The Pitching Mechanic
March 2009
Real-Time Illustrations and Analyses of
Proper and Improper Pitching Mechanics
The Pitching
Mechanic - June 2009
3/18/2009
Where Has Joba Chamberlain's Velocity Gone?
I just read a report that
Joba Chamberlain's velocity has been down this Spring.
Unexplained velocity problems are often an indicator of shoulder
problems, and this may be related to Joba Chamberlain's
borderline
Inverted L and resulting timing problem.
3/17/2009
GetGreat.com's Not So Great Pitching Advice
I stumbled across a new site called
GetGreat.com,
which is evidently a joint venture between (Cal) Ripken Baseball and
MLB.com. I haven't had a chance to review much of the material
on the site, but some of the pitching materials I have reviewed
are either dangerous or incorrect.
First, in
terms of the dangerous advice, there is this line that accompanies
the lesson entitled "Proper Throwing: Hand Above the Ball."
Your hand should remain above the ball until your arm comes
forward, at which point should actually move behind the
ball; this creates arm action and torque.
The problem with this advice is that at a minimum it
isn't necessary to throwing well or hard and in the worst case
trying to keep the hand above the ball during the arm swing
and in the high-cocked position can lead to elbow and shoulder problems.
There is nothing wrong, and much that is good,
with keeping the hand on the side of the ball and showing
the ball to Third Base as you come out of your hand break.
That's why
Juan Marichal, despite keeping his hand under the
ball during his arm swing, was still able to do OK.
Second, they seem to use the term "arm
action" without knowing what it really means. Every pitcher
has arm action; it is simply what the pitcher's arm does as
they throw the ball. The question is whether a pitcher's arm
action is good or not. I assume that they mean that keeping
the hand above the ball promotes good arm action,
but as I point out above this is debatable.
Third, in terms of the incorrect advice, there
is this line at the end of the lesson entitled "Proper Throwing: Hand Above the
Ball."
You'll see that each one of these pitchers' arms forms an
L, with the elbow slightly above the shoulder at the release
point.
This point is so important that they reiterate it
in the accompanying text.
If you’ve done everything properly, your arm should form an L at the release point, with your elbow slightly above your shoulder.
The problem is that the moment in time they illustrate
in the video clip isn't the release point, it's the high-cocked
or power position when the shoulders start to rotate.
I'm not sure if they chose the wrong moment in time in the clip or if they,
like many people, believe that a pitcher's
arm slot is determined by the angle of the elbow at the
release point (when in truth it's determined by the tilt of their
shoulders at the release point).
Finally, it
is very obvious from the clip of Brad Lidge at the high-cocked
or power position that accompanies the
"Proper Throwing: Hand Above the Ball" lesson that his elbow isn't
slightly
above the level of his shoulders. Instead, his elbow is slightly
below the level of his shoulders.
I know that I could again be accused of picking nits by pointing
all of this out. However, do it because I
guarantee you that well-meaning parents and coaches will read
this stuff and try to ensure that their pitchers
do this. By doing so they will increase their pitchers'
injury risk and confuse them about important concepts like arm
slot.
P.S. I'm in the middle of working on my
Pitching
Mechanics 101 DVD right now, and one of the things I discuss
in the DVD are some of the myths
of pitching mechanics. As a result, I pulled out my copy of Play
Baseball The Ripken Way to see what it said about pitching
mechanics and where the ideas on GetGreat.com may have come from. It turns out that Play
Baseball The Ripken Way puts forth the same basic
misconceptions as the GetGreat.com web site.
With respect to the
question of keeping the fingers on top of the ball and arm
action, Play
Baseball The Ripken Way has this to say on Page 76...
The key is to make sure that the hand and fingers
are on top of the ball...
This text is accompanied by a photo on Page 77 of a player
showing the ball to Second Base/Center Field with his fingers on
top of the ball.
The problem is that
showing the ball to Second Base/Center Field can lead to elbow
problems by inducing premature pronation. It can also lead to
shoulder problems by creating a timing problem and/or an
impingement injury due to
hyperabduction.
...This will allow the pitcher to
create arm action. Arm action is created when the hand goes
from above the ball to behind the ball when a pitcher is
throwing.
