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Stephen Strasburg's pitching mechanics are the root cause of his injury problems, first with his elbow, then his shoulder, and now his "wrist".[1]

Stephen Strasburg's Pitching Mechanics

Stephen Strasburg's
Timing Problem
2010

See how, in 2010, Stephen Strasburg's pitching arm was FLAT and not UP...

Stephen Strasburg's Pitching Mechanics

Stephen Strasburg's
Timing Problem
2010

...when his shoulders started to turn?

Stephen Strasburg Pitching Mechanics

Stephen Strasburg's
Inverted W

And his pitching arm started to come under load?

That's bad.

It's a serious, and increasingly common, Timing flaw that I call Flat Arm Syndrome.

Stephen Strasburg Pitching Mechanics

Stephen Strasburg's
Flat Arm Syndrome

And Strasburg's fate has gone pretty much exactly as I predicted it would in August 2008...

...because his mechanics in some of the frames I have seen aren't quite as bad as Mark Prior's, and at times he sometimes makes the Horizontal W, rather than the Inverted W, there is a chance that Stephen Strasburg could have a career more like a John Smoltz. In that case, he would be effective for periods of time but would also struggle with elbow and shoulder problems.

While Stephen Strasburg's pitching mechanics have improved over the years, he's far from fixed.

This is my core, and latest, piece on Stephen Strasburg's pitching mechanics. My older pieces include...

Stephen Strasburg's
Pitching Mechanics

Stephen Strasburg's pitching mechanics are best known for his Inverted W, the infamous arm action with the pretentious name. However, and as I first explained in 2007 with respect to Mark Prior,  the Inverted W isn't the core problem.

Timing is.

As I said, about Stephen Strasburg, in a 2010 interview...

What the not so durable guys do is they take their elbows back but they also take them up. Now, that's actually painful to do, but it's not that bad in and of itself. The problem is that when you take the elbows back and up, you can end up with a Timing problem.

By Timing, I'm referring to the position of the pitching arm...

Stephen Strasburg Pitching Mechanics

Stephen Strasburg's
Inverted W

...when the shoulders start to rotate.

Stephen Strasburg's Pitching Mechanics

Stephen Strasburg's
Timing Problem

Strasburg Frame by Frame

Stephen Strasburg Pitching Mechanics

Stephen Strasburg - Frame 17

Stephen Strasburg Pitching Mechanics

Stephen Strasburg - Frame 18

Stephen Strasburg Pitching Mechanics

Stephen Strasburg - Frame 19

Stephen Strasburg Pitching Mechanics

Stephen Strasburg - Frame 20

Stephen Strasburg Pitching Mechanics

Stephen Strasburg - Frame 21

Stephen Strasburg Pitching Mechanics

Stephen Strasburg - Frame 22

Stephen Strasburg Pitching Mechanics

Stephen Strasburg - Frame 23

Stephen Strasburg Pitching Mechanics

Stephen Strasburg - Frame 24

Stephen Strasburg Pitching Mechanics

Stephen Strasburg - Frame 25

Notes

1. I say "wrist" because I have some concern that problem may actually be with Strasburg's shoulder; a serious problem called Thoracic Outlet Syndrome or something similar.

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