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Tim Kurkjian, ESPN Senior Author
DODGERS PITCHER Tyler Glasnow, who stands 6-foot-8, 225 kilos, can do a standing backflip.
“It is no large deal, actually,” he mentioned. (Sure, it’s. There aren’t many individuals that large and tall who can do a backflip.)
“Oh, I am positive there are lots of people larger than me that may,” he mentioned. (No, there aren’t.)
Glasnow, 30, is a brand new member of the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ rotation, acquired from the Tampa Bay Rays in a commerce in December and instantly signed to a five-year, $136 million extension. His stuff is as overpowering and violent as anybody’s within the sport, partly due to his outstanding athleticism: a wide ranging mixture of dimension, pace, power, agility, mobility and steadiness, all of which has drawn comparisons to Michael Jordan, Michael Phelps — and a giraffe.
“He’s essentially the most bodily gifted athlete I’ve ever seen in my life,” mentioned Rays nearer Pete Fairbanks, an ex-teammate. “He’s extra versatile than anybody I’ve ever seen. His actions are cleaner than anybody I’ve ever seen. He’s unbelievable. I do not suppose there’s athletic exercise that he cannot do.”
Apart from a backflip, Glasnow can stroll on his fingers. He received a silver medal within the Junior Olympics within the excessive bounce. He was a wonderful basketball participant (“I am tall,” he mentioned). He beloved curler hockey and was a wizard on a skateboard. He ran observe, did the shot put and performed soccer for one yr in highschool. He lifted an enormous quantity of weight, and says, “if I am on the facet of a squat rack, I can go parallel to the bottom, however I do not know if that’s uncommon.”
It’s.
“We name {that a} flagpole,” mentioned Dodgers pitcher J.P. Feyereisen. “He was doing that within the weight room in the present day. I am unsure what number of guys may do this. He is 6-8, and he can do it.”
But with this wonderful array of expertise and athleticism, Glasnow hasn’t been in a position to keep wholesome. He has by no means accomplished a sport in his main league profession; he has by no means pitched sufficient innings in a season (162) to qualify for the ERA title. He had Tommy John surgical procedure in 2021, an damage he mentioned had affected him for even longer.
However he has averaged 11.5 strikeouts per 9 innings and solely 7.3 hits. His stuff is hellacious. His curveball is among the finest within the sport; it is unhittable when paired together with his 98 mph fastball. Starting Wednesday, when Glasnow takes the mound in Seoul, South Korea, for the Dodgers’ Opening Day sport in opposition to the San Diego Padres, the Dodgers are hoping to harness that athletic capability and spectacular stuff.
“I really feel wonderful now,” he mentioned. “I discovered the elbow factor. I’ve had that since 2019. Now that that is ironed out. I really feel the healthiest I’ve ever felt. Now after assembly all of the coaches and the coaching workers [with the Dodgers], I am actually excited concerning the future. The whole lot is so buttoned-up right here, I can put my physique in one of the best place to succeed.”
“Relating to capability, nobody is healthier than Tyler,” former teammate Brad Miller mentioned. “I believe his relationship with the Dodgers is a match made in heaven. That $130 million extension goes to be like pennies on the greenback for what he’ll do for the Dodgers.”
THE ART OF pitching has modified dramatically prior to now 10 years, as athletic trainers and efficiency specialists have discovered new methods to enhance physique operate with all-new workouts — and but all of it feels acquainted to Glasnow.
“I have a look at movies doing gymnastics once I was 5, and the basics and warmups I used to be doing then are what baseball gamers are being taught in the present day,” Glasnow mentioned. “It is loopy. Strolling in your fingers, the excessive bounce, backbends. I have already got a baseline for all this.”
“No matter he did as a child from ages 5 to 12, I want to write down it down and have my son do it, as a result of that is the way you construct an athlete,” Fairbanks mentioned. “He is the proper mix of genetics.”
Glasnow’s mother, Donna, is 5-9, a retired gymnast who now coaches gymnastics at Cal State Northridge; his dad, Greg, 6-2, is a swimmer and a water polo participant.
“She selected to be a gymnast, but when she had chosen one other sport, she in all probability would have been nice at it,” Glasnow mentioned of his mother. “She’s virtually 70 years previous. However she’s in insanely fine condition. I keep in mind rising up, she was at all times doing handstands and cartwheels round the home, all this loopy stuff. She put us [Glasnow and his brother, Ted] in gymnastics after we had been little. She was at all times attempting to get us to do as many athletic issues as doable. I have a look at the gymnastics issues we did as youngsters. It was insane. It was like, ‘Whoa, we had been 5!'”
Ted was a decathlete at Notre Dame.
“He’s 6-1, 6-2, he’s ginormously robust,” Glasnow mentioned. “He’s essentially the most shredded human in our household. When he was competing, it was insane how large he was. I acquired the peak. He acquired the power. I may raise loads of weight, I used to be obsessed by it, however he was stronger.”
Stated Yarbrough: “I requested Tyler as soon as what he would have completed if he hadn’t been a baseball participant. He mentioned nonchalantly, ‘Properly, my brother does the decathlon. I assume I might do this.'”
