I was going to tell you about Stephen Strasburg’s no-hitter against Air Force — he pitched well and looked great, as you might imagine — but I figured that everyone and their mother is already covering the story (try Google; I’ve heard it’s good for that sort of thing), which leads me to the topic I chose instead.
Hype.
I’ve seen Strasburg pitch five times this year. I have definite opinions about his ability based on my own observations, discussions with others, and what I know about baseball from having followed it for many years.
I could throw out the names of pitchers he calls to mind. I could talk about his fastball, or his slider, or how hitters react to both pitches. I could tell you what I think about his chances to succeed.
Okay, I’ll go ahead and say that last one out loud. I like his chances.
By design, this is an understatement. Strasburg doesn’t need my hype. He doesn’t need anyone’s hype.
Have you ever had people tell you how awesome a movie is and that you must see it? Does this make you want to drop everything and see the movie, or does it have the opposite effect? If you do go see it, are you receptive to the possibility that it might be awesome, or are you looking for reasons that it isn’t?
I’m getting some of this with Strasburg. People who have never seen him pitch assure me he’s not that great. Who am I to argue with them?
I’ve noted elsewhere that a lot can happen between a successful amateur career and a successful professional career. Among other things, we don’t know how Strasburg will handle failure because he hasn’t had any to deal with at SDSU. There are other variables as well, health being the most obvious.
Life happens. The future unfolds in unpredictable ways.
As a writer, the hype and its effect frustrate me. I want to share what I’ve seen and what I think I know, but why should you believe me? I’m just one more voice echoing all the others. Hooray for me.
Instead, I’ll pay Strasburg the best compliment I can without becoming a part of the problem: It has been a pleasure to watch him pitch this year, and an experience I’ll not soon forget. I wish him well in his future endeavors.
They were actually courtroom-style sketches with really frenetic looking lines around the shoulder area. It looked kind of scary. As a medical pitch mechanic sketch professional, I can definitely attest that if I was thinking about signing Strasburg for $50M seeing these pictures would make me very nervous.
You can be as flip as you'd like, sir, but the fact remains that he's an Inverted W time bomb waiting to explode. There are videos and pictures all over the net comparing him to Prior and other similar pitchers whose mechanics are similar--and who have had a history of arm problems--if you're just willing to look for them.
End of story, great pitchers with lengthy careers don't do that. Now, if you want to say that getting a few exceptional years out of a pitcher is enough of a return on investment to pick a guy first overall, I'm not here to debate that. It's a matter of economics and GMs have to decide for themselves what they're willing to risk.
I, for one, am really glad that we have serious people with such excellent qualifications as Dr. Jemiller doing these kinds of strict scientific comparisons of similar pitchers whose mechanics are similar. If there is one thing that we can thank youtube and flickr for it is providing these serious professionals with all the tools they need to make these kinds of cold exacting judgments about the completely screwed up looking arm slots of prospective draftees.
Now Dr. Jemiller, being such an illustrious expert in the field of pitch mechanics, I'm hoping you can answer a question that's always confused me. Can you explain why it is called an inverted "W"? Why don't they just call it an "M"?
They call it an inverted W because an M the outer lines on an M are straight up and down, so an inverted W is a better representation.
Aside from that, I don't see where it was necessary for you to jump down jemiller's throat in the way that you did. He certainly never claimed to be a doctor, he simply noted the fact that some people with knowledge of such things see Strassburg as a likely injury case down the road. Granted, he may have put it in more definite terms that he should have. But I didn't see any malice in his statements, unlike your rather nasty responses.
Good explanation on the inverted "W", Brent, but I still think that depending on the font you use that non-inverted "M" could be just as appropriate.
Gee I wasn't meaning to be nasty or malicious just gently mocking a pecular brand of certainty (not at all unique to jemiller sadly) which seems to permeate the online world of amateur pitch mechanic analysis.
I guess part of me wonders about the mentality of a person who sees an article about a hyped pitcher which ends with "I wish him well in his future endeavors" and immediately thinks "yeah well the best response to that is to point out that some people think his shoulder is going to be messed up."
"Can you explain why it is called an inverted "W"? Why don't they just call it an "M"?"
You'd have to ask the guy who coined it (Paul Nyman?). Brent's explanation is the best I've heard, although M is probably more intuitive.
Personally, I don't care one way or the other. I was kind of hoping that someone would come on explaining why teams either don't look at that sort of stuff or don't care. I certainly wasn't looking for a fight. Besides that, he almost certainly won't be around on the draft board by the time my team--horrible though it may be--gets its choice anyway. :p
All the "Steven Strasburg has horrible mechanics" noise seems to becoming from bloggers who evaluate pitchers in their free time. Can anybody find somebody who actually gets paid to evaluate pitching mechanics who is overly concerned with the way he pitches? I read something a month or two ago on baseballamerica that said the overall consensus in the professional scouting community was that his mechanics were pretty clean and of no real concern.
