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 Author | Topic: Excellent article (Read 2,172 times) |
Jonathan D. Drisko, ATC, LAT
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miketace
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|  | Re: Excellent article
« Reply #1 on Mar 23, 2012, 4:41pm » | |
Strasburg's mechanics fall into the "safe" or more accurately into the "normal" zone according to the ASMI studies. They are on the bare edge of safe. Those same mechanics help him throw harder, which in turn puts more stress on his arm. If Strasburg threw 80 mph his mildly inverted W probably wouldn't stress his UCL worth worrying about. Not only that he wouldn't have pitched past HS so his arm would have been perfectly safe. The inverted W results in arm lag which in most pitchers results in more velocity. More velocity for a given pitcher means a higher risk of arm injury. Obviously, if a pitcher can throw hard and be effective without any arm lag then it is less risky. That is not the case for many, many pitchers who can only pitch effectively at the major league level by employing mechanics that include arm lag.
Just like it has always been there is a tradeoff between risk and reward. I'm guessing Strasburg feels he's on the right side of that trade still.
The reality is that Strasburg is a bad example to use for this argument. His mechanics are far "safer" than many other hard throwing big league pitchers who have had long careers and he isn't what most people without an agenda would call an inverted W type pitcher. I'll even give Chris O'Leary some props on this one as he does a very unbiased look at where Strasburg is at come initial foot strike. He believes that it is an unsafe position even so, but that is simply a matter of opinion based on anecdotal evidence.
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miketace
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| | Re: Excellent article
« Reply #2 on Mar 23, 2012, 5:14pm » | |
BTW, Clayton Kershaw's timing wrt to arm lag and an inverted W is very similar to that of Strasburg on his fastball. Where are all the people claiming he's going to blow his arm out any moment? The one thing he certainly has in common with Strasburg is considerable wealth at an early age.
Then of course there's a pitcher who has far more arm lag at foot strike than Strasburg or Kershaw. Tim Lincecum. Yep, that's part of why that little guy throws so hard when he wants to.
Sorry, not an excellent article.
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jdfromfla
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| | Re: Excellent article
« Reply #3 on Mar 24, 2012, 7:31am » | |
Mike I usually don't disagree with you very often but for ESPN??? This was as well researched as they can get. It's like Berra trolled every forum out there I think she covered the subject without too much of the crud they normally encumber an article with.
Your point about Kershaw is valid though..and if we sit here we can and will come up with exclusions to any rule. Injury is an interesting thing in the multitude of ways it can manifest. I don't know if ever there will be a pitcher like The Great Greg...one who can do 20 years, win 300+, k, 3000+...and do ity injury free..it seems more to me as he is the exception and "some" injury is the rule....but for the opportunity to do it (Pitch) at the pinnacle..for the money which is paid...it appears to me as if injury is now acceptable risk.
But speaking of opportunity...be the guy who can sell "injury free"...pot-o-gold on the end of that rainbow..even if you are lying through your teeth.....
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Jonathan D. Drisko, ATC, LAT
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| | Re: Excellent article
« Reply #4 on Mar 24, 2012, 10:35am » | |
I tought it was a "good" article because it promoted Dr. Fleisig and Dr. Andrews.... along with being fairly informative for ESPN...
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miketace
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| | Re: Excellent article
« Reply #5 on Mar 25, 2012, 7:05pm » | |
It is fairly informative, but essentially misleading to the general public. The key thing in all of this is that they make the assumption that pitchers have a choice. They assume that changing the mechanics away from the "arm lag" won't have a negative impact on performance.
That just isn't true. Each pitcher develops the mechanics that work for them through a combination of teaching and trial and error. Sometimes there can be a change that will allow them to perform better (and most likely less safely). Sometimes there can be a change that will allow them to perform more safely (most likely with less performance). Most changes are simply going to make things worse.
The other assumption is that pitchers should care a whole lot about safety vs performance. The bit about how many $ have been lost while pitchers were out for TJ surgery was a joke. The teams made more, the pitchers made more and the fans enjoyed more while the pitchers were out there performing their best prior to the surgery.
Ask pitchers who are going into the draft if they'd rather have an 89 mph max fastball with a guarantee that they'd never lose any time to injury or if they'd rather have a 96 mph max fastball with a guarantee that they'd have to have TJ surgery sometime within the first seven years of their pro career, 1st year, 7th year or anywhere in between. I think the answer would be unanimous and it would be in favor of a 96 mph fastball. At least this isn't like concussions where the effects can last well after football or boxing.
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Glenn Fleisig, Ph.D.
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| | Re: Excellent article
« Reply #6 on Mar 26, 2012, 8:37pm » | |
Jonathan, thanks for posting the article. I thought it was a very good article. Lindsay Berra did her homework with numerous visits and face-to-face conversations across the country. She shared with the readers not only what biomechanics is but also the spectrum of opinions within pro baseball.
Mar 25, 2012, 7:05pm, miketace wrote:| It is fairly informative, but essentially misleading to the general public... Ask pitchers who are going into the draft if they'd rather have an 89 mph max fastball with a guarantee that they'd never lose any time to injury or if they'd rather have a 96 mph max fastball with a guarantee that they'd have to have TJ surgery sometime within the first seven years of their pro career, 1st year, 7th year or anywhere in between. I think the answer would be unanimous and it would be in favor of a 96 mph fastball. At least this isn't like concussions where the effects can last well after football or boxing. |
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Mike, the point of improving biomechanics is not to choose between performance and safety. Improving biomechanics improve both perfomance and safety. This is not done by magic. The physics equations, anatomy, and motion measurements show that optimizing motions and coordination increases ball velocity and reduces shoulder and elbow loads.
