Strasburg Meets Tommy John
If you haven’t heard yet, Stephen Strasburg needs Tommy John surgery, and is probably out until 2012. There’s really one general reaction to this that everyone seems to be having – this sucks.
Whether you root for the Nationals or not doesn’t really matter. This makes baseball less interesting as a whole, as Strasburg was legitimately one of the most entertaining guys in the sport. Rather than getting to watch him throw 100 MPH fastballs, we now have to spend the next year and a half talking about whether he’ll ever be the same pitcher again post-surgery. While the success rate of TJ surgery is very high, it’s certainly possible that his velocity never comes all the way back, and we never get to see what a pitcher who threw that hard could have turned into.
This is a loss for the game. Obviously, it’s a pretty significant blow to the Nationals as well, who now have to re-think their path to contention and potentially push back their time-frame a year or two. If they were thinking of re-signing Adam Dunn before, they almost certainly shouldn’t now. Losing Strasburg for 2011 and getting a questionable version of him for 2012 pushes the Nats back into long-term building mode, as they just lost a player they simply can’t replace. This injury has a significant effect on the decisions Washington has to make this winter.
Someday, hopefully, science will catch up the with the sport, and we’ll figure out how to keep some of these great young arms healthy. Until then, we’ll just have to cross our fingers every time another phenomenal pitching prospect hits the show. We’re getting used to losing them early. Maybe pitching is just such an unnatural movement that it’s unavoidable, but I’m holding out hope that some smart guy will figure out how to keep these arms from blowing out. If MLB wants to find an area to invest in their long term future, this is where they should be throwing money.
Hurry back, Strasburg. The game won’t be as fun without you.
41
honestly depressing
I think I speak for baseball fans everywhere, ouch.
*Hurry back… just not before you’re arm’s fully healed!
Indeed, though, this is very depressing. The only silver lining from his end is that this didn’t happen a year and a half ago before he got his shot at a payday. Still, I’m sure that’s zero consolation for him right now. Nothing’s sadder than losing the ability to do something you love overnight, and the younger you are, the more it hurts. Hopefully the surgeon’s knife can undo the damage, and all he loses is eight months of baseball, nothing more.
I’m definitely pulling for him. Maybe this will shut the blowhards like Dibble and Al Hrabosky up who’ve been saying “he just needs to learn to pitch with a little pain. Pitchers don’t know how to pitch with pain anymore.” I hope he comes back better than he was before.
Dibble and Hrabosky will be okay, as soon as they learn to bloviate with a little pain.
I actually abandoned the braodcast in the 11th last night, because the MASN crew is so unbearable.
Saw this exchange at a forum:
“Do you think Strasburg shortarms the ball?
Chris Lincecum certainly does. He went on the record on his KNBR show saying that he felt Stephen would have arm trouble for that very reason.”
I do remember hearing about this KNBR interview last year. While Chris’s son is currently having issues attributed (officially, now) to poor conditioning, his mechanics are still regarded by many as second to none. I keep thinking that Tim’s dad needs to be a pitching coach somewhere.
I’m not so sure. Predicting that some pitchers are going to succumb to arm injuries isn’t some prescient act. The attrition rates are just very high, PLUS Strasburg had an insane amount of media coverage surrounding him. People would notice if he ran into any arm trouble, whereas you would only see a press release if something happened to Evan Meek or someone like that.
I don’t listen to what Chris Lincecum has to say. One of my buds is Tim’s cousin, and says his uncle (Chris) has always been a bit of a jerk, like he almost wants his son to fail.
Who, exactly, thinks Lincecum’s mechanics are “second to none”?
The consensus I’ve seen is that they’re awful but that we have no idea whether it actually affects anything.
And one self-aggrandizing article in Sports Illustrated does not a pitching guru make.
Kyle Boddy thinks they are “basically perfect”
http://www.facebook.com/notes/driveline-mechanics/pitcher-analysis-tim-lincecum/61751455376
Chris O’Leary thinks they are pretty good, but parts of them make him nervous
http://www.chrisoleary.com/projects/baseball/pitching/professionalpitcheranalyses/TimLincecum.html
The only people who think Lincecum’s mechanics are awful are the ESPN talking heads who see the jerky arm motion and think injury. Those guys have no idea what they are talking about.
Lots of people are concerned about Lincecum’s stride length that aren’t “ESPN talking heads”.
The concerns aren’t about his upper body, for his most part.
thats a very convincing argument
Really? The consensus is that they’re awful? That stretches the limits even of hyperbole. I can’t recall reading anything about Lincecum’s mechanics that wasn’t, at worst, agnostic.
Examples please?
At least it came now, where recovery of control can reasonably be expected for the beginning of the 2012 season, rather than at the onset of Spring Training next season.
What a whirlwind couple years for the kid, hopefully he has the necessary support MENTALLY more than anything else at this point. He is likely totally devestated.
THIS.
Horrible news. Pitching overhand is an unnatural motion, unfortunately that means injuries are going to happen.
Makes me sad. Sad for the Nationals’ franchise, the Nationals’ fans, every other baseball fan, and most of all for the man himself.
I can hardly believe it.
His 14 K debut was probably the most exciting game I’ve ever been to. He electrified the entire stadium singlehandedly. It was pretty special.
Amen on that. Regardless of what happens going forward, the joy of that day was so meaningful to me and I shared it with my father. It was a day when you saw how baseball and can bring a city together and did so much for our game.
Yeah I was there too, and it was something to behold. It was so good I went and saw him three more times this year. As a fan of baseball (not the Nats), I couldn’t NOT go. Here’s hoping I’ll get to see him again soon.
