MLB 2008 Season

[Thorpe]

Inoa becomes a sign of the times - MLB - Yahoo! Sports

$4.25 million signing bonus. Not bad for a 16 year old kid.

[Cybsled]

Lawl@the magical floating baseball in the Yankees/Red Sox game. I was kinda hoping the ball would just stay on top of the fence forever hehe ;P

[Dr.Knockers]

FUCKING MARLINS!@#

Blew a 9 run lead before Kevin Gregg handed the Rockies a nice win. Too bad the Marlin bullpen can't get their shit together, otherwise we would have 2 teams from Florida this year in legitimate contention.

[Akileese]

How Tiny Tim Became a Pitching Giant - Tom Verducci - SI.com

For anyone who's a really huge baseball fan, this is a fucking amazing read about Tim Lincecum (Although I disagree that his size and speed have no comparableS. There's a guy named Pedro Martinez. You may have heard of him. He's pretty good.).

Interesting to know he was originally drafted by the Cubs in 2003 (he turned down their offer) and the Indians in 2005 (who didn't sign him) before landing with the Giants.

[kcxiv]

Lincecum is a stud, but fuck him, i am a Dodger fan. Its just to bad he plays for a team that outside of him, doesnt have to much.

[Duppin]

Lincecum's motion is really, really scary, and we don't know as much about the effect of biomechanics in the pitching motion as we think.

But Lincecum's incredibly violent, torque-filled pitching motion (watch how long his front shoulder stays open), combined with a small build, is cause for serious concern.

He could end up in the Hall of Fame; he could also end up out of baseball in two years. And my money, frankly, is on the latter.

[Akileese]

That's the point of the article though..Apparently from a biomechanical standpoint, his motion is nearly flawless. He really is a freak of nature though. The only reason he can do what he can is because of his super athletic nimble frame. If he was like 6'2-6'5 there's no way he'd be able to pull it off because he;d be too big.

It's amazing that from a medical standpoint, throwing a baseball at the velocity of a major league pitcher is the most violent thing an arm can possibly do. According to a physicist, if you did this for a full 60 seconds, you would die thanks to the g-force.

[Duppin]

Honestly, most of that article is Lincecum's dad saying "No, it's fine! Honest, he'll be okay! He's just SPECIAL."

It's disturbing that so much of the pseudoscience that his dad has come up with was taken as gospel by Verducci in that article. For fuck's sake, he doesn't even ice his arm because his dad told him "ice is for injuries and my drinks".

The actual (meager) scientific data in that article supports the likelihood of an early blowout, especially the part about his stride length being so ridiculously long. It's not a good sign.

He's fun to watch, and honestly if he manages to make himself a nice payday and pitch some nice baseball in the time he has in the league, more power to him; but baseball history is littered with guys with freaky mechanics who were awesome for a couple of years and then were never worth anything again (Dontrelle Willis, is that you?)

[Pharazon]

Originally Posted by kcxiv

Lincecum is a stud, but fuck him, i am a Dodger fan. Its just to bad he plays for a team that outside of him, doesnt have to much.

Not like you have shit on the Dodgers now either. The Giants actually have some decent-looking young position players for the first time in over a decade. Add to that three young starters in the top 10 in the league in strikeouts, a young closer going to the all-star game, and things might be turning around quicker than people thought it would take for the post-Bonds era. They were picked to finish dead last by pretty much everybody including their fans, but they're hanging around with the rest of the pack for now at least, albeit in a division that is looking pretty bad.

[Duppin]

The Giants aren't going to be any better than mediocre until they figure out how to get out from under Barry Zito's contract, which might be the worst in baseball history.

[kcxiv]

Originally Posted by Pharazon

Not like you have shit on the Dodgers now either. The Giants actually have some decent-looking young position players for the first time in over a decade. Add to that three young starters in the top 10 in the league in strikeouts, a young closer going to the all-star game, and things might be turning around quicker than people thought it would take for the post-Bonds era. They were picked to finish dead last by pretty much everybody including their fans, but they're hanging around with the rest of the pack for now at least, albeit in a division that is looking pretty bad.

Dodgers have quite a few youngsters that are doing ok. Martin, Kemp, Either and Loney. Once they get Furcal back, they will be ok. With all the hurt people they had to deal with this year, they are still .5 games out of first place. Yes, the division sucks, but it has for years now. Dodgers were rebuilding and they do have some prospects. I am fine with what they are doing right now. I dont see much hope for the Giants atm. Hell, they havent even won a damn World Series since they been in S.F.

As for Lincecum, in order for that dude to throw as hard as he does, he has to have almost a perfect delivery. I havent really broke it down, but i know people that have them "perfect deliveries" have long careers. Nolan Ryan was able to throw heat up into his what mid 40's. Maybe he lasts a long time. Just because he's a Giant fan, i wont ever wish him bad. I hope he has a long good career, but not against the Dodgers.

[Akileese]

Originally Posted by Duppin

He's fun to watch, and honestly if he manages to make himself a nice payday and pitch some nice baseball in the time he has in the league, more power to him; but baseball history is littered with guys with freaky mechanics who were awesome for a couple of years and then were never worth anything again (Dontrelle Willis, is that you?)

