I've been meaning to post this for a few days, as it ran in last Sunday's Boston Globe. Amalie Benjamin wrote an intriguing feature on the Red Sox's "shoulder program," which draws raves from the team's pitchers and plays a role in free agents like Brad Penny and John Smoltz choosing to sign with Boston.
Here's part of Jonathan Papelbon's offseason regimen:
For about 15 minutes a day, three times a week in the offseason, Papelbon acts as if he's in a rehab facility. He will lie, face down, on a training table and lift small weights.
He starts slowly in the beginning, at just two pounds, with the goal of reaching eight pounds by the time he heads to Florida for spring training. The weights, clutched in his closer's hands, will go out straight from his body. Or he'll bend at the elbow, in something akin to a biceps curl. Papelbon says this season might bring an added twist of the wrists at the end of the arms-straight-out exercises.
I don't know if the Detroit Tigers do anything like this, though I'm sure they at least have something similar. Red Sox GM Theo Epstein insists their program isn't fundamentally different from any other team's. But as a Tigers fan, I would love to read something like this from one of the local beat writers about, for instance, Jeremy Bonderman's recovery from shoulder surgery.
We've read about Bondo (and other pitchers) being on a throwing program, but wouldn't some more specific information be interesting to read? What sorts of exercises is he doing in rehabilitation? What are the issues he's been dealing with as he tries to recover in time for Opening Day?
How do the other pitchers prepare? What are the differences in building stamina for starting pitchers versus getting relievers' arms stretched out? How do the Tigers approach keeping their pitchers' arms healthy throughout the season and offseason? Wouldn't you like to know that kind of stuff?