I attended every home start. I watched all of the road starts, except for the Florida one that conflicted with my sister’s wedding. Stayed up late to see multiple minor league starts. That said, I’m a Nats fan first. I’m not going to come out with any rationalizations for how this could be good or anything like that, but I will continue to support the team and try to find some solace in the other players who continue to fight to win as well. The Batista/Miss Iowa/Strasburg shoulder start and last night’s 11-10 Roger Bernadina home run game are two reminders that the team is capable of fighting through some tough times for me.
Remember the Inverted-W mechanics of Strasburg’s delivery? Did any of the coddling the Nationals did for Strasburg help at all? A sad day as a fan of great pitching in general, but throwing 100-MPH repeatedly is unnatural for the human body.
Who do you root for? Anybody who makes this kind of comment is somebody I hope ends up on Strasburg’s beanball list should he comeback with converted-F-U mechanics.
Apologies for the F-U comments. I’m a bit fatigued by some of that kind of stuff today and I don’t want anyone to get beaned. It’s a pretty emotional day for me as a fan of the Nats and someone who was impressed by Strasburg’s character as much as his performance.
Doesn’t the inverted-W put the shoulder at risk and not the elbow?
no comment.
Just goes to show that you can only coddle a guy so much. What ashame. He was awesome to watch pitch and he was a huge boon for baseball.
I mean, you can lower the odds of something happening to a guy but if the Nats are to be believed, it was a 1 pitch injury not a cumulative issue. I dont think there was anything more they could do to prevent this from happening.
Tough blow to a franchise that was slowly but surely crawling out of the basement. He honestly wont be 100% until 2013. Its usually the 2nd full year back from TJ surgery that’s the good one.
I’m a Nats fan and I’m pretty tired of the self-righteous inverted U or it was doomed to happen guys who are patting themselves on the back right now. I hope those same people are on record as saying Josh Johnson and anybody else who’s had TJ issues were likely to get the injury and they’ve got a responsible double blind research study to show where this stuff originates from. I’m just an idiot and a fan so I truly believe that it’s about the devleopmental stuff building the ligament during a kid’s growth years and giving the body time to recover during the kids’ growth years. Kids are often pitched, and pitched at young ages with seemingly higher leverage innings and I wonder if that’s the difference between then and now. Likewise, I remember Bill James talking about how changes to the windup and stretch positions to reduce release time to the plate maybe stressing arms more and legs less.
I know absolutely nothing about this stuff and am just speculating. Regardless, he’s an outlier on so many measures and how many people in the post TJ era have had his stuff and suffered elbow issues first?
The main reason I’m here now is a simple question that pales in significance to the larger issues for the Nats, their fans, and the man himself.
Does he accumulate service time while he is on the 60-day DL? There’s been conflicting stuff on the internet about it.
For a lot of folks it’s just a random guess, and lots of pitchers get hurt. Projectprospect did actually rate him slightly lower than most (4 on their pre-season top 100) because they did think he was more of an injury risk. All pitchers are of course at risk of injuries. Guys like Ryan, Seaver, etc., whether due to delivery, strong lower bodies, whatever, could go a long time without major injuries. But in any event Projectprospect did express specifric reservations. And they had Leake at 20, which ws higher than most, because they liked his floor. i think they deserve some credit, although they don’t seem like the type to say “I told you so” although they took major flak for that ranking and reasoning.
Sorry dude. i know you’re a Nats fan. have seen you over at minorleagueball, and over at federalbaseball when i look for info on nats players. Sucks for all fans of baseball, but especially Nats fans. The Dodgers got over Karl Spooner, and thankfully medicine has advanced since then.
Then you don’t know PP at all then. I bet they popped a bottle of champagne like Mercury Morris does every year. They just said that crap to be contrarian and get more people to read their stupid site. If they truly believed that, then they shouldn’t have put Strasburg in their top 100. So instead, they talked out of both sides of their mouths. I’m glad I haven’t wasted any of my time reading that crap and I’m sure they’ll be insufferable for the next 12 months while Steven rehabs.
Hmm, Adam doesn’t seem like that at all to me. And believing he is an injury risk and downgrading him from 1 to 4 is a conservative move. If they said he is definitely going to get injured and kept him off the top 100 altogether, that would be taking a projection and granting it certitude (and be far more in line with the type of attitude you are attributing to them than what they actually did). They also couldn’t have known when he’d be injured (much less injured at all) and so he’d have value as a prospect even with the injury risk.
I’m not here to shill for them. i don’t know them other than what I read there and i go to John Sickel’s site and Baseball America far more often. I just recalled that controversy.
I don’t give them some much credit for thinking he was an injury risk (pretty random) but I spend time over there and there’s no way they’re popping the cork on champagne. Adam runs the site because he loves baseball. What a ridiculous, and pointless, assertion…
“Does he accumulate service time while he is on the 60-day DL? There’s been conflicting stuff on the internet about it.”
Yes. Any player on the Major League DL accumulates service time.
Now, the Nats could option him down and THEN put him on the AAA 60-day DL, but I’m sure Scott Boras would file a grievance since that’s clearly a deliberate move to delay his free agency by a year
Stick with it! It is possible to come back! Good Luck Strasburg!
That’s exactly what I was thinking. So many similarities to Liriano’s electrifying first year (although I think Liriano was more widely pegged as having an injury-producing delivery). For Twins fans after the injury it was: year 1: wait; year 2: wait, and then get him back at about 75% of what he was; year 3, watch him pitch sort of badly; year 4: Ahhhh! That’s what we were missing (or pretty darn close). So yeah, it could be sort of extended and painful, but it will be worth the wait if he can make it back eventually, and hopefully sooner rather than later.