As I say above, every pitcher has arm action; a pitcher's arm action is simply
a description of what
their arm does after they break their hands and as they pass
through the high-cocked or power position and get to the
release point. When it comes to arm action, the real question is
whether it's good or not. If you show the ball to Second
Base/Center Field, then your arm action is much less likely to
be good (or at least
safe) than if you show the ball to Third Base.
Focusing on the throwing arm, it's at this point
that the hand goes from above the ball to behind the ball.
As the arm comes forward, the pitcher should keep the elbow
slightly above the shoulder in order to create an L with the
throwing arm. Each pitcher's L will vary depending on the
position of the arm slot.
The quote above makes it clear that the Ripken's, or at least
whoever wrote this part of the book, believe that a pitcher's
arm slot is driven by the angle of the elbow at the release
point when in truth arm slot is driven by the tilt of the
shoulders at the release point.
Jeff Suppan's Arm Slot
3/16/2009
Brandon McCarthy's Shoulder
is Acting Up Again
I was catching up on the latest news over at Yahoo Sports when I
came across a blurb that mentioned that Brandon McCarthy was
having shoulder stiffness and had to be scratched from a start. The blurb was accompanied by the
photo below, which makes clear the root cause of Brandon
McCarthy's problems.
Brandon McCarthy
Notice that in the photo above that Brandon McCarthy is
scap loading, but he is doing so with his Pitching Arm Side
(PAS) elbow above and behind his shoulders (as happens when a
pitcher makes the
Inverted W or
Inverted V). That is a recipe for
shoulder problems due to impingement and timing-related overload
issues.
It also looks like Brandon
McCarthy pulls back with his Glove Side
(GS) arm before his PAS forearm is vertical, which is only going
to make his timing problems worse.
Frequent readers of this blog will notice that this isn't the
first time that Brandon McCarthy's name and pitching mechanics
have come up. Back in August 2008, I addressed Brandon McCarthy's
pitching mechanics in a piece entitled
Do Altered Pitching Mechanics Lead to Injuries?
The answer then, as now, was that -- like
Mark Prior's supposedly perfect pitching mechanics -- the
root cause of Brandon McCarthy's problems isn't that his pitching
mechanics have changed. Rather the root cause of Brandon
McCarthy's problem is that his pitching mechanics were never
very good in the first place and they are starting to take their
toll on his shoulder.
P.S. In the background of this photo is a person who most
likely is the Texas Rangers' pitching coach. He is watching
Brandon McCarthy pitch, but unfortunately he is watching him
with his naked eyes, which simply aren't up to the task when it
comes to evaluating a pitcher's mechanics. The only way to see
the stuff that really matters, in both pitchers and hitters, is
with video (even just plain old 30 or 60 Frame Per Second (FPS)
video).
3/12/2009
Mark Prior, Tom House, A$$es, and Boat Paddles
A reader just pointed me to an interesting piece by Jeff Passan entitled
Pristine
Mechanics Caused Prior Pain that discusses the relationship
between Tom House, Mark Prior, Mark Prior's pitching mechanics,
and Mark Prior's injury problems. Here are some of the more
interesting quotes...
(Tom) House pitched in the major leagues for eight seasons
before retiring, getting his Ph.D. in psychology and styling
himself a pitching guru. When he watched the gangly Prior as
a sophomore in high school, House saw the perfect specimen
to build into the ultimate pitcher. For the next six years,
he put Prior on a specific diet, ran blood work regularly,
schooled him in mental acuity and, most important, imparted
all of the lessons he had learned from high-speed-video and
computer studies about proper mechanics to avoid injury.
Because he was a computerized athlete,” House said, “he
was supposed to be perfect.”
So in other words, Tom House was indeed heavily involved in
crafting Mark Prior's pitching mechanics.
House, now the pitching coach at USC and
no longer working with Prior, does not believe the
Inverted W hurts a pitcher’s arm. He said years of
science and research support his methods. Same with
doctors at the American Sports Medicine Institute,
including famed surgeon James Andrews.
And to those who make a fuss about the Inverted W and
point out that House’s prized student has been laid up
for years? Well, House said, “They don’t know their
asses from a boat paddle.”
The problem is that Tom House isn't really objective when it
comes to the
Inverted W. He likely taught it to Mark Prior, and it would
be very hard for him to admit that he likely contributed to the
destruction of Mark Prior's arm.