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miketace
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| | Re: Excellent article
« Reply #7 on Mar 27, 2012, 11:50am » | |
I'm not from Missouri but you'll still have to show me. Higher velocity = higher probability of injury. Delaying the arm tends to increase velocity up to what an individual pitcher is capable of and as it gets delayed past the so called optimum results in higher loads along with the higher velocities. If an individual can produce high velocities at the optimum angles i.e. around 50 degrees great. But the reality is that the vast majority of really high velocity pitchers are down around horizontal at initial foot strike or even more delayed.
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daque
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| | Re: Excellent article
« Reply #8 on Mar 27, 2012, 1:02pm » | |
Although I am not a science guy when it comes to bsaeball, I will note a couple of things. The description reminds me a bit of Jai Alai (?sp). A number of years ago (maybe early '80s) there was some thinking that maximizing the pitching velocity through such techniques would be great. Only problem is that many arms were ruined before sanity came back. I wish I could say more but tehe whole thing sounded so unnatural that I didn't get interested enough to study it in detail.
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thepainguy
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| | Re: Excellent article
« Reply #9 on Mar 27, 2012, 2:37pm » | |
Mar 27, 2012, 11:50am, miketace wrote:| But the reality is that the vast majority of really high velocity pitchers are down around horizontal at initial foot strike or even more delayed. |
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This is only true if you ignore injury history.
To lump together Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson, and Joel Zumaya is to ignore something very important.
What's funny is that these ideas are being bought into at the major league level. I was with guys from two major league organizations last week and the idea that the inverted arm actions cause problems is accepted as a given by them.
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miketace
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| | Re: Excellent article
« Reply #10 on Mar 27, 2012, 3:02pm » | |
It is true regardless of the injury history. The reality is that when pitchers have to delay the arm more to get the higher velocities that they may need to be effective it is going to increase the potential for injury.
Ryan was an exception to what we see as the norm today because he didn't have to delay the arm to such a great degree. Aroldis Chapman is another example. There are people who can produce velocity without big time arm delay. There are also those who can't get any more velocity out of delaying the arm. However, the simple fact is that most really hard throwers do delay the arm because that's what they have to do to get the velocity and they wouldn't trade it for safety.
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thepainguy
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| | Re: Excellent article
« Reply #11 on Mar 27, 2012, 3:55pm » | |
Mar 27, 2012, 3:02pm, miketace wrote:It is true regardless of the injury history. The reality is that when pitchers have to delay the arm more to get the higher velocities that they may need to be effective it is going to increase the potential for injury.
Ryan was an exception to what we see as the norm today because he didn't have to delay the arm to such a great degree. Aroldis Chapman is another example. There are people who can produce velocity without big time arm delay. There are also those who can't get any more velocity out of delaying the arm. However, the simple fact is that most really hard throwers do delay the arm because that's what they have to do to get the velocity and they wouldn't trade it for safety. |
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Your post is rife with assumptions.
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Chris O'Leary |
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miketace
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| | Re: Excellent article
« Reply #12 on Mar 27, 2012, 5:22pm » | |
Yep. I've watched enough pitchers develop and seen the effect of delaying the arm enough to be pretty confident in I what I assume.
The implication of what Dr. Fleisig posted is that a pitcher can choose to use safer mechanics without losing velocity. There are probably some cases where that is true but in general I disagree. I believe that each successful pitcher develops through trial and error the mechanics that work best for him and that in most cases moving away from those mechanics is going to have a negative effect on velocity. Why? Because the feedback we get on every pitch is for better performance and not for safety so changes away from a motion optimized for performance toward safety are generally not likely to result in improving or even maintaining velocity. There are some cases where through trial and error better performance comes from control at the expense of velocity and in those cases it is possible that velocity could be increased with little impact on safety but that wouldn't necessarily result in maximum velocity for that pitcher and would most likely result from increasing, not decreasing arm delay.
I've seen some very good studies that show that there is a level of arm delay that provides a good chance of getting decent velocity along with relative safety at that velocity. I have never seen a study that shows that any given pitcher will be able to reach their maximum velocity doing that. Nolan Ryan probably could. That doesn't mean that Strasburg could maintain his velocity with his arm in the same position that Ryan had at foot strike. It doesn't mean that Billy Wagner could have maintained his velocity if he changed away from his level of arm delay. It certainly doesn't mean that little Tim Lincecum could maintain his velocity with his arm in that position.
I assume that Lincecum would be unlikely to break 90 mph doing it the "safe" way.
Lincecum is the antithesis of throwing it safely. Who here is going to recommend that he change his delivery? Who here would have the audacity to say that he shouldn't have developed the unique mechanics that got him to the big leagues and made him a success? No, he did what he had to in order to get velocity and that included some pretty significant arm delay.
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miketace
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| | Re: Excellent article
« Reply #13 on Mar 27, 2012, 5:40pm » | |
Chris,
Why don't you go through your entire database of pitcher's images and compare arm position at initial foot strike with velocity? Don't leave out Ryan who had high velocity with relatively little arm delay and don't leave out Maddox who had fairly low velocity with relatively little arm delay. Include every major league pitcher you've got in your database. Let us know what the trend is.
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thepainguy
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| | Re: Excellent article
« Reply #14 on Mar 27, 2012, 6:16pm » | |
Mar 27, 2012, 5:22pm, miketace wrote:| The implication of what Dr. Fleisig posted is that a pitcher can choose to use safer mechanics without losing velocity. There are probably some cases where that is true but in general I disagree. |
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You disagree with Nolan Ryan? With Randy Johnson?
With Justin Verlander?
With successful lower-velocity pitchers?
With Greg Maddux, who came up throwing 93 and spent his career around 90?
You're about 5 years behind the curve on this.
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Chris O'Leary |
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