News
Phils' training staff honored with award
Club was able to stay healthy thanks to hard work of trainers
By Todd Zolecki / MLB.com
11/20/09 1:31 PM EST
PHILADELPHIA -- Back in February, when the Phillies still had highlights of the 2008 World Series running through their heads, the club talked about what it would take to win back-to-back championships.They put health atop their list. The Phillies needed to stay healthy, because they knew they had the talent.
And they were mostly healthy in 2009. Baseball Prospectus said the Phillies lost 546 days to injury this season, which were the third-fewest days of any team in baseball. They also lost $11.523 million to injuries. Considering a payroll that finished around $140 million, the club did a good job of keeping its high-priced talent on the field.
That was why Baseball Prospectus recently gave the Dick Martin Award, which it presents to the best medical staff in baseball, to the Phillies: a staff that includes head athletic trainer Scott Sheridan, assistant athletic trainer Mark Andersen, strength and conditioning coordinator Dong Lien and team physician Michael Ciccotti.
In 2003, Baseball Prospectus established the Dick Martin Award for Best Medical Staff, named after the long-time Twins trainer who helped set the standards that today's athletic trainers and doctors aspire to.
"We didn't have those long-term injuries," Sheridan said. "There were things that were manageable. You're never happy with having any DL time, but you know you're going to have some."
There are reasons for the Phillies' success.
The group is constantly evaluating and adjusting its programs, which has helped. Lien arrived before the 2008 season, and he has been a valuable addition. Sheridan, who replaced former head athletic trainer Jeff Cooper in '07, also gave credit to former general manager Pat Gillick and current general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. for bringing in the right players.
"They have to bring in quality players, otherwise this doesn't work," Sheridan said. "If somebody comes in and they have a bad health history or they're really injured, we can do all the work we want and we may not be successful at getting them on the field. There are a lot of things playing a role in this. It's not just the training staff. It's Michael Ciccotti. It's all our doctors. It's the GM and everybody down the line."
The Phillies lost 801 days to injuries in 2008, but that is a bit misleading, because most of those days involved injuries to right-handers Scott Mathieson and Francisco Rosario and left-hander Mike Zagurski -- pitchers who had no chance of pitching that season. Take away those three players at 183 days each and the number drops to 252.
But the Phillies also lost more than 1,000 days to injury in 2007, when the club used a franchise-record 28 pitchers.
"I think a little bit is different," Sheridan said regarding the improvements from 2007. "I think I started in the right direction with what Coop had done in the past. Dong is new. We as a group, from the conditioning side to the athletic training side, work together very well. We really communicate well. I'd like to think that's part of it. And I'd like to think there was a learning curve for myself.
"The first year, you're trying to grasp everything. I think we do a better job with identifying areas of concern with players in Spring Training. And, obviously, there is some luck. You don't want to jinx yourself into saying you did everything right, because it can never be that way."
But what a difference a healthy roster can make.
The New York Mets entered the season as the team expected to give the Phillies the toughest fight in the National League East. New York finished in fourth place, 23 games behind Philadelphia.
The Mets lost 1,451 days to injury, which were the most in baseball. They also lost $43.734 million to injuries, easily the most in baseball.
New York certainly would have been more competitive had it not suffered so many injuries.
That is why the Phillies try to prevent the injuries before they happen. They have a screening every spring in Clearwater, Fla., where the club measures things like range of motion. Philadelphia also has a functional movement screening which looks at the strengths and weaknesses of different areas of the body.
"When we put all the information together, we try to find trends," Sheridan said. "Like, 'Everybody is lacking in this area' or 'The majority of guys need to do work in that area.' We try to put that into their daily routines. Obviously, we can't get everybody to do that routine, but if we can get the majority doing it, then we think that's part of keeping them healthy."
Sheridan, Lien and Andersen will gather at the Winter Meetings next month to see what the hot topics are. They also will talk about what they want to do in Spring Training.
"Do we want to do what we did last year?" Sheridan said. "Each year, we've changed something. It might not have been dramatic, but from 2007 to 2008, we added this functional movement screen, which we thought would help us identify guys at risk. It did that a little bit, but it didn't do it as good as we wanted. So last year we went back and we did different things. So each year, we try to tweak it."
They will tweak it again with the hopes they can at least maintain the success they have had the previous two seasons. But Sheridan knows that is no guarantee. Some injuries -- hamstring strains and calf strains -- are more avoidable than others, like the broken hand Chase Utley suffered in 2007.
"You can never prevent them all," Sheridan said. "That's the reality of it. You just hope you can identify them early enough and try to stay on top of it."
Todd Zolecki is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