“For a four-year stretch, everything was good, and
then it suddenly happens?” Prior said. “Who knows? There
may be some validity to the people who say it’s
mechanics. I’m not changing. I don’t think there’s
anything I specifically do that has caused my injuries.
No one’s ever going to be able to tell me for certain
that it is, either.
“Look,
this is the way I throw. It’s another one of Tom’s
philosophies. He’s got 1,000. But one I do believe is
that the way you throw is the way you throw. And you
have to make it work with the other fundamentals.
Everyone wants to know why I hurt it. Fine. It could be
my mechanics. It could be my workload. That doesn’t
change the situation I’m in now.”
I would love to get some video of Mark Prior's mechanics
before and after Tom House worked with him in high school. Based on the arm
action you see in
Anthony Reyes and
Ian Kennedy, the odds are
that Tom House likely taught Mark Prior (and Reyes and Kennedy) to get his Pitching Arm
Side elbow up, likely to increase the whippiness of his arm.
“I think he’s got a good delivery,” Black
said. “Good mechanics. Good fundamentally. Sound
thrower.”...
“I’m not
saying they’re the be-all, end-all, but they’re
major-league pitching coaches,” Prior said. “If
something was really wrong, don’t you think they’d
change things?”
The only possible explanations for these quotes are that Bud Black either hasn't
spent enough time comparing pitchers to each other (rather than
to themselves) or he hasn't spent enough time looking at high
speed film of his pitchers and instead only looks at pitchers
with the naked eye (which is an unfortunately all too common
mistake).
Traditional pitching coaches still see
Prior’s delivery in all of its six-years-ago
splendor, and knowing how effective it was, they’re
loath to change it. Prior has worked with only the
Cubs’ Larry Rothschild and the Padres’ Darren
Balsley – along with Black, a former pitching coach
– and none has suggested he tinker with how he
throws.
While not messing with a pitcher absolutely makes sense if
he's just hit a minor bump in the road, you would think that
someone would try to improve Mark Prior's mechanics after he broke down as
many times as he has.
House believes the overuse by Baker
doomed Prior. Eight pitchers this decade have thrown
109 or more pitches in nine straight games, and half
of them needed reconstructive arm surgery. The only
other pitchers this decade to throw at least four
130-plus-pitch games in a season, let alone in two
months, are Livan Hernandez and Randy Johnson.
I have never been impressed by overuse-based arguments, and
metrics like Pitcher Abuse Points (PAP) and PAP3, precisely for
the reasons cited above. If abuse only explains half (or really
less) of the variance between two groups, that means that
something else explains the rest of the variance.
In my opinion that something else is pitching mechanics and I
believe that differences in pitching mechanics explain why some
pitchers are able to tolerate abuse while others are destroyed
by it.
If you compare Mark Prior and Randy Johnson, you will notice
some major differences between their pitching mechanics.
Mark Prior's Inverted W
Randy Johnson's Standard W
In particular, you will notice that while Mark Prior makes
the Inverted W and takes his elbows both above and behind his
shoulders, Randy Johnson makes the Standard W and his elbows
never get above the level of his shoulders.
I would absolutely love to spend some time with Mark Prior and try to
explain to him what's going on and why. I'm not sure I could fix
him due to the muscle memory issues -- it might be easier to
teach him to throw left-handed than it would be to remodel his
right-handed arm action -- but it would certainly be
worth a shot.
In order to get Mark
Prior as far as possible away from his current mechanics, I
would probably teach him to use a
Greg Maddux type, low elbow arm action rather than a more
neutral
Roger Clemens type arm action.
If you know Mark Prior, his agent, or someone who knows him,
tell him to call me on my cell at 314.494.1324.
3/11/2009
A Revised Baseball Pitching Cycle
Given the problems with the NPA's Sequence of Critical Events
model that I discuss below, I just put together an article that
describes a
Revised Baseball Pitching Cycle and that does a better job
of explaining what happens when during a throw.
3/11/2009
Problems with the NPA's Sequence of Critical Events
I was on a web site last night and came across a post by a
fan of Tom House and the National Pitching Association (NPA). He
linked to a page that contained a discussion of the NPA's
beliefs about what happens when during a throw. As I quickly
discovered,
the NPA's Sequence of Critical Events model is flawed.