Here’s what I don’t get. How can you sustain an injury like this, within 5 minutes feel no effects whatsoever, do some soft throwing a couple days later, and suddenly you’re out for a year and a half?
Maybe during the offseason he can learn to throw left-handed.
I’m just wondering where Ryan Zimmerman will be on August 1, 2013. Because the way things go for this team, they won’t be contending.
On the plus side – guys lately have come back from TJ surgery and thrown just as hard as they did before (some guys even feel better). I hope that’s the case with Strasburg.
On the minus side – Are guys who throw that hard (100+ MPH) just cursed? It seems like at a certain point throwing at that speed must put too much stress on a person’s arm.
Nolan Ryan threw hard, and through a wicked curve. But he didn’t get hurt.
Word was that Ryan had good mechanics. Of course, I’ve heard the same about John Smoltz as well.
From what I saw I thought he did but I’m no mechanics guru. I was just responding to the notion that throwing 100 mph automatically made you an injury risk.
Ryan was a freak of nature who pitched into his late 40s at a high level. Like Jamie Moyer or Satchel Paige, its hard to hold him up as a “Well Player X didn’t get hurt and he did it”. Much like a smoker can live till 100 in good health, some guys can pitch forever with no issues.
Justin Verlander just passed 1000 career innings at 27. His fastball is pretty comparable. He’s never missed a start. Ubaldo’s thrown some innings with no problems. His fastball’s pretty comparable.
Verlander also had a season where his average fastball velocity dropped by nearly 2 whole mph for what seemed to be no real reason. There was a lot of concern he was injured then, but he appears to have avoided whatever ailed him.
You know who doesn’t need TJ surgery? Dustin Ackley. But, seriously it is a huge loss for the game. The success rate of the surgery should be very encouraging to Nats fans. It would be far worse if he had a torn labrum. I’m curious though as to the affect this will have on Strasburg’s service time. If, as I’m guessing, it stops his clock it may actually work to the Nat’s long term advantage. That Nats will likely be more competitive in 2012 than in 2011. Harper might be at the show by then.
I was surprised to read though that Dustin Ackley DID have Tommy John surgery while playing 1B/OF in college. Unfortunately nobody’s safe, it would seem.
Quite the depressing day.
On the science note, as researcher in genetics I’d be happy to do a study on possible genetic causes for ultimately needing TJS. At current prices for the required experiments and some salary for myself and maybe just a couple others, I could probably do this study for 500K-1M range quite easily. Given how much teams invest in just amateur pitchers alone, this should be no problem. Even if the study is a complete bust, its of relatively trivial cost compared to pitching injuries.
I’ve been saying this would happen all along. You could see it in the way his toes did an inverted G. It was relatively easy to predict. I am a mechanics GOD.
We should keep a tally of how many people think this guy is serious.
So what does this do to the contract negotiations of the next hard throwing can’t-miss star to get drafted number one? Whether or not he’s a Boras client?
Granted, it seems like most 100 MPHers go under the knife at some point..but would somebody a bit more mechanically savvy care to take a stab at explaining Justin Verlander’s (relative) longevity?
The explanation is that the clock is ticking on him.
And Bobby Parnell? Jordan Walden? Kyle Farnsowrth? That clock ticked a long time on Nolan Ryan, no?
It’s the breaking balls, not just the velocity. How does this simple fact escape fans generation after generation?
He threw an abnormally high % of breaking balls for a guy at this stage of his development, in order to outperform over a tiny sample. If other pitchers were willing to sacrifice their longevity, you would see a lot more 9+ K/9 rates for 60 inning stints. (do you not notice that relief pitchers cannot translate their rate stats as starters?) The past year was a manufactured marketing event that MLB has been using for decades. In exchange, Strasburg got financial security for the rest of his life. Good deal for Strasburg, bad deal for the sport.
Ryan threw breaking balls. Verlander a slider. It’s not just that. And it wasn’t just a mlb manufactured event. People were genuinely excited. It’s a bit much to blame a major league baseball hype job for his getting hurt. It is s shame for baseball and its fans, although I never think any one player’s injury is such a complete blow to the game. I feel badly for him, but no worse than I feel for Joel Zumaya, or anyone who gets injured. Sure, when he gets hurt instead of a mediocre pitcher, we’re missing something more special. At least he’s already showed he’s special, and for all of them it’s their livelihood.
Verlander’s second offering is a curveball, widely considered a better pitch than his 100 mph fastball and definitely his K pitch. Ryan was the same way. Its not the breaking ball or the fastball, Will Carrol broke down the myth of the breaking ball destroying arms pretty well in his book. Based on what I’ve read the kay to not getting hurt is to ensure proper movement of energy form your feet to the ball, seeing that as much of it as possible is imparted to the ball. Whatever doesn’t make it to the ball has to be caught by the body somewhere, and that does damage. That’s why shortarmers, accross the body throwers (who tend to catch their arms after release), and “herky jerky” delivery guys tend to get hurt.
It’s not just mechanics… it also seems like after a certain age (25 or so?) pitchers seem to be pretty much durable, and not quite as subject to the injuries that the 22 and 23 year old pitchers seem to get so often.
That might just be survivor bias. If the injury is going to occur, it would have already happened by the time the pitcher turned 25.
His arm isn’t generating the velocity as much as a guy like Zumaya. It seems to come more from his core.
“Maybe pitching is just such an unnatural movement that it’s unavoidable, but I’m holding out hope that some smart guy will figure out how to keep these arms from blowing out.”
I don’t think you can root against this, but if you could, say, reduce pitcher-injury attrition by half–say, by heading off most TJ sugeries–wouldn’t it be massively disruptive on the game of baseball? Offense wouldn’t stand a chance? Or maybe people said the same thing when TJ surgery came around.
