MLB debut in 2016, Glasnow has managed to throw 100 innings in a season just three times — 2018, 2023 and 2024. He’s never thrown more than 134 innings, which Glasnow set as a new career high this year in his first season with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Despite Glasnow’s injury history, the Dodgers bet on his upside and believed he was trending in the right direction after fully recovering from Tommy John surgery. But once again, his season was cut short, this time by a right elbow sprain that will keep him out through the postseason.
Given that Glasnow believed injury troubles were behind him, the latest elbow issue has caused plenty of frustration and has him looking for a solution.
“I still think there’s things I can do to try to prevent it in the future,” Glasnow said. “But I think just because it is the same thing over and over again, it’s extremely frustrating.
“So I’m just trying to at this point, kind of searching for answers and find a long-term plan that will sit down and figure some stuff out. But I think the ultimate goal is to always be able to pitch in the postseason so going forward, just trying to figure it out.”
While pitcher injuries are an issue across MLB, it has affected the Dodgers particularly hard this year. Glasnow is at the forefront of that, and he’s focused on finding a plan to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
There’s no guarantee that any changes will lead to increased health. Throwing a baseball 100 times per start at high velocity brings about plenty of stress in itself.
But Glasnow thinks there are a few changes he can make to hopefully lead to improved health and less stress on his arm.
“I’m going to try and address things mechanically,” he said. “I know I have good mechanics. I think talking with a bunch of different people and biomechanically everything is good. I just think I have such a long extension it puts so much stress on my arm, being so long.
“If there’s ways that I can maybe shorten up certain things in my delivery or somehow just make my delivery more efficient and each start, just trying to keep it as consistent over the course of season as possible. That’s like every pitcher’s dream, obviously, but I’m just trying to figure out something to get my arm in a good spot to try to relieve some of the tension in my elbow.
“So right now, I guess I’m just trying to figure all that out and then implement it through the offseason to bring it in next season.”
Glasnow ended his first season with the Dodgers posting a 3.49 ERA and 2.90 FIP across his career-high 134 innings. He struck out 11.28 hitters per nine innings and walked 2.35 per nine.
Silver lining for Tyler Glasnow
Any elbow injury is concerning, but one positive for Glasnow is testing found no new damage to the ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) in his right elbow that previously was repaired through an operation.
An injury to his UCL could have required another Tommy John surgery, which would have kept him out for the 2025 season as well.
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