3/9/2009
Dave Bush Makes Me Nervous
I'm mostly just throwing this out there, but Dave Bush of the
Brewers make me nervous. I have tons of photos in my files of
him making what looks like the
Inverted L, demonstrating a generally problematic arm
action, and exhibiting fairly linear lower body mechanics.
Dave Bush
I'm trying to find some video of Dave Bush to see what his timing
looks like. I want to see if his arm action actually creates a
timing problem or if, like
Ian Kennedy, he isn't (quite) as bad as he looks.
3/9/2009
Mike Marshall's Miffed (at) Me
The other day I was told that I should check out Dr. Mike
Marshal's web site. I came across this item in his
2009 Q&A files...
224. Hi, I'm 17, a Jr. in high school, and
I'm a pitcher. I just had surgery on my shoulder (torn
labrum) last April due to a change in bad mechanics
according to Chris O'Leary's "inverted W".
I'm looking for some advice/help to get back on track.
Before I had my surgery I was clocked at 75 mph when I was
only 14. So I proportioned it to what I would be throwing
once I turned 18. And I got 96 mph.
So this is the track I want to be back on. But, after my
surgery, I've seen a tremendous drop in arm strength and
velocity, which is to be expected. Is there anyway, that
you think that is best, I can throw like I did before.
Some questions I have are: Should I do long-toss to rebuild
arm-strength and go back to my old mechanics so it doesn't
hurt again when I pitch? Or can you give me some
suggestions that can help me out?
First, why
would anybody do anything that Chris O'Leary says? Did you
bother to read his credentials? He had none. The first
thing in life that you need to learn is who knows what they
are talking about and who does not. Chris O'Leary knows
nothing. In our buyer beware society, you have to educate
yourself enough to know to whom you should listen...
Second, that what Chris O'Leary recommends that baseball
pitchers do caused this young man to tear his Labrum should
be legally actionable. Mr. O'Leary has absolutely no
business telling baseball pitchers how to do anything. He
has no training.
But, what is
worse, he has no ethics. He has caused this seventeen year
old serious pain and suffering. Why is that not assault?
In my mind, Mr. O'Leary is no better than a mugger. He
should be ashamed, humiliated. At the very least, he should
send this young man a sincere apology and remove everything
that he has ever said from the internet.
Just to be clear, I didn't teach this man to make the
Inverted W. Instead, he apparently diagnosed himself using
my web site. He contacted me before he contacted Dr. Marshall
and I assume he ended up at Dr. Mike Marshall's web site as a
result of what I say about Dr. Marshall on my own web site.
It is because of these kinds of "friendly fire" incidents that
my enthusiasm for Dr. Marshall has waned over the years. It
isn't just some of his ideas that are problematic and often
counter-productive.
It's his entire
approach.
P.S. And in case you, like some, are wondering if I
informed Dr. Marshall that he had likely simply misunderstood what the
young man was saying, I sent Dr. Marshall
two e-mails explaining that I thought he
misunderstood what the person in question was saying. That
included this one...
I know that the person in question's original e-mail to
you wasn't totally clear, so just to be clear I didn't teach
this young man to make the Inverted W. I haven't even seen
him or worked with him. He just contacted me after using my
web site to diagnose that the root cause of his problem was
most likely his making the Inverted W.
He contacted you wanting to know how he should remodel his
arm action once his shoulder is fixed.
Most everyone knows that I, like you, absolutely HATE the
Inverted W, as
this essay suggests.
...and this one...
Here is the first e-mail I received from ____ back in July...
"Hi, my name is
____. I am 16 years old, about 6 ft. tall, and
weigh about 160lbs. I am also a baseball pitcher. I just
recently had surgery on my shoulder and I'm trying to work my
way back onto the mound again. But I wanted to make sure that I
use the proper mechanics this time. I watched and studied the
mechanics of A.J. Burnett, and later tried to imitate him
because I thought it could help increase my velocity. (this
was before i had any knowledge of his past injuries and/ or your
website) Then, after I was informed about tearing a ligament in
my shoulder, I googled my injury and came across your website."
