Mark Prior and the Perfect Delivery (September 30, 2003)
Will Carroll chimes in:
There are five major principles of proper delivery that can be summarized as balance, posture, anatomical position, rotation, and release. A proper delivery, biomechanically, is focused on driving the ball linearly from cocked position to catcher's mitt. Balance... you are likely to see a pitcher falling off to either side in his delivery. Prior? Direct, linear and compact. Prior is equally ideal with his posture, keeping his 6-foot-5 frame erect through delivery and using both leg drive and gravity to impart force on the ball as he releases it. His elbows stay level, keeping stress off the rotator cuff.
There are a few things I'd like to know, and this is where if I had scouts to work with, I'd pick their brains so they can impart their knowledge to me. It's all fine to say that Prior has the perfect delivery, but does he do it for every single pitch? They keep track of type of pitch thrown, and location, for every pitch, but do they keep track of HOW he threw it? So, keep track of every single pitch, and record how his mechanics are.
This is one of those things where baseball is good at keeping track of the final observation, but misses all the preceding observations. The more preceding observations that you can record, the closer you can get to the true rates. True rates = observed rates + random patterns.
The better data you have, the more you can then figure out how his mechanics will hold up in the future. Again, all fine and dandy to say that Prior has the perfect mechanics. But, how much do mechanics change pitch to pitch or year to year? Is he perfect 95% of the time or 80% of the time? When he makes a poor pitch, is he still good enough to get the guy out?
There is so much to find out. I'm hoping that Bill James is influential enough with the Redsox that he's getting the scouts to record everything that they see. The problem is that to make this meaningful, you really, really need all the teams to share their data. They don't have to share how they process the data, but at least share the data. This won't happen.
I almost get the feeling that pitchers are like weather patterns, and that there is alot of things going on, and the slightest change causes huge swings. And we all know how tough it is to predict weather patterns.
--posted by TangoTiger at 10:04 AM EDT
Posted 1:04 p.m.,
September 30, 2003
(#1) -
Chuck Oliveros
Being a particular fan of pitching, I would like to see the kind of study of pitching mechanics that you mention. However, to do it right, I don't think that you can rely on the judgement of a live observer. The would be errors in judgement, depending on the astuteness of the scout. If you really want to know how consistently a pitcher, say Prior, throws with sound mechanics, you would have to videotape him and watch it in slow motion, perhaps even measuring arm angles, etc. I've watched Prior some and, though I'm far from an expert, he seemed to be remarkably consistent. Other pitchers aren't. A particularly egregious example, is Mike Hampton of the Braves. Not only are his overall mechanics questionable but you can tell when he is getting emotionally stressed on the mound because it's apparent in his mechanics. He seems to kind of hop on his follow-through.
One other thing I wonder about though. Do excellent mechanics protect a pitcher from the kind of elbow damage caused by sliders and splitters. John Smoltz has excellent mechanics but he still tore his elbow up.
Posted 1:31 p.m.,
September 30, 2003
(#2) -
tangotiger
That's a good point, and after bringing it up with Will, he also mentioned the videotape as the best tool to use.
Posted 8:44 p.m.,
September 30, 2003
(#3) -
Scoriano
If video is the answer then a team should at least be able to analysze their own pitchers, minors included in detail. They would also be able to go back in time to build as much data as they wanted if the existing video gives them a good enough view of what they need to see.
Posted 12:03 a.m.,
October 1, 2003
(#4) -
Will Carroll
(homepage)
High speed video (rather than the suggested slo-mo) is the ideal tool. Until my book comes out in the spring, I'd recommend reading Leo Mazzone's "Pitch Like A Pro" where he talks about protecting the elbow from breaking ball follow throughs.
To answer the last question, sliders eventually take their toll since they're in effect a badly thrown breaking ball.
Scoriano's post is also correct, but only two organizations can do that and neither admits in publicly. You can guess which two.
Thanks to Tango for the post.
Posted 2:44 a.m.,
October 5, 2003
(#5) -
Brad Wenban
We should remember that injuries are (presumably -- I'm no expert) caused by two factors: the stress placed on the arm and the susceptibility of the arm to stress.
The former is guagable by video and is a function of mechanics.
The latter is a "black box" determined by a complex mixture of genetics, upbringing, past stress, etc.
Luckily, science can address both of these issues. 1) Physics can teach us exactly how much force is created by certain motions. Medical science can develop tests to determine 2) a) the effect of various forces on the body generally and b) the exact fragility of a specific pitcher's body.
This leads me to a few questions: How far has the science come with regard to 1 and 2a, which are essential underpinnings of Will's comments?
With regard to 2b, are there any reliable tests for fragility yet employed beyond past injuries or direct observation of deformities (i.e. a muscle tear)? What exactly goes on in a baseball physical and is there substantial predictive power to the MD's observations?
Do we have any way to know that any given pitcher's injury is likely a result of 1 and not 2b? Is it possible that 2b is so important, or the stress reduction from perfect mechanics so small, or the range of stress imparted by the mechanics of those pitchers that are actually candidates for this analysis so similar (in other words, those with bad mechanics may be weeded out by injury in high school), that a mechanics based injury prediction system may fail?
Posted 3:24 p.m.,
October 6, 2003
(#6) -
Mills
What's in the box?