St. Louis's own Tyler White is helping pitchers stay healthy and assert themselves

One of the best pitchers of the last half-decade in baseball has been Logan Webb of the San Francisco Giants.

Webb ranks third in baseball since 2020 in fWAR, and he has the 20th-best ERA in that same time span. Webb has started the fifth-most games in that span while pitching the second-most innings. He's been one of the most reliable and durable starters of this decade, and his excellence is matched by few other starting pitchers.

However, Logan Webb has needed to dip into more than analytics, pitch visualization, and practice to hone his craft. He's gone outside of the baseball stadium to help him remain healthy and durable.

In a recent article on The Athletic by Andrew Baggarly and Eno Sarris, Logan Webb revealed that he has been working with chiropractors to help maintain his health over the grueling 162-game marathon that is a baseball season.

Baggarly and Sarris write, "So, in addition to all his other research on pitch design and usage, he's consulted with biomechanics experts all over the country to review his mechanics and help him understand the traits that help some pitchers stand the test of time in an era of maximum-effort burnout."

Enter St. Louis-based chiropractor Dr. Tyler White.

Tyler White, a St. Louis-based chiropractor, has helped Logan Webb maintain his durability and health.

Tyler White's baseball career started at a young age. "I played baseball for most of my life—starting around age 3 or 4. I was obsessed with doing whatever it took to make it to the big leagues," said White. "I trained hard every day, lifted five days a week, hit in the batting cage we had in the backyard—whatever it took."

Unfortunately for Tyler, a shoulder injury before his freshman year of college altered his professional baseball plans.

As a result of his injury, Tyler wanted to learn why his body broke down rather than lamenting the lost career that he could have had. Thus began his journey into the biomechanical world.

Dr. White, a graduate of Logan University with a Doctorate in Chiropractic, found that entering the medical field provided him with "the best opportunity to work with athletes the way I believed they needed to be treated." The bulk of what White does now has been via his own research and self-instruction.

Tyler White also worked for five years with Dr. Brett Winchester. Winchester, the former chiropractor for the St. Louis Cardinals, is now the lead instructor for Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization (DNS), a method now used by many big-league organizations. Winchester's work is well known in the biomechanical world, and he's travelled the world for his studies and lectures. Winchester's tutelage was instrumental for Tyler White in his career. "What made a big difference for me was working for five years with Brett Winchester, one of the top movement and stability experts in the country," said White.

Dr. White's unorthodox and self-taught methodologies are a combination of his time with Dr. Brett Winchester and his own approach to the task.

"I was fortunate to get what felt like a masterclass in DNS from (Dr. Winchester). That training gave me the depth to start 'bending the rules' in a good way — adapting techniques to fit the unique demands of each athlete. Every pitcher is different. Mechanics, body types, sequencing — all of it," said White. "I would design individualized positions and movement patterns that match their specific needs. So far, the results have been incredibly positive.  I would argue the majority of how I use the technique isn't taught in seminars."

Pitching injuries, particularly non-contact ones, have been on the rise for the last two decades in baseball. Velocity, overuse, and an unnatural arm motion are all major causes for non-contact pitching injuries. Tyler White has made it one of his goals to help combat this injury epidemic. "I’ve made it my mission to reduce those numbers. If you study patterns of injury, anatomy, muscle activation, and mechanics, you start to see consistencies. Some athletes move well but have flawed mechanics. Others have great mechanics but terrible movement quality and poor stability. Both break down."

"That’s where current motion capture systems and biomechanics often fall short—they can’t see how the athlete is getting into those positions," continued White. "A pitcher might look clean on paper but be a ticking time bomb physically. When we teach better patterns and address the areas they typically compensate through, we usually see significant improvements in both health and performance.

Dr. White's work has allowed him to work with over a dozen major leaguers. The piece by Andrew Baggarly and Eno Sarris brought to light White's work with Logan Webb, but he's also worked with Jakob Junis, a former San Francisco Giant himself. In fact, Junis introduced Webb to Tyler White back in the 2022-2023 offseason.

While Tyler isn't directly connected to the St. Louis Cardinals, fanhood does run in his veins in one way or another. Tyler rooted for the Cardinals for a large portion of his life, but he now focuses on his clients and their individual successes rather than a team at large.

Even though Tyler doesn't follow the Cardinals as intently as he once did, he still keeps tabs on the team. Regarding the team's current state, White echoes many of the sentiments held by fans. "Their problem the last few years is being just good enough not to sell, but not good enough to make the postseason. That puts them in a kind of purgatory.  They gamble on their current record and then have nothing positive to show from it."

However, Tyler did express optimism regarding one particular man in the front office: Rob Cerfolio, Assistant General Manager, Player Development and Performance.

Cerfolio's touch on the organization is already being felt throughout the minor leagues. Cerfolio used to work with the Cleveland Guardians, an organization that Tyler White is familiar with due to his work. Those whom White knows spoke highly of Cerfolio. "I’m encouraged by some of the people they’ve brought in. Friends of mine in the Guardians front office speak very highly of their new Director of Player Development, (Rob) Cerfolio."

Tyler White currently works at Legacy Performance Academy in Chesterfield, Missouri. Appointments can be made on their website. His clinic is shut down near the end of the baseball season, as Tyler travels with his clients during the offseason and spring training. He is currently looking for someone who can maintain his business with St. Louis athletes while he is away.

Dr. White is working on a way to combat the rise of pitcher injuries in baseball.

Tyler also mentioned a potentially groundbreaking new throwing system. This new method uses the Delfi Blood Flow Restriction device that several MLB clubs are looking to implement through Tyler. According to Dr. White, this system "is highly technical. It calibrates to the individual’s [limb pressures] in real time and maintains precise occlusion levels, even during movement.” Think of a tourniquet and its ability to restrict or stop blood flow to a particular limb.

This cutoff of oxygen forces the body to recruit more muscle fibers, release growth hormones, and increase resistance to fatigue. You can read more about this process in an interview that Dr. White did with Will Carroll late last year.