There are some fairly easy ways to increase offense which baseball could employ if need arose, starting with changing the composition of the ball itself.
Justin Timberlake made a song about this post: Cry Me A River. This is what happens when hype meets reality. You get a major letdown.
“There’s really one general reaction to this that everyone seems to be having – this sucks.”
Actually, my reaction was, “I knew it.” Or, “I told you so.”
This is the very real risk you completely ignored in your trade value list. There’s a reason why more experienced baseball fans don’t buy into the “prodigy pitcher” rhetoric.
Are you still waiting for Felix Hernandez to break down?
Felix is a great pitcher, not a “generational talent”. Additionally, he threw over 90% fastballs early in his career, which lead to fans calling him overrated. Most of you have no clue what’s going on in this game.
Congratulations, dick.
The last two posters really need to die in a fire.
Poor baby. Don’t cry, a lot of kids believed in the Easter Bunny.
I don’t know what that means and I don’t really know what your original post means, I’m just wishing for you to get AIDS.
Your last response actually proves my point. A puppy is a good substitute for a Strasburg blow up doll.
As much as this sucks for strasburg, the nats and baseball fans on the whole, does this automatically rethink high draft pick bonuses?
No Strasburg has already made the Nationals 3 million this season. If he comes back being the pitcher he was it would still be a huge bargain for the Nationals.
I really think it should. When you give a guy these absurdly high draft-pick bonuses so early in their careers, it does a couple of bad things.
1) It hurts a teams financial flexibility by essentially requiring them to make an investment worth millions with an unknown return. Especially the teams that are getting the high draft picks anyways, and are the least financially able to handle it. (Though with the recently released financial documents, I’m not so sure they can’t handle it)
2) It puts a very high amount of pressure on a very young kid. Strasburg held up to the media scrutiny very admirably, and the Nats tried as hard as they could to ignore the media in how they treated him. But he was a huge investment, was declared the future of the franchise, and increased the Nationals from an after-thought to 4/5ths of an afterthought.
The Strasburg phenomenon is exactly the reason that the signing bonuses need to be reduced. Maybe he still would have been hurt, or maybe without the pressure to live up to expectations, he backs off his fastball a few more times. Maybe the Nats bring him up next year, since they don’t have to justify his signing bonus so quickly.
The truth is we don’t know that it could have been avoided (its not like they weren’t being careful), but it has demonstrated that all the talent and drive in the world won’t mitigate the risk of young talent, and teams shouldn’t be required to unload that kind of money just to get the high draft picks to sign. I sincerely hope the new CBA actually does have a stricter slotting system, because I think its one of the biggest things that needs to be addressed in the 2011 labor talks.
Once again no. Minor league baseball is an unglamorous occupation where players aren’t paid anywhere near their major league counterparts. The signing bonuses are one of the incentives to have a kid choose that route especially a kid with other options. Guys like Carl Crawford, Grady Sizemore, Domonic Brown, Austin Jackson, Casey Kelly and Zac Lee would be playing other sports right now if it weren’t for the major signing bonuses they received. Should we lose out on guys like that just to save the owners a few bucks?
I’m sorry, I just can’t get too worked up about either the financial risk the Nats took (they knew what the dangers and had other options) or the bitter stress pill that young prospects must swallow along with all those sweet, sweet dollars.
No.
In 2010, Strasburg put up a 2.6 WAR, which, in monetary estimates, is worth about 10.6MM. Now, those are some otherworldly and unsustainable stats, but that’s what he did in 2010.
And, this isn’t factoring in all the additional marketing and marketability from the Strasburg hype.
Strasburg is a free agent after the 2016 season. No arbitration until the 2013 season. For the most part, TJS isn’t career ending.
He’s already earned most of the contract and bonus they gave him.
So if MLB go about doing a series of experiments/research studies in the $500K-1m range like Wally suggested earlier (not just with genetics but the whole spectrum of kinetics, mechanics, etc.), made me think of a number of questions:
-How would the research be funded, who would fund it, and who would carry it out? Are private, for-profit firms at the cutting edge or this, or university medical schools, or something else?
-Would the individual team that funded the a particular study have proprietary ownership over the fruits of its research? If so, would the resultant lack of collaboration and information sharing hinder the development of scientific understanding of injury prevention?
-How important is widely sharing information among researchers here crucial to a breakthrough (is it more or less important than a typical scientific endeavor?)
-Would it be a better overall for baseball and for young pitchers for MLB itself to fund a big, cooperative research program many teams participate and share the results or to have each team competitively funding its own studies and controlling the rights to its discoveries? With pitchers moving around so much, would it be hard, ethical, or even possible for a team to keep its magic breakthrough secret from everyone else?
“-How would the research be funded, who would fund it, and who would carry it out? Are private, for-profit firms at the cutting edge or this, or university medical schools, or something else?”
On who carries it out it wouldn’t really matter. A research group at a public school could apply for the MLB grant, lets call it. The University takes a cut, the PI hires people and buys equipment/supplies to carry out the research with what’s left.
Now who funds it could vary. MLB could set it up, or this may even qualify for existing NIH grants. It could also go completely private where a singular MLB team hires a private research group to carry out the required research and all results say private. For all we know the NYY or Red Sox may even be doing this.
Which hits on this point:
“Would the individual team that funded the a particular study have proprietary ownership over the fruits of its research?”
It would, if it desired to. If MLB as a whole were to fund it, I’d guess they’d make it public. And if it where the NIH funding it, it would have to become public.
“How important is widely sharing information among researchers here crucial to a breakthrough (is it more or less important than a typical scientific endeavor?)”
