OutKick Exclusive: Why Are Younger Pitchers Getting Hurt More?

With the Major League Baseball season currently underway, one of the hottest topics has been what's been happening on the pitching mound - but for all the wrong reasons.

Within the last 13 months, at least 38 MLB pitchers have undergone some sort of elbow surgery. The term "Tommy John surgery," which used to be dreaded in the sport, has become something of a commonplace these days - for better or worse. In the past few weeks elbow injuries have sidelined Cleveland Guardians 2020 Cy Young Award winner Shane Bieber, last year's MLB win and strikeout leader Spencer Strider  and even one of the league's best in Gerrit Cole. 

Although everyone agrees that something is wrong - the baseball world can't collectively agree on what is causing so many young pitchers to have arm issues at such an alarmingly high rate.

Let's see what some of the best are saying about it.

In an exclusive interview with OutKick, I spoke with former Atlanta Braves and New York Mets 10x All-Star, 2x NL Cy Young Award Winner, World Series Champion Tom Glavine about what he believes the issue is.

He summed it up rather simply: Pitchers aren't being taught how to pitch anymore.

"Kids these days are being brought up knowing the importance of velocity, and I'm not so sure how much they're being taught to throw the ball to corners… everything they do is just geared to velocity," Glavine said. 

"These young kids in high school that are throwing 88, 89, 90mph - their bodies can't handle that. Same with the pitchers in the Big Leagues - you throw the max effort long enough, your body is going to give out - it has to. And the first thing to go is going to be something on your arm."

When I asked the pitching great about the pressure of social media and the younger