Riley Quick's fast recovery from Tommy John has ex-football player's MLB Draft stock soaring

New York Times

30-06-2025

The phrase 'he's a football player on the mound' is thrown around liberally to describe pitchers with aggressive mentalities. Alabama right-hander Riley Quick is the rare hurler who actually fits that cliche. A star offensive lineman in high school who entertained offers from several top Division 1 programs to play football, Quick chose baseball but has leaned on his football background to become one of the top college right-handers in this year's MLB Draft.
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'You got a guy that's as strong as an ox,' Alabama strength and conditioning coach Brett Price said. 'He's an offensive lineman playing baseball, a fierce competitor with a big-time arsenal that loves winning more than anything else.'
Quick, who was projected to go No. 21 to the Houston Astros in Keith Law's latest mock draft, hasn't had an easy road to draft day. After his freshman season, he underwent ankle surgery to address a nagging injury from his days as a football player. Quick spent that offseason working his way back into baseball shape, had a strong fall and then blew out his elbow in his first regular-season start of his sophomore season.
Recovery from Tommy John surgery generally takes 12 to 18 months, but from the moment he came out of surgery, Quick was determined to be back on the mound by opening day of the 2025 season.
Alabama pitching coach Jason Jackson and its training, strength and medical staff worked with Quick to focus less on reaching the ultimate goal and more on achieving weekly benchmarks in his rehab. That incremental progress boosted Quick in what turned out to be a fairly seamless recovery. He not only returned almost a year to the day of the surgery, but also with his upper-90s velocity intact.
Quick, 21, never doubted he'd be ready at the start of the season, but he knew that goal was a reality about eight months into the rehab, when he was throwing hard in bullpen sessions.
'It was really rewarding,' he said.
Alabama athletic trainer Sean Stryker worked closely with Quick throughout his recovery. He said the competitive right-hander had no hesitation when he got to the point of his rehab where he could start throwing again.
'I played catch with him his first day of playing catch at 45 feet, and I had to tell him to back off,' Stryker said. 'He's so competitive, he wanted to get to that next phase. He was ready to go, but it was more like, 'Hey, back off. Here's where we're at. Let's stay within the threshold.' And he respected it, he understood why we were doing it that way to protect him.'
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Though Quick returned on opening day, he was on a strict pitch count until his final start of the season, when he threw 108 pitches in the NCAA Regionals. Over 14 starts, he logged 62 innings, posting a 3.92 ERA with a 70:24 K:BB. He remained healthy throughout the season and was able to go from throwing three pitches — a two-seamer, a changeup that Law rated as a 55 on the 20-80 scouting scale, and a slider — to utilizing his full arsenal, which also includes a four-seamer and a cutter.
'He was really consistent with his recovery process, which I think is what helped him a ton,' Stryker said. 'His routine was his routine. He knew, 'OK, I came out of the game, I'm doing X, Y, Z. The next day, I'm going to do this.' I think that's what helped him stay on track.'
Why not add No. 9? Q is through 6.0 IP for the first time in his career too!@rileyquick12 I #RollTide pic.twitter.com/d7KXdfIDFb
— Alabama Baseball (@AlabamaBSB) May 3, 2025
Quick admits the command and the consistency of his stuff took a little while to return but he was happy with where he ended up by the end of the season.
'He's got a really good idea of who he is and what he wants to do with different types of hitters — right-handed hitters and left-handed hitters — and he's got an arsenal that can get both out,' Jackson said. 'He's just got to continue to refine that and get everything a little bit more consistent.'
The sinker and changeup are already above-average pitches, Jackson said, and the slider and cutter have flashed plus, though remain inconsistent. In time, Jackson believes Quick will have four above-average offerings to throw at the next level. His fastball velocity ranged between 95-99 mph during the season.
Because of the two surgeries, Quick has thrown only 87 innings over the past three years. His innings were limited at Alabama but he also didn't pitch in summer leagues, such as the Cape Cod League and for Team USA. While that cost Quick valuable experience against upper-level competition, it also means he's a relatively clean slate as he begins his pro career.