Since this is to allow for extreme upper end athletic performance, I don’t think its that crucial, but knowledge advances more quickly regardless of what we’re talking about the more freely it is available.
“With pitchers moving around so much, would it be hard, ethical, or even possible for a team to keep its magic breakthrough secret from everyone else?”
The pitcher’s themselves isn’t really the problem, this problem would be encountered long before any pitchers where tested. The problem would be in the actually researchers or front office staff moving before the bulk of the research even start. This can prevented with limited duration hush contracts, but then you run into the problem of unnamed sources, etc. Where information is leaked. Eventually the club funding this research isn’t going to be able to plug all holes. Then once they actually started using the fruits of their research the cat would come out of the bag real fast, because they’d of course need the player’s permission for testing them for some set of genetic markers or enzymatic levels or what not. Now that permission might be something very nondescript in an effort to hide what exactly they were looking for, but someone would ask the right questions sooner than later.
Sorry to break this to you, but ASMI has beaten you to the punch.
Oh, I’m not actually worried about doing this myself.
Do they have anything substantial to report along these lines? I don’t see it on their website.
A few things as a general nats hater…
1) as to dave cameron’s point, i remember reading alot of stuff by mike marshall (and i am seriously considering paying $100 to try a related device) saying he perfected a delivery that avoids injuries permanently. As someone that has lost arm velocity that matters substantially for other sports, i am interested in anything anyone has to offer. Mike is dismissed as a quack by the baseball community, but he is a Dr, a Cy Young winner, and had probably the single most awesome season by a reliever EVER.
2) The history of rookie of year pitchers is one littered with failure. Looking at the Sporting News Rookie of the year list (which named a pitcher for each league for each year), i asked my older friend next to me, who is in the mid 40s and a huge fan, if remembered the names of about 40 people i listed from 1970-1989. He couldnt name something like 33 of them. part of that is some of those guys regressed to mediocrity, but even the older pitchers had their arms fall off too. Jim Bouton is a famous case, but there are lots of others less famous names too.
3) If you had to redo the trade value series, where would you put Strasburg? Out of the top 50 right?
4) Rob Dibble still is awful
You’re certainly inclined to like or hate any team you want. Are you an Expos fans? It’s hard for me to see how the Nats have done anything to warrant but so much “hate” in their 5 years of pretty much solid FAIL to this point. I love DC, and I’ve grown to love the team so I’ll continue to stand by my guys and hope Strasburg bounces back ready to have a great career.
Lastly, if it’s any consolation, Rob Dibble is certainly under great fire from Nats brass and is taking at least two or three “personal days” off.
This is a Rizzo quote from a Washington Post blog:
“I have no problem with Rob Dibble. He’s a baseball guy, but honestly I was upset by the comments. He made uninformed comments. The media has the right to dive in and say anything they want about performance on the field and believe me I’ve got no problem with criticism about the way I handle business. …
“When you go into a guy’s commitment [on the field], that’s a slippery slope.”
Mostly my hatred of the nationals comes from the fact that I probably spent something like close to a month a year out of my life for the past 5 years until this year in DC between a variety of things.
Somehow I dislike Nats fans more than Braves fans.
Anyway, at the least Mike Marshall had something working in 1974:
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=1008144&position=P
(seriously, those numbers are filthy)
I am a little more skeptical after doing some of my own research here:
http://www.drmikemarshall.com/
but this at least might be the perfect area for what Dave is talking about… if you had 10 guys like this it wouldnt hurt to take a shot in the dark with 10 of them and see what happens.
I can think of a few others out there as well.
Mike Marshall has yet to have a protegee emerge throwing an MLB-quality pitch. He may be the world’s foremost expert on producing durable pitchers of 80 MPH fastballs, but who cares?
Where did Outman get his crazy motion before he changed it?
He may not be the be-all end all of pitching, but I wouldn’t mind hearing what he has to say about training and pitching and trying to adapt and implement his ideas.
Josh Outman? The unconventional mechanics were taught by his dad.
“Felix is a great pitcher, not a “generational talent”. Additionally, he threw over 90% fastballs early in his career, which lead to fans calling him overrated. Most of you have no clue what’s going on in this game.”
Yeah, kinda like people who say things like “he threw over 90% fastballs early in his career” when it’s not even close to being the truth. If only there was a place where this info was readily available…
Pitch FX is not that accurate. The main point is he relied mostly on the fastball early on, and transitioned to throwing more breaking balls, regardless of what pitch FX says. Anyone who actually watched his games knows this.
You’re not a birght guy, so although this is simple to most, I am sensitive to the fact that this is beyond your capacity. When you realize that Santa Claus is not real, perhaps we can pick up ths chat again.
Pitch f/x certain has some problems telling splitters from changeups and cutters from sliders, but it doesn’t have much problem telling fastballs from offspeed pitches. It’s probably accurate within 3% or so on the fastballs, even in past years when the algorithms weren’t that good.
I don’t think people who say stuff like “90% fastballs” have any idea what 90% fastballs actually looks like. People say that all the time about Scott Kazmir, Edwin Jackson, Justin Verlander, Clayton Kershaw, Max Scherzer, basically anyone with a good fastball.
Empirical measures aren’t that accurate, but your unsupported opinion is.
Keep trying though, your petty insults are bound to win people over eventually.
Not David, stop drinking cum out of men’s penises.
I didnt post the “penis” comment. That’s someone else posting as me. It’s funny I get this treatment for merely being right.
Hi, I’m gay.
How long before the #5 trade value (or whereever he ranked) meme starts?
Five seconds ago.
Injury risk was my primary argument against the ranking. I realize reality can be a “bummer” sometimes. Unfortunately for you, intelligent people actually enjoy seeing things for what they are.