But Willis' lost total command because guys started fucking with his mechanics. Look at him now. He's fucking done. I mean, scouts say it looks violent and at times it looks like his arm may fly off. I can't possibly argue that point. I look at how he throws and I just marvel at how somehow can throw a ball like that.

There has been no one medically that has come out and said look at how he throws. It's so horrible for his body. It's just scouts saying "I don't know how he can throw like that."

Historically, it's when coaches and what not start tinkering with guys deliveries that they get injured (rare cases like Mark Prior where their delivery is just naturally awful for their body). The fact is, no one has come out and said that it's terrible for his shoulder or his arm that has any kind of medical background.

Also, icing your arm is fucking superstition. It's been proven that it's far better for a pitcher to do something like light jogging for 15-20 minutes while moving your arm around. I pulled this off some site like pitching.com or something after doing a quick search.

Implication. Ice massage failed to reduce muscle soreness, limb girth, and the decrement in torque production, suggesting that it was ineffective in promoting muscle function recovery following exercise-induced muscle damage. The reduction in creatine kinase efflux at 96 hours suggests that ice massage may have attenuated secondary cellular damage resulting from the lengthening contractions.

[Duppin]

It's not "almost a perfect delivery". There's a reason every scout who's gone on the record about him says something about his arm flying off.

[Pharazon]

Who cares what the scouts say? These are the same guys that pick pitchers that break down all the time. Reading the article, it says the majority of the concern from scouts was his size, and after that his unorthodox delivery. One guy is quoted as talking about "his arm flying off." Who cares. It seems like the one guy who seems to know more than anybody in regards to pitching mechanics and stress on the arm is Rick Peterson. They quote him a lot there, but unfortunately you don't hear his view on Lincecum's delivery. I'm assuming it isn't negative or they wouldn't have devoted so much of an article on Lincecum to him?

Yeah Zito's contract obviously was horrible. Oh to have that money available this offseason for somebody like Matt Holiday. Other teams have made horrible pitching signings in the past, and will continue to do so in the future. There are other signings right up there with it like Kevin Brown / Carl Pavano. At least Zito seems to never have injury problems, so for now at least you can hope he gives you enough decent outings to help the team some. 10 K's in a win against the Dodgers yesterday. He'll probably give up 5 runs in 5 innings his next start, but who knows maybe he's starting to find it. Always been a slow starter.

[Duppin]

Originally Posted by Pharazon

Who cares what the scouts say? These are the same guys that pick pitchers that break down all the time. Reading the article, it says the majority of the concern from scouts was his size, and after that his unorthodox delivery. One guy is quoted as talking about "his arm flying off." Who cares. It seems like the one guy who seems to know more than anybody in regards to pitching mechanics and stress on the arm is Rick Peterson. They quote him a lot there, but unfortunately you don't hear his view on Lincecum's delivery. I'm assuming it isn't negative or they wouldn't have devoted so much of an article on Lincecum to him?

Actually, they didn't spend much time on Peterson at all; 75% of the article was the opinions of Lincecum's dad, who isn't an expert on biomechanics in anyone's mind other than his own.

I don't see anything in the article (I've reread it twice now) that is an endorsement from Peterson, or any other person who's an expert in biomechanics, of Lincecum's pitching motion. I've talked to other people about him though who are studying pitching biomechanics, and the answer I get is "we don't really understand the biomechanics of the pitching motion as it relates to injury risk". So there really isn't anyone who can look at his motion and say "oh, he's fine"; and I don't see anyone trying in that article aside from someone who obviously really badly wants their kid to succeed.

And yes, scouts pick pitchers that break down "all the time" (here's where I'd normally go into a rant about results-based analysis but I'm trying to keep my baseball geekery in check), because pitching is inherently a destructive motion, good mechanics or bad. But you can pick to minimize risk, and Lincecum just isn't a good risk to have a lengthy major league career.

I had the opportunity to go to a talk given by Bob Fontaine, the Mariners' director of scouting (who is acknowledged by most people in the business as one of the best, the Mariners' recent success or lack thereof notwithstanding), who's been a major league scout for 40+ years.

He couldn't talk about Lincecum specifically because of MLB tampering rules, but when someone asked about him during the Q&A session (in the context of why the Mariners' drafted who they did that year, don't want to get the guy in trouble!) he said that he looks for two things when scouting young pitchers: size, and an easy pitching motion.

The obvious context being, Lincecum has neither of those going for him. Brandon Morrow, the Mariners' first pick in that draft (who they passed over Lincecum to take), is a big kid with a very low-effort delivery who has not been as impressive in his results mostly because the MLB organization has horribly mishandled his development.

That was the straightest "I think his arm will explode" answer that he could give under the circumstances, and I'll take his word for it over that of an SI writer and Lincecum's dad.

Don't get me wrong, it's exciting to watch him pitch (love that curveball) and I hope he has a long and healthy career; I just wouldn't lay money on it.