Professional
Pitcher Analyses
12/17/2007
In an effort to develop my
ability to troubleshoot the motions and mechanics of the pitchers
I coach, in November of 2005 I began to put together a number of
analyses of the motions and mechanics of a number of professional
pitchers.
As I put together more and more of these analyses, I
began to notice what I believe are a number of
patterns. As a result, I am now in the process of conducting a
more formal study of pitching motions and mechanics, looking for
similarities and differences in the mechanics and motions of
pitchers who are...
- More injury-prone.
- Less injury-prone.
Based on the patterns that I
believe I am seeing, I have started making predictions and about what I
believe will happen to young pitchers and selecting picks
and pans in terms of pitching mechanics.
Where To Start
If you haven't looked at one of my analyses before, you might
want to first look at a couple of documents that I put together called
How Justin Verlander (Actually) Throws The Ball and
How Roger Clemens (Actually) Throws The Ball (pdf).
After you do that, you might want to look at my
Frame By Frame Analysis of Jeff Weaver
(.pdf)
since it is based on high speed video and is extremely detailed.
Proper And Improper Pitching
Mechanics
If you are just interested in the topic of
proper
pitching mechanics, I have put together a few pieces that
you might be interested in. In terms of proper pitching
mechanics, this includes...
-
Roger
Clemens
-
Greg
Maddux
In terms of problematic
pitching mechanics, this includes...
-
Mark
Prior
-
Anthony
Reyes
-
Adam
Wainwright
-
Kerry
Wood
*** NOTICE ***
Frame By Frame Analyses
If you are looking for the links
to my frame by frame analyses that used to be on this page, you
should know that I have moved them to my
Professional Pitcher Analyses page so I only have to
maintain the links on one page.
*** NOTICE ***
Photographic Analyses
When I first started analyzing the mechanics of pitchers, I
did do by by stitching together large numbers of pictures of the
same pitcher. The strength of this approach is that I can use
high-resolution images. The weakness is that it can be hard to
get a sense of exactly what a pitcher does when. However, I'm
going to leave them up on my site since I think they have some
value. I know that putting them together helped me get a good
understanding of how pitchers actually throw the ball. Just keep
in mind that some of these are a little old and possibly out of
date. THE GREATS
Relatively injury-free pitchers with had long, successful
careers, I believe due to their superior mechanics.
THE ENIGMAS
Pitchers who I think had
superior mechanics but who also, for some reason, had serious injury problems.
THE CREAM OF THE CURRENT CROP
Active pitchers who I think have superior mechanics and who I
believe will have long careers as a result.
PITCHERS WITH PROBLEMATIC
MOTIONS & MECHANICS
PITCHERS WITH SERIOUS ELBOW
PROBLEMS
PITCHERS WITH SERIOUS SHOULDER
PROBLEMS
PITCHERS WITH SERIOUS SHOULDER
&
ELBOW PROBLEMS
PITCHERS WITH SERIOUS BACK
PROBLEMS
TRAINWRECKS
Pitchers who I believe
had short, injury-plagued pro careers due to serious mechanical
problems.
Feel free to contact me if you think that
there is someone whose pitching motion and mechanics I should
analyze.
I have also started to use the knowledge I have gained by doing
these analyses to perform
evaluations of young pitchers. I look for the root causes of
performance and/or injury problems as well as warning signs of
potential problems. |