“Ranking Strasburg over Hanley is comical, and the odds are heavily in my favor that hindsight will support this.”
This was my response to his ranking of Strasburg. I knew I’d be right eventually, but frankly, my point was proven much earlier than I expected.
Don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back there.
Dude, give it a rest. Act like it ain’t your first time to the rodeo (apologies to the geico ad team).
Anyway, you don’t know that he won’t come back and put up a 10 war season in 2013. Well, I guess you do know. The rest of us peons will acknowledge we don’t have perfect foresight.
And lots of people made similar predictions without being insufferable about it.
wobatus, you could stand to stop drinking cum out of men’s penises too.
Again, that isn’t me. I suppose it would be crazy to expect “stupid” to take being proven incorrect in an intelligent way.
Hi, I’m still gay.
Give me a call Stephen.
…is an asshole, and has apparently thought about drinking cum from men’s penises quite a bit today? Answer: This Guy.
Homophobe much?
Felix is the generational talent, not Strasburg.
I knew Strasburg would get hurt, like I know Lincecum will get hurt. The key to finding pitchers who don’t get hurt is looking for guys whose strength is in the thighs, buttocks, abdomen and lower back. Ryan had it. Clemens had it with caveats. Felix has it.
You can congratulate me on how right I am when Felix is getting win number 400 sometime in his early forties.
Are you the scout that convinced the Dodgers that Pedro didn’t have the build to last?
Pedro didn’t last. Six or so dominant seasons and he was done. Felix will easily double that.
Who cares? Ubaldo is still pitching, right Dave?
Unfortunately, I predicted this the night I watched his MLB debut. I said he wouldn’t make it to 400 IP before major breakdown.
It’s his mechanics. It trampolines every once of velocity it can out of an arm, but will always pays the piper in the long run.
The “California-M” as I call it, elbows pinching the scapula up high. I think all these So Cal kids have been touched by Tom House’s philosophy. Joel Zumaya, Brandon McCarthy, Mark Prior, Anthony Reyes.
You can watch a game on TV and damn near tell where the kid is from, simply by his delivery.
It is amazing how many pitching mechanics gurus we have on this site.
They must really watch a lot of baseball. Maybe they like it. :)
maybe they should have made that trade for Oswalt…
Stoopid questions:
1. As commong as TJ surgery has become…why not just have it done voluntarily, pre-injury, after drafting a “generational talent”? If the surgery is done on a healthy arm, how long would recovery be?? 3-6 months maybe?? Maybe it wouldn’t actually prevent problems in the long run.
2. Why isn’t TJ considered performance enhancing? Hitters have to stay ‘natural’ but pitchers can throw a bit of caution to the wind with knowledge that worst-case there’s technology to repair them. And they get back onto the field when their body had already told them they’re done. How is TJ surgery more acceptable than HGH?
(1) Mark Prior uses an inverted-W; Strasburg does not. SS mechanics are actually pretty good.
(2) Time Lincecum’s mechanics are extreme but good. His stride length is 120% of his height, when 80-100% is normal. This works for TL55 b/c he’s a little guy. CC Sabathia could never do that.
(3) When young pitchers get hurt, IMO, it’s often due to the combination of increased workload, more hard breaking pitches, and more stress/pressure.
You don’t see a whole lot of bad mechanics at the highest level. A few guys do some risky things like Inverted-W or inverted-L, and suffer injuries. Other guys have very good mechanics and suffer injuries.
In terms is Strasburg, I want to know in detail what mechanical flaws he has and how they specifically to elbow problems. He used an Inverted-W in college, but horizontal-W in the pros. His elbows never elevate above his shoulders, nor does he over rotate like fellow horizontal-W like Brown and Peavy.
There’s a lot of parroting going on, just like with Prior’s “perfect mechanics”.
Yeah uh, he does, its not to the same extreme but then again Prior’s were so bad they completely bypassed his elbow and killed his shoulder in almost record time. Pause the videos sometime, they are still over if only just, which explains why his elbow went first as the timing problem is still present. Throwing a ridiculously hard curve with a bad follow through only made that worse.
His elbows go toward the 1st base line … horizontal-W.
His GS (Glove Side) arm raises above his front shoulder, his PA (Pitching arm) side does not (i actually like that part, equal and opposite). It’s very similar to Peavy’s shoulder action without the over-rotation and whip.
I do agree that the violence of his snap could be problematic, but that’s also the reason for his stuff.
What needs to be looked at is where his PA-side forearm is when his front foot hits the ground, and where the buttons of his shirt line up (indicators of hip rotation). If he rotates early and/or lands early, then he would be dragging his arm through, which can be stressful on the elbow.
But, when we’re talking about Inverted-W, we’re talking about Prior and Anthony Reyes type of elbow action.
I’ll check some video.
He does have some slight inverted-W & horizontal-W hybrid going, on … as O’Leary explains, more like Smoltz than Prior. Smoltz has always been an interesting case, because gurus were always predicting his blowout, yet he remained rather durable until late.
SS’s issue is timing, which could occur with or without the inverted-W. When the front foot hits, instead of his forearm being vertical (and ball facing 3B), it’s parallel (horizontal) to the ground (ball facing down).
That’s the problem, and it’s most likely due to pulling back of the shoulders (toward 1B), instead of just bringing the ball back in a circular motion (avoiding the inverted-L). SS likely pulls his shoulders back as an adjustment to performing the full inverted-W (his college mechanics). I would prefer he not do that, but one has to wonder how much a pitcher at his level can raidically change his mechanics.