As a child, Glasnow beloved being on the trampoline, doing flips, which taught him the feeling of being in house whereas nonetheless sustaining management of his physique. That led to his first backflip.
“I used to be 19 years previous, I used to be on the ocean in Mexico,” he mentioned. “I had by no means thought of doing a backflip in gymnastics. However I used to be there, on the sand, and I assumed, ‘I believe I can do that.’ So I did it within the sand. I simply thought to myself, ‘Properly, I assume I can do a backflip.'”
Dodgers pitcher Ryan Yarbrough has seen it.
“He simply mentioned to me, ‘Do you need to see it?'” Yarbrough mentioned. “And he simply did it on a dime.”
“I name him the Giraffe,” mentioned Texas Rangers first baseman Nathaniel Lowe, a former teammate in Tampa. “Giraffes have lengthy limbs, lengthy levers, however can actually transfer. Folks suppose giraffes are bumbling animals, however they’ll run. Once I was with the Rays, Tyler used to beg to pinch run if we had been in an extended sport. He’d say, ‘Please let me run. I promise I can rating from first on a double. My dash pace would measure actually excessive on Statcast!'”
“Everybody talks about how [5-10 Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu] Yamamoto can contort his physique and bend his again all the way in which,” mentioned Andrew Friedman, the Dodgers president of baseball operations. “However Tyler can do this even higher.”
Glasnow is aware of his physique effectively, what it might do.
“The largest distinction with the athleticism is [considering] my peak, how I will get down the mound in a different way than most,” Glasnow mentioned. “And since I do loads of the mobility stuff, I believe I can keep steady in locations the place some folks would discover it tougher to steadiness. I believe I’ve good single-leg stability. I’m fairly explosive. I can push off exhausting, and … I can get the ball out lots tougher than most individuals. It is all about stability, the place you might be in house, discovering your self, type of like eyes-closed steadiness. When pitching, I get so prolonged in my again, just like the excessive bounce. My mother would at all times have us doing handstand walks, single-arm stability stuff. Doing all that at such younger age, it has helped my physique and my mind on the mound.”
GLASNOW’S HEIGHT CAME from his mom’s facet; she has a brother who’s 6-9. In Glasnow’s case, it occurred immediately. He was 5-8 as a highschool freshman in Santa Clarita, California.
“Then my junior yr, over a winter break, in like 5 weeks, I grew like 4 inches,” he mentioned. “Once I acquired again to highschool at winter break, folks had been like, ‘What the hell occurred to you?’ Loopy. I keep in mind leaving and coming again and folks had been like ‘What!?'”
Glasnow graduated highschool at 6-6, that means he grew virtually a foot in solely 4 years. Usually, when somebody grows that shortly, it’s tough for the physique to catch up, to stay coordinated. Not Glasnow. The elevated dimension solely added to his pitching acumen.
“I’ve at all times been actually athletic,” he mentioned. “I used to be at all times snug choosing up any new sport. So far as baseball specifics go, having athletic mother and father, rising up within the place that I grew up, it is such a terrific baseball tradition there. Santa Clarita was all about baseball. I performed all yr spherical, And I had some actually good coaches. Baseball was at all times my finest sport.”
His idol was Randy Johnson, who was 6-10, “and he had hassle throwing strikes, too,” mentioned Glasnow, who struggled together with his personal command. “However I by no means actually nerded out on baseball an excessive amount of once I was a child. I used to be such a rambunctious human, I could not simply sit and watch a baseball sport.”
Even then, although, his stuff was elite. He was drafted in 2011 by the Pittsburgh Pirates and spent a number of years after his 2016 debut yo-yoing between the majors and Triple-A and the bullpen and the rotation. After being traded to the Rays midseason in 2018, he turned a full-time starter till he had Tommy John surgical procedure in August 2021.
“The primary time I noticed him throw in individual [in 2018], he was in an empty stadium, within the bullpen simply getting some work in, nobody within the field, and he was casually throwing 97-98 mph, the ball was simply exploding, and the look on his face was, ‘I am unable to assist it,'” mentioned Adam Kolarek, an ex-teammate in Tampa. “It regarded like Michael Jordan shrugging his shoulders [after making another 3-pointer] as if to say, ‘I do not know the way I do it.’ It is not cocky. Tyler simply can not help it.”
“I confronted him final spring in a simulated sport,” mentioned former Rays teammate Brandon Lowe. “I swung at a curveball that bounced earlier than the plate. I assumed it was a fastball. That has by no means occurred to me earlier than. It’s virtually unimaginable to mistake a fastball for a curveball.”
“He’s a beast,” Miller mentioned. “He’s so lengthy, however he isn’t lanky. [Jacob] deGrom has these wonderful levers in his physique. Tyler has the identical ones, and he is 40 kilos larger. The dude simply fingers the ball to the catcher.”
So, is there something Glasnow cannot do?
“I suck at golf,” he mentioned. “Terrible. Horrible. I chunk it. I’ve the all-or-nothing mentality. I hit it actually far, however it slices farther than it goes straight. I will lose like 15 balls in a spherical. I suck.”
Lastly, we discovered the one factor Tyler Glasnow cannot do.
