Why Blue Jays Pitchers Throw a Football During Warm-Ups

DUNEDIN, Fla. — A football is one of many items in Alek Manoah’s spring training locker. 

The Blue Jays starter is built like an offensive lineman, and he likes tossing the pigskin for fun, but there’s a more tactical purpose for its usage.

About a year ago, Manoah started tossing a football around during the early parts of his daily throwing routine. He told Inside The Blue Jays the natural motion of throwing a football keeps his shoulders and biceps in line.

The 24-year-old finds the shortened arm action helps with all his pitches, not just breaking balls, where pitchers snap their wrists and forearms downwards. He’s now one of a few Toronto pitchers who’ve embraced this interesting ritual. 

David Phelps does it, too.

“His [football] is a little bit smaller,” Manoah said.

Phelps, who signed a minor-league deal with the Blue Jays this winter, said he intentionally uses a mini football to help him with his cutter, a pitch that requires pitchers to squeeze one side of the baseball a little harder.

“One of the things I like about the small one is I can really just work down the side,” Phelps said, demonstrating his arm motion with a miniature green and white football.

For Phelps, the football routine started in 2019, when he worked with Full Reps, a baseball training facility in Harrisburg, Pa.. His coach there, Scott Swanson, initially presented the idea as a way to spice up the first throws of the day.

“It helps break up the monotony of those early throws that you make at, like 30, 40 feet,” he said.

Phelps said the routine also helps him with his arm action, or “arm mapping,” as he called it.

“One of the reasons we found it was helpful for me was because I would sometimes get a really long arm-swing,” Phelps said. “When I’m throwing a football, I try to keep it a lot more compact, almost like how a quarterback or a catcher would throw.”

Phelps now throws the football with fellow reliever Tim Mayza, who does it to help his slider. An 11-year veteran of the game, Phelps said the football idea is a product of pitchers being more open to training their arms in different ways.

“I think what you're seeing now is more buy-in to any kind of throw,” the 35-year-old said. “Whether it's a plyo-ball, whether it's a smaller football, you see some guys throw clubs.

“We're learning that we can train the arm in different ways than just throwing a baseball … it's just trying to get us moving better; it's not necessarily all about velocity.”

Phelps was excellent during his cameo with the Blue Jays last season. The right-hander struck out 15 guys in 10.1 innings and allowed just one earned run, but a lat injury—where Phelps’ muscle tore off the bone—ended his season very early.

His injury history is a “great mystery,” he said, and the football routine highlights the repeatable motions he’ll need to keep his body stable at this point in his career.

“There are certain people that are incredibly gifted and blessed that they can just pick up a baseball and their arm works,” Phelps said. “But for me I've noticed that, as I've gotten older, it's a little bit more of a process to stay moving through the windows that I want to with my arm, with my body.”