It’s actually kind of amazing that a guy can throw this hard while opening up early … just as Verlander “shouldn’t” throw as hard because he’s a “heel lander”. I maintain that tall guys with long legs cannot toe land like Clemens and Schilling, nor can they sit deep in the hips like Seaver and Oswalt. In JV’s situation, I ask people not to compare him to other pitchers that have a completely different body type. Anyway …
Here’s a link to Chris O’Leary’s site. Chris does a great job at picture/video analysis and has a lot of experience doing so. I agree with Chris that Strasburg is more “Smoltzy” than “Priory”. That’s not a great thing, but it’s as bad. I try not to say the same things as Chris, but the problems are what they are, and Chris is very thorough.
http://www.chrisoleary.com/projects/baseball/pitching/professionalpitcheranalyses/StephenStrasburg.html
IMO, SS should abandon the slider immediately, and throw a cutter instead. Less movement, but similar action, without the stress on the elbow. The problem is that for hard throwers, the slider can be an outstanding put away pitch, and they often don’t want to stop throwing it. I would advise the same thing for Scherzer. But again, high velocity sliders are one of the most effective pitches in existence (introduced by Roger Craig).
I don’t know what a hybrid of the inverted-W and horizontal-W would be called, but that’s what he has. maybe it’ll be known as the “Strasburg-W”?
Thanks for the comments. Worth looking into the situation further. The pictures I saw of SS earlier in the season did not seem to have the same “elbows raised” action that some of the pics at COL’s site show, they were more “straight back”, rather than “up and back”.
If velocity is not generated from the core there will eventually be an injury, period. Lean guys and short guys always get injured. That is why there is not one lean or short pitcher to have won 300 games. It’s not rocket science, longevity comes down to body type.
Roy Oswalt is a good exmaple of a short guy that gets deep in the hips (to the extreme) and has remained a very good, durable pitcher.
The problem with short guys and continued excellence is trajectory. Due to their height (or lack of it), they throw the ball on a “flatter” plane than someone taller. As a result it’s easier for batters to “square it up”, which is why dads and coaches get on a knee to pitch to young kids (to intentionally “flatten out” the pitch).
There ain’t a whole lot of short guys in the HoF, period.
I didn’t realize Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine were tall and fat.
Seven 300-game winners were shorter than six feet tall, and all of them weighed under 180 pounds. Granted, they were all dead ball era pitchers, but when you make an assertion that “there is not one lean or short pitcher to have won 300 games,” you’d better be able to back that up.
Phil Niekro was lean and not particularly tall (about 6’1″ 180). If knuckle ballers don’t count, then take Don Sutton, who was the same size but was a power pitcher through much of his career.
Bob Gibson didn’t make it to 300 wins, but he was one of the best to ever pitch and had a long career devoid of major arm injuries. He was 6’1″, 185, and the very definition of lean. Whitey Ford was about 5’8″ and 165. Jamie Moyer is 5’11″, 175.
Scouts have always liked the big boys with the big fastballs, so like Circle Change says, there aren’t that many small pitchers, period. But to say that to get to 300 wins you have to be built like Roger Clemens is just plain false.
Can’t blame any team manager for not coddling him this time. We can only hope that this reaches out to the USC baseball program, and Tom House is never allowed to touch an arm again.
For the longest time, I was “swimming up river” by not being a fan of Tom House. That was not fun, because when a guy works with the best pitchers in baseball (Ryan, RJohnson, KBrown, MPrior, etc) you aren;t going to find many that will question it. Not that I am a genius, I just didn’t agree with some of the stuff he was saying.
It was actually at a Don Cooper pitching conference that I finally met someone that shared my concerns, and it was well … Don Cooper.
The problem now is House is changing his tune on a lot of stuff. I chalk it up to “if you say everything at one time or another, you’ll always be right”.
Well he used to be good, but when all he told Ryan was to add a little pronation and Randy a different way to land on his foot when delivering the ball you don’t really have much to screw up. It was when he actually tried telling pitchers how to throw the ball that it went to shit.
I also think House was one of the first guys to advocate a strong strength & conditioning (not just running) programs for pitchers, during an era when most thought they’d get “musclebound” and lose their “whippiness”.
IMO, he’s spot on with that aspect.
I guess Don Cooper was right. Very unfortunate.
Don Cooper is a very smart guy. Don’t let his twang fool ya, or how he explains things in a “meat and potatoes” fashion. Simple, don’t mean dumb. I’ve been fortunate to talk with him a couple of times, and he “gets it”. More importantly, he can explain and teach it.
SS’s injury could also be due to the hard slider and increased workload. There aren’t many hard slider guys that last a long time. Throw in youth, pressure (the expectations for each start are unreal), some mechanical issues, and more IP, and it’s understandable … but not completely predictable.
Pitching analysts have concerns about Dan Haren’s timing, Tom Glavine throwing across his body, etc … and have predicted their demise. We don;t keep a scorecard on all of these guys’ predictions, but highlight the one (or few) they got right.
A good number of gurus are waiting for Verlander to suffer a major injury to jump and say “See! See! I told you”.
Strasburg has never thrown a slider. He throws a curve ball that averages about 15 mph slower than his fast ball. The action and velocity of his curve is similar to Nolan Ryan’s, who also never threw a slider.
Forgive my squirrelly ignorance but why call it the “Inverted W” anyway? Why not just call it the “M style” delivery? I mean, that’s what it looks like.
Just an odd thought is all.
Because it’s not an M, it’s an inverted W?
:P
We’ve all asked that question at one time or another. *grin*
I hope the answer to that question is font-related!
Ungodly stuff + violent delivery = Tommy John surgery.
I said that it would be retarded for him to pitch in the all-star game, because he’d try to overthrow and match the hype he’d generated by baseball and fans. But this is garbage considering we’ve seen guys like Prior and Wood. But some guys like Josh Johnson come back throwing just as hard(some even gain velocity.)