For what it's worth, the pictures I've seen point to facial hair embarrassment down the road. It might affect his ability (I'm not a facial hair specialist though I just pretend I'm one on the web).
As a big admirer of Geoff's writing at Ducksnorts over the last several years, it's great to see him here at BP.
Re: Strasburg - Tony Gwynn points out that he'll have to put more pitches over the plate at the major-league level... and, of course we must always remember that the pitching prospect is a Mythical Beast... and, it's a long way from plate (dinner variety, not home) to mouth...
Still, having also seen Strasburg a few times this year, he's a great college pitcher with a better chance than most to become a successful MLB pitcher. What's not to like?
Like with every other pitcher, he'll have to deal with elbow or shoulder soreness at some point, or even surgery. How he responds to this, will decide how good he will be. Guys that have great sliders always get hurt!! Can't remember who said it, but "There are two kinds of pitchers. Those who are hurt, and those who aren't hurt yet." I am sure the kid is beastly, but how he deals with physical set backs will ultimately decide his greatness.
I remember the same sort of doubters when Lebron was coming out. But, if you saw the way he passed the ball and made other players better all while being a good shooter and athlete in his own right, you knew those people were full of it.
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For what it's worth, the pictures I've seen of him point to shoulder trouble down the road. Doesn't take away from his ability, though.
Were these moving pictures?
They were actually courtroom-style sketches with really frenetic looking lines around the shoulder area. It looked kind of scary. As a medical pitch mechanic sketch professional, I can definitely attest that if I was thinking about signing Strasburg for $50M seeing these pictures would make me very nervous.
You can be as flip as you'd like, sir, but the fact remains that he's an Inverted W time bomb waiting to explode. There are videos and pictures all over the net comparing him to Prior and other similar pitchers whose mechanics are similar--and who have had a history of arm problems--if you're just willing to look for them.
End of story, great pitchers with lengthy careers don't do that. Now, if you want to say that getting a few exceptional years out of a pitcher is enough of a return on investment to pick a guy first overall, I'm not here to debate that. It's a matter of economics and GMs have to decide for themselves what they're willing to risk.
I, for one, am really glad that we have serious people with such excellent qualifications as Dr. Jemiller doing these kinds of strict scientific comparisons of similar pitchers whose mechanics are similar. If there is one thing that we can thank youtube and flickr for it is providing these serious professionals with all the tools they need to make these kinds of cold exacting judgments about the completely screwed up looking arm slots of prospective draftees.
Now Dr. Jemiller, being such an illustrious expert in the field of pitch mechanics, I'm hoping you can answer a question that's always confused me. Can you explain why it is called an inverted "W"? Why don't they just call it an "M"?
They call it an inverted W because an M the outer lines on an M are straight up and down, so an inverted W is a better representation.
Aside from that, I don't see where it was necessary for you to jump down jemiller's throat in the way that you did. He certainly never claimed to be a doctor, he simply noted the fact that some people with knowledge of such things see Strassburg as a likely injury case down the road. Granted, he may have put it in more definite terms that he should have. But I didn't see any malice in his statements, unlike your rather nasty responses.
Good explanation on the inverted "W", Brent, but I still think that depending on the font you use that non-inverted "M" could be just as appropriate.
Gee I wasn't meaning to be nasty or malicious just gently mocking a pecular brand of certainty (not at all unique to jemiller sadly) which seems to permeate the online world of amateur pitch mechanic analysis.
I guess part of me wonders about the mentality of a person who sees an article about a hyped pitcher which ends with "I wish him well in his future endeavors" and immediately thinks "yeah well the best response to that is to point out that some people think his shoulder is going to be messed up."
"Can you explain why it is called an inverted "W"? Why don't they just call it an "M"?"
You'd have to ask the guy who coined it (Paul Nyman?). Brent's explanation is the best I've heard, although M is probably more intuitive.
Personally, I don't care one way or the other. I was kind of hoping that someone would come on explaining why teams either don't look at that sort of stuff or don't care. I certainly wasn't looking for a fight. Besides that, he almost certainly won't be around on the draft board by the time my team--horrible though it may be--gets its choice anyway. :p
All the "Steven Strasburg has horrible mechanics" noise seems to becoming from bloggers who evaluate pitchers in their free time. Can anybody find somebody who actually gets paid to evaluate pitching mechanics who is overly concerned with the way he pitches? I read something a month or two ago on baseballamerica that said the overall consensus in the professional scouting community was that his mechanics were pretty clean and of no real concern.