Rockies renew focus on prioritizing health

For some reason, with all the analyzing and debating and sometimes outright fighting over professional athletes and their abilities, very little time is given to a discussion of their health.

It’s odd. There may be no more important element to any sportsman’s success than how well in tune that person is with their body; their primary source for accomplishing their goals.

We’ve seen countless of examples across all sports of extraordinary talent that could never reach its full potential because the body would not cooperate. Ken Griffey Jr., Greg Oden, and even the Rockies’ own struggles in the previous decade with Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez all remind us that there is more to getting ultimate value out of your players than simply recognizing and then unleashing talent.

The Colorado Rockies, according to GM Jeff Bridich, have renewed their focus on a full-tilt approach to helping their players achieve maximum health. More than any on-field strategy or front-office roster maneuvering, the commitment to giving every athlete from the top to the bottom of the organization a legitimate shot to fulfill their potential could be the next market inefficiency.

“We’re much, much more conscious of it and proactive in it than we used to be,” Bridich said. “Organizationally I know we’ve invested time, money, and manpower to better ourselves. We needed to be better in this.” He says that they have taken previously separated departments and combined them, seeing nutrition, recovery, and rest as a part of the same puzzle.

“The unity and the work that happens among out strength and conditioning coaches, our medical trainers, and our dietitians is just that. They are a team.”

While most athletes will do whatever it takes to get their body into prime condition, they don’t always know what the means and don’t always have access to what they need. Especially when it comes to food. Different guys swear by different diets, but we are in an age where nobody will deny the dramatic impact that can be made by eating right and getting enough rest.

When asked what his major offseason priority was, superstar Nolan Arenado replied that he needed to get his sleep schedule in order. He needs to make sure that he is fully recovering between games so he can be at his best more often. For those wondering, he says he feels better than he ever has and not because he has been hitting the gym harder or upping his cardio.

Of course, once you reach MLB, facilities and chefs are available to you on the regular. Bridich knows that the real progress is to be made on the minor league side, where players often don’t have access to—or in many cases simply cannot afford— the best resources.

“Probably over the next decade to decade and in a half how we feed minor leaguers will change,” Bridich says. “We, as an industry, can probably do a better job in that area.”

Putting aside for a moment that it can border on cruelty what some minor leaguers are asked to commit while being provided so few opportunities to better themselves, this is a way that smaller market teams can invest just a little bit more money and see massive results.

After all, as this franchise has learned, you can put one of the very best, most singularly talented players the game has seen in a decade at shortstop, and if he regularly misses half the season, it doesn’t amount to much.