That being said, we won’t be seeing him for a year and a half… and it’ll be interesting to see if he’s like Liriano and takes a few years to get back to what he was or dominates like Josh Johnson or Burnett(at least in Florida.)
I believe SS’s increased workload was the major reason for the injury, and the fact that the Nationals didn’t give him even one full season in the minors. The Nationals are a joke though, and most saw this coming.
It was bound to happen…I drafted him to my fantasy baseball team this year so blame me…I have the worst luck in the world!!
To say Pedro only had 6 dominant years on a site that makes it so easy to disprove you is not very intelligent. From ’96-’05 he averaged 7.7 WAR and though he got hurt in ’01 he still managed 5.9 WAR that year as well. He followed that by posting 4 consecutive outstanding seasons and only began to break down at 35 which is a reasonable age for a guy who came up at 21 and was a workhorse at 24, regardless of body type. I love Felix to death but to say that he will easily double what Pedro did is illogical and misguided.
Pretty depressing day in DC.
Poor babies. You lost your Santa Claus. Don’t worry. The corporation that is major league baseball will create another one for you by the time you forget anything you learned from this experience (roughly 6-12 months from now. 12 for the “smart” ones in your “world”.).
You will all internalize the media’s output, and will believe the thoughts are your own. I used to think religious fanatics were the only ones that were stupid enough to be afraid of. Baseball has taken my perspective of human stupidity to a whole new low.
Seriously, why don’t you just put a gun in your mouth?
You could stand by and wait on just about anyone who throws that hard and say he’s going to get injured, and with enough time, you’d be right probably 98 times out of 100. It’s not like you have any sort of special intelligence or perception on this. Pitchers get hurt. This one sucks maybe more than most given the incredible things he can do with a baseball.
Verlander, Felix, Lester, Pelfrey, Carmona, Hanson, Jackson…the list goes on.
When pitcher’s are developed to become real pitchers, they survive. When pitcher’s are developed to support a marketing scheme to pander to “fans” of the vanity of the game, as opposed to the actual sport, then they are designed to outperform in short stints, just long enough for you to be dumb enough to fall for it again when they replay the same script. Fortunately for baseball, the masses have been dumbed down to the point that you have no concept of precedence or history. Therefore, they can literally say ANYTHING, as truth has been replaced by consensus.
We actually have something in common. We both like to buy into fantasies. The only difference between us is that I need drugs to personify mine, and I have the metacognition to recognize when I am doing it.
This guy, you may be the single dumbest individual I’ve ever encountered. I need about 12 or 13 beers to approach the level of retardation you spew so effortlessly.
Nobody ever deserces a $15 million signing bonus. Nobody!
This is awful news for my favorit team, but whenever I saw him pitch it just seemed like a matter of time before this happened.
We have downright terrible luck with the TJ bug. Anyone whoever shows real promise on our staff gets bitten by the TJ bug. I can’t think of any franchise with worse luck in the last ten years in this regard.
Just because you don’t understand the cause, doesn’t make it luck.
Interesting article in regards to this topic.
Summary: Kids in warm weather climates, often play baseball year round, and are allowed to play for multiple teams in different leagues in the same season …. never extending past the league’s pitch limit rules, but pitching in multiple, high level, games per week … without an off-season. Pitching for kids is GOOD, provided they get the rest. They don’t. Furthermore, no one changes pitching mechanics at that age because “if it ain’t broke, don;t fix it”. Just saddle up that clydesdale and let him make you (the coach) look good.
We’ve likely all read about the youth travel team that Leake and Strasburg played on … y’know the elite level team that travelled across the nation to compete in tournaments. There’s nothing more important than having pre-teens compete for an all-important national (or even world) championship. I always find it interesting that the biggest little league star in US history plays in the NHL. That’s how important it is.
The 14U kids plat baseball seasons that are nothing like the ones we experienced as kids … y’know mostly for fun. These kids are being ridden, err I mean “showcased” from age 11 on, under the guise that all this competition helps them develop as players.
Linked from TT’s blog.
http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/story/13824602
This was an excerpt from an mlb.com article. Dr. Craig Morgan (who does come across in the final blurb as a pompous ass) asserts that these problems have a genesis in shoulder strength:
“Craig D. Morgan, a renowned orthopedic surgeon, who’s performed numerous surgeries on premier athletes such as former pitcher Curt Schilling, ironically watched Strasburg pitch on Saturday.
“”All elbow problems originate from the shoulder,” Morgan told MLB.com Friday. “Strasburg was on the disabled list two weeks before Saturday with a shoulder problem. His delivery is very similar to Schilling’s, very compact. He faces the catcher and square from the rubber when he gets the sign.
“”I could see that his right shoulder was down compared to his right, which means he has muscle weakness. That’s the No. 1 cause of the Tommy John ligament injuries. It’s all preventable.”
“Morgan recently completed a seven-year study with W. Ben Kibler, Lexington, Ky., orthopedic surgeon, during which 300 cases of tennis players and baseball pitchers with medial elbow problems were examined.
“”All 300 cases had scapular muscle weakness in the shoulder,” he said. “That’s why they end up tearing their elbow ligament. The problem’s in the shoulder. When I watched Strasburg pitch I told my wife in the first inning … I told my wife he would be on an operating table within a week. Was I wrong?”"
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100827&content_id=13993572&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb
Strasburg is still on track to earn his 15 million if he hasn’t already. He literally sold over a hundred thousand tickets this year by himself (anecdotal based on obvious massive spikes in attendance for his games), not to mention the 1.5 WAR, $200 jerseys, etc.
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