Why Yankees’ Clarke Schmidt believes grip change led to his Tommy John surgery

Clarke Schmidt doesn’t want to dwell on the past. He certainly doesn’t want to get ahead of himself, either, not with his recovery from Tommy John surgery still months from completion. But looking back, the Yankees’ starter believes he’s identified a “major” culprit responsible for the arm issues that ended his 2025 season after just 14 starts. And he knows he’ll make a corresponding change whenever he returns to the mound. “I think the No. 1 thing that played a factor was mid-season grip changes,” Schmidt recently told the Daily News. “You make grip changes, and you start to really put different stress on different areas of your forearm and stuff like that.” Schmidt was referring to...