Added a lil' somethin'.

This is very true and as I was reading I was going to cite Clemens as one of the only examples that popped into my head right off the bat.

The optimal age range for learning, whether it is spanish or simply motor skills is 9-13 and this has been proven in the area of motor behavior. For instance, if you give a kid a bat at the age of 6 and start throwing him balls, that skill would not be age appropriate--this is why t-ball or coach pitch is a mess...also if you were to work with that same kid, those skills would dissipate as soon as they entered, they simply do not have control of their body yet. Same goes for a major league pitcher that has been doing the same motion for 20 years, it is like trying to knock down a brick wall. This isn't to say it can't be done, it just means that it is very hard.

I know you said you were going to ignore Pedro's motion. But isn't Pedro's arm in the same position as Prior's at footstrike?

i was under the impression he posted Pedro simply to show Pedro because Pedro is the awesomest.

kyleb/tdarko,

you've pretty much indicted the Cubs coaches for Mark Prior's mechanical and workload problems. is there another example that they've made egregious errors with pitcher development? such as Kerry Wood? what's going to happen to Jeff Samardzija? in college his mechanics were not anything to write home about, and he missed significant time due to injuries, though they could also be football related.

Sort of. Pedro points his shoulder to the target after throwing much better, indicating that although he throws from a low 3/4 delivery, he is taking the ball in a straight line to the target as best he can. Prior does not.

I'd have to do a better analysis to give you the right opinion, but I'm sure there are some injurious flaws in his delivery.

I want it to be clear that it's not just the Cubs in this particular instance - many teams overwork their pitchers and fail to understand proper pitching mechanics as they relate to injury. How do you fix someone that has never failed? Mark Prior broke the mold of amateur pitchers - he was so insanely dominant in NCAA baseball that no coach could have told him anything. He appeared in the MLB and was well above-average the same year he was drafted. When you are that big of a talent, why would you listen to anyone who doubted your ability?

Kerry Wood also has terrible mechanics. Not sure on Samardzija, but that was a terrible draft pick by the Cubs anyway.

Sylar,

You would be surprised at how many pitching coaches within each organization have very little understanding of pitching mechanics. A lot of these coaches were incredibly talented pitchers and big leaguers and they could simply do it but they haven't the slightest idea why or how. They don't understand the kinetic chain and they don't understand a lot of the concepts needed to get a pitcher developed. Much of what they do is what they see around them--this is where towel drills come into play and many other detrimental drills etc.

All of them have an incredible amount of game knowledge and have an incredible amount of in-game stuff to provide to upcoming players. The best are the ones that understand mechanics and have the experience to pass on the in-game knowledge.

He's hurt every year at some point. Not major injuries though.

interesting that tom house studies this kind of stuff and basically signed off on Prior's mechanics. Does he just suck at life? Also, if you could do this with Wood that would be awesome.

One other question - does Maddux throw more over the top than basically everyone?

One more - How much does Prior landing on his heel hurt him? Is that just a byproduct of bad mechanics or is it something he could control seperately from his other bad mechanics. I know this was something Marshall said was really bad for guys like Wood and Prior.

Oswalt has chronic oblique strains. That's not really something mechanics can fix; it's a genetic predisposition. Besides, it's not a "bad" injury, since it proves that he is recruiting power from his whole body, including his core.

I don't necessarily agree with Tom House on everything. The idiotic towel drill is one of those things. He also insists that changing a pitcher's arm action is bad and that we should just look to refine their timing. That's not necessarily wrong, and it will make the pitcher more efficient, but it really doesn't fix the root cause of the problem a lot of the time, unless you equate timing with "arm up at footstrike," which he doesn't.

Throwing against a firm glove side and building a more natural tempo downhill are two things that are excellent pointers, however.

I can do something for Kerry Wood fairly easily, since Chris O'Leary basically dissected his motion already. Wood features poor timing at footstrike as well.

Prior landing sharply on his glove-side heel is not necessarily bad. The common wisdom of landing on the ball of your foot or landing flat has been proven to be irrelevant. I'm pretty sure Marshall doesn't care about this; he doesn't list it in his "flaws" of the traditional motion available here.

For those of you who have HBO On Demand, check out the latest Real Sports episode. It has a part about Mike Marshall that's fairly interesting to watch.

This rules.

can you provide a link to this?

wow, this is quite interesting. i've heard a lot about bad pitching coaches at MLB level who just happened to get a job, but i thought career minor league coaches had to have a track record that proves they don't ruin arms with their instruction.

i guess i am really pretty naive about the coaching situation, never having witnessed downright abuse of a kid's arm.

Chris O'Leary's website: http://www.chrisoleary.com/projects/Baseball/index.html

The analysis page on the website, including the Wood analysis:
http://www.chrisoleary.com/projects/...ses/index.html

"Not sure on Samardzija, but that was a terrible draft pick by the Cubs anyway."

According to Hendry, he was #1 on their draft board out of everyone that year. Hmmmmm. That is somewhat alarming. I'm interested to hear your opinion on why it was a terrible pick. I understand that they overpaid, but I hadn't really considered his other deficiencies.

i'd like to know the answer to this also.

btw, to anyone interested here are some pitching clips of jeff. no idea why he gets compared to daniel bard and roger clemens with the sox.

http://www.pitchingclips.com/players...samardzija.htm

Samardzija has awful mechanics and isn't a pitcher. He is a thrower. And that's fine if you're 18 years old, but Samardzjia is 22.

ok, you are going to need to explain it to the rest of us. what is mechanically different between throwing and pitching?

kyle,

great work as always...I for one will read any and all of these that you do.

Are there any young pitchers who you would point to as having "very good" mechanics? I guess I would love to see a Will Carrolesque rating system of every pitcher in the bigs and their injury risk based on mechanics, but that is probably a tall order for you

James

Not much. However, Samardzija has no secondary pitch, and his fastball doesn't have a lot of movement. Just because he can throw 97 MPH doesn't make it good.

Thanks for the comments.

As for young pitchers whose mechanics are good, I like James Shields a lot. I wrote a piece on him that I submitted to The Hardball Times. Carlos Gomez stopped writing Bullpen Mechanics, and with any luck, I'll be taking over the column. Hopefully Gassko and company likes the article I wrote!

Great stuff as usual.. as an A's fan I have to wonder if Rich Harden's health issues are a result of poor mechanics..

I think one of the reasons the Cubs were high on him when they drafted him was because of his work ethic and they thought they would be able to work with him. From what you and Tdarko have said, it seems unlikely they will be able to make any major changes based on his age. I tend to agree. He seems quite raw for a 23 year-old college drafted pitcher. I initially thought that might be based on inexperience, but he pitched a ****load in college. Also, not that impressed with his college numbers, especially playing in the Big East. He also didn't pitch that well in the Florida State League, which is definitely a pitcher's league.

BTW - appreciate these threads Kyle. Keep doing them. I still have a lot of misconceptions about mechanics based on things I was taught while I was playing.

It's possible. I'd have to look more, but I know Carlos Gomez wrote something on HBT about it as well. It bums me out too, since I'm an A's fan.

His college numbers are not impressive, his stuff is really not that great, and while his work ethic is purportedly good, he's old for his level and still didn't pitch well. It's not the wasted draft pick that matters (because who cares about a fourth-rounder, really), but the money spent on him.

Thanks again for the comments. Hopefully we'll see less posts here and more of my stuff on HBT.