As you can see, ____, like many players, decided to copy the
mechanics of a player that he liked. Unfortunately, he chose AJ
Burnett and ended up destroying his shoulder.
He then
contacted me when he found out through my web site that copying
AJ Burnett was a VERY bad idea and likely the root cause of his
shoulder problems.
Marshall didn't care and
replied to me with...
Whether this young man followed your advice or not is not
the point. The point is that you do not have the credentials
to write anything about baseball pitching.
...and...
My readers have sent me several things that you have
written, including comments about what I teach. You have no
idea that you have no idea what you are talking about. If we
are ever going to eliminate pitching injuries, then guys
like you have to stop polluting the message. But, you are
not the only one. In addition to House, Nyman, Mills and the
other blood-sucking profiteers, you can add Drs. Fleisig
and Andrews to the obstructions to eliminating pitching
injuries. The right answer would have been to send this
young man to my website.
I could say a lot more, but let me simply say that this isn't
a productive approach that Dr. Marshall has adopted.
3/4/2009
Mark
Prior's "Perfect" Pitching Mechanics
I just completed a fairly long and detailed essay in which I
attempt to lay out the history and context of the meme/myth of
Mark Prior's perfect pitching mechanics.
3/4/2009
With Some Misses (Hopefully) Come More Hits
I guarantee you that some people will use my recent revisions/enhancements
of my opinions of Justin Verlander (see below) and
Jeff Francis to make the case that I don't know what I'm
talking about.
I would respond by saying that I am trying to be
as scientific as possible about my process of analyzing
pitchers. One aspect of the scientific process is to formulate a
theory, make predictions based on that theory, and then see how
those predictions work out. When there are differences between
what you predict will happen and what actually happens, you
don't just give up. Instead, you re-examine your theory, revise
it, and make a new set of predictions and see if they are more
right then your first set of predictions. You then continue that
very iterative process, hopefully getting closer to an
understanding of the truth with each iteration.
In other words, my misses with
Freddy Garcia, Justin Verlander, and Jeff Francis haven't
shaken my confidence. Instead, they have just exposed the holes
in my knowledge and told me what I need to pay more attention
to.
I hope the same is true for you.
3/3/2009
Justin Verlander Revisited
Anyone who is familiar with my work knows that I am a fan of
the arm action of Justin Verlander. He
scap loads correctly and his timing is good as a result.
However, Justin Verlander has seen his velocity decline over the
past few years, which is sometimes the harbinger of a shoulder
(usually Labrum) problem. As a result, I recently took another
look at Justin Verlander's pitching mechanics and noticed
something that I think may be relevant.
Justin Verlander
The thing to notice is Justin Verlander's extremely linear
lower body action and how early he starts to open his hips.
Notice how his Glove Side (GS) leg goes pretty much up, down,
and then directly toward the target.
Justin Verlander
Justin Verlander
The two stills above also show that Justin Verlander's hips
open quite early. Notice how his GS toe is already pointing
at the target well before his Pitching Arm Side (PAS) forearm is
vertical and in the high-cocked position.
Greg Maddux
If you look at videos of durable pitchers like Greg Maddux,
you will see that their lower bodies are more rotational. Rather
than going up, down, and directly at the target, their GS feet
tend to go up, down, and then out and around into foot plant.
Rotational pitchers like Greg Maddux also point their GS toes at
the target, and open up their hips, significantly later than do
linear pitchers like Justin Verlander.
So why is this important?
This is
important because you could argue that a rotational lower body
is more efficient that a linear lower body because it better
enables the pitcher to tap into the muscles of the core.
Pitchers who use more linear lower body mechanics may be less
efficient and may have to throw more arm-y as a result, which
may increase the load on the shoulder.
Brad Penny
While I don't have any video to back my hunch up, the photo
above suggests that Brad Penny's shoulder problems could be
explained in part by an less efficient, overly linear stride and
by opening up his hips too
soon.
Rich Harden
You could also make a similar argument about Rich Harden,
which is another injury-plagued guy without a glaring mechanical
flaw. It could be that his mechanics are just inefficient enough
to make him more arm-y than average and thus more prone to
injury.
Mark Prior
Mark Prior
Finally, it may also not be a coincidence that you see very linear
lower body mechanics in Mark Prior.
The Pitching
Mechanic - February 2009
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