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'That's one thing that's such a feather in his cap is he's got so much room to grow (as a pitcher),' Jackson said.
Though it was frustrating for Quick to essentially go from one rehab with the ankle to another with the elbow, Price believes having that extra time away from pitching allowed them to perfect the strength training to maximally benefit his pitching. Because Quick came into college as much a football player as a baseball player, the 6-foot-6, 245-pounder had to work with Price to re-shape his body to better fit the necessary movements on the mound.
'Training was a little bit of a learning curve at first, just some of the adjustments we were making,' Price said. 'He obviously came in with a ton of strength and power already. So it was just teaching how to redistribute that strength and power into different movement patterns of positions that would ultimately impact his pitch and delivery a little bit more.'
Quick had to adjust his mindset on the mound too.
'I was going at 5,000 rpms all the time and so emotional, and I had to tone that down to probably like 2,500 rpms and then control my emotions a little better,' Quick said. 'But at the end of the day, it helped me. It made me more aggressive — and that's what one of my strengths is.'
Jackson believes Quick's competitiveness was key to his recovery. He was so focused on what he wanted to accomplish on the mound, he didn't allow himself to get distracted by draft chatter or scouts in the stands.
'There's a lot of maturity that comes out of going through a rehab process,' Jackson said.
Some pitchers with first-round aspirations may have been anxious to get back to 100 pitches as quickly as possible in their draft year, but Quick trusted his coaches, trainers and medical staff and stuck with the start-by-start plan in terms of pitch count — though Jackson said Quick wasn't always happy to come out of games early at the start of the season.
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After he hurt his elbow, Quick remained involved with the team daily and spent the rest of his sophomore season on the dugout rail each game, rooting for his teammates.
'Guys love being around him. He gets along with everybody. He's got a ton of energy,' Stryker said. 'It's a unique deal where he cares so much that he's going to be invested on days he's not pitching, but when he has the ball in his hand, he's a different person. He loves the game. He wants to get better. He's always looking for ways to get better.'
A native of Trussville, Ala., Quick takes pride in being an Alabama athlete. His older brother, Pierce, played football for the Crimson Tide. Quick took full advantage of the resources available to Alabama athletes in terms of coaching and training, working with the training staff as soon as he arrived on campus.
'He knew that he could get resources out of the training room, and he let us be a part of his routine to take care of himself when he was healthy,' Stryker said. 'And I think that made it a lot easier for him when he did get hurt and had to go through that process, because he was already familiar with working with us.'
One of the players Quick became close with early in his Alabama career was right-hander Ben Hess, who went in the first round to the New York Yankees in last year's draft. Though they are very different pitchers, Quick learned a lot from Hess about preparation.
Stryker points out that Quick still hadn't reached the 18-month point post-surgery — generally considered the end of the Tommy John recovery period — at the conclusion of Alabama's season. Though Quick's stuff impressed during the season, Stryker believes there's still room for another jump as he moves further away from the surgery.
'He's one of the best kids I've ever been around,' Stryker said. 'He's a tough kid. He works hard, but he's also really respectful.'
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'Very motivated, just a wonderful kid,' Price added. 'Very unique personality, very outgoing, but also knows how to switch gears when it's time to work and get in there and lock in and do what he needs to do.'
Although Quick didn't get nearly as many innings for the Tide as he anticipated when he started his collegiate career, he still gained valuable experience pitching in high-profile, high-pressure environments in the SEC. He's learned to block out the noise from rowdy crowds.
'I hear it sometimes,' he said, 'like little chirps from the dugout, maybe, but not much.'
Quick grew a lot as a person and a pitcher during his time at Alabama, but Jackson expects him to take an even bigger leap forward at the professional level.
'He still really hasn't pitched a ton,' Jackson said. 'There's such a high ceiling there.'