Hansen's Mechanics Options

[Noah]

I've never understood why Mark Prior is always brought up as having excellent mechanics. It's always seemed to me that he torques his elbow during his delivery way more than any other pitcher.

And of course I google this, and someone has brilliantly set up a series of pictures of Mark Prior's mechanics.



Yeah, yeah, I know it's not fair to judge by a still picture at this moment in his delivery, and yes, I know that all pitchers' arms look ridiculous at this point. But I don't think there's anyone else who is quite as extreme as this, and it's quite noticeable even in real time video. Particularly how upright his torso is through his whole release, and the fact that his forearm and upper arm are basically at right angles. Both of which concentrate more torque on the elbow.

This post has been edited by Noah: Mar 14 2007, 12:15 AM

[Noah]

Here is a piece written on a fantastic blog about pitching mechanics about a very common type of delivery that the author believes leads to shoulder problems (and perhaps also elbow problems), and I absolutely agree with him: pitchers who bring their pitching elbow both behind and above their pitching shoulder.

For what it's worth, Craig Hansen does not do this and never did this. Mark Prior is one of the worst offenders, and Anthony Reyes is the worst offender.



This post has been edited by Noah: Mar 14 2007, 12:39 AM

[templeUsox]

It would be interesting to get ChadBradfordWannabe's take on this, since he is a big proponent on the "inverted W" or as he calls it "picking the ball up with the elbow."

[Noah]

It would be interesting to get ChadBradfordWannabe's take on this, since he is a big proponent on the "inverted W" or as he calls it "picking the ball up with the elbow."

You know, just after I posted this I went back and read that thread and came back here to say the same thing.

Also, Jon Lester does this rather severely.

[SoxFanPJ]

After watching him throw and going over hours of film, Farrell detected that Hansen was giving away too much to the batter by starting his motion on the extreme third-base side of the rubber.
“What that caused him to do was really open his front side too early in his delivery, giving the hitter a much longer look at his arm swing, and track the ball,” Farrell said before yesterday’s 1-0 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays. “By going to the first-base side, it allows his lead shoulder to stay closed longer, which is a primary goal in his delivery. That’s going to allow him to create that shape and depth to the slider.”

“I think addressing a couple mechanical issues will result in a much more consistent slider,” Farrell said. “And he has been very receptive (to feedback), very open, and his work ethic has been tremendous.”

http://redsox.bostonherald.com/redSox/view...mat=&page=1

[86spike]

I'm loving what we're hearing out of Farrell so far this spring.

If switching to the other side of the rubber will help Hansen hide his pitches just a tiny bit, that will effectively make his fastball and slider look faster than they are and make it harder for batters to figure out which is which in time to react well. I'm glad that Farrell is willing to try simple changes like that. Let's hope it bears fruit.

[ngruz25]

Take this with a grain of salt, but I watched the pitching coaches work with Hansen today for a while. They looked like they were working on keeping Hansen's shoulders square as he separated his hands at the start of the pitch. I also have a picture showing that Hansen is working from the third base side of the rubber. Nothing really too important to add, but I thought it was interesting.

[paulftodd]

It would be interesting to get ChadBradfordWannabe's take on this, since he is a big proponent on the "inverted W" or as he calls it "picking the ball up with the elbow."

I believe they mixed it up on one of the boards he posts at over Liriano who also had an Inverted W, as they do not agree at all. Chris recently started working with a MLB team but will not/can not say who, but he said on his web site he thinks proponents of the Inverted W should be banned from the game. Not sure who is right but here is ChadBradfordWannabe's take on Liriano when he was on the DL

SO WHAT’S UP WITH HIS ELBOW?

Sorry to say this, but I don’t know. I don’t know if anyone knows at this point how/if his mechanics contribute to elbow problems. He is certainly an “elbowy” thrower of the baseball. He has a short-armish motion which some believe lead to elbow issues. That said, his excellent arm action is a major factor in how well his arm does what it needs to do. He certainly loves to throw his slider. Some say the slider puts more stress on the arm if done incorrectly. Some say it doesn’t matter. I can be convinced either way, although I’m more inclined to believe that sliders do hurt the arm.

What do I think happened?

I have this theory. I believe that pitchers who pick up velocity in a short time span are more prone to elbow injury. Those ligaments probably aren’t ready (haven’t been trained enough) to throw the ball that hard and that often without repercussions. I honestly don’t know how long Liriano has been throwing at 93-97 mph, however, it seems like it is a contributing factor. The slider factor can’t help either.
Also, Liriano is young. It’s a young arm we’re talking about here.

So, what to do from here?

Leave the kid alone. Note to the Twins: Forget this ever happened. Change nothing. Don’t slow him down. Don’t have his arm action get longer. This is a fluke injury. His arm is getting used to the new stresses he is putting on it. If anything, work on making the ligaments stronger. Train the elbow to handle those new loads and more.

With Hansen and other young pitchers I guess you have to balance minimizing injury risk with improved mechanics with effectiveness. Hansen was drafted as a guy who would make an impact at the MLB level sooner rather than later, and has less time to get comfortable with any changes than others. But Farrell gives me some hope for the Sox pitching, and perhaps he can help make Hansen into the guy we thought we drafted. His slider looked real nice against the Yankees, but his fastball is still not what he had when he came up briefly in 2005, at least not to my eye.

Reason for edit: Link Your Quotes to Outside Sources

[Corsi Combover]

With that in mind, Francona will be keeping his eye on Hansen's transition to throwing from the first base side of the pitching rubber, something he worked on with pitching coach John Farrell recently to improve his slider.

Except it didn't quite work out as he had hoped last night, after Hansen allowed a solo home run to Ramon Castro in his one inning of work in a 4-1 loss to the Mets.

"Unfortunately, we saw a little bit different mechanically," Francona said. "There's still some changes going on. Some are by design. Some are not. We saw the fastball flatten out, and it got whacked pretty good."

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/reds...ts_closer_look/

[JohntheBaptist]

Yeah, I'm not sure how many people saw him last night, but he looked pretty terrible to me. Not only the obvious- he had a few balls hit fairly hard- but his fastball just looked straight and his offspeed/ braeking stuff wasn't doing anything. He did get one swing-and-miss on one fairly decent looking changeup, I believe.

It also looked like he was struggling a bit to repeat his delivery, like he was sort of searching for it. Seemed really deliberate in that way, but that may have been me reading into what I thought I was seeing a bit much. Not real encouraging to watch.

[possumbait]

Maybe Hansen needs to tell his coaches to go to hell for a while. Maybe he needs a new organization to be able to just go out and pitch again.

Tinkering and management is all good, but it does not work for everyone. I begin to wonder if Hansen is so malleable that he loses having a consistent approach from day to day or week to week.

[Buzzkill Pauley]

Interesting to see Hansen pitch in a game picked up by mlbtv...get this man an appointment with Dice-K's masseuse, or with Zito's yoga instructor asap!

His back seems to me to be the critical issue regarding his mechanics, not his elbow or arm action, or probably even the coaching. I do think that moving from the right to the left side of the rubber will make a minor improvement against LHH, but it won't matter a bit if he doesn't loosen up the back. I went back to mlbtv footage from his June games last year, and his hips were very neatly aligned with his back leg and shoulders -- he's much more hunched up at the base of the neck now as well. I'll try to post some pics if I can figure out how.

Too many hours practicing for the PBVGL, or just a long bus ride?

[edited for clarity]

This post has been edited by Buzzkill Pauley: Mar 16 2007, 08:42 AM

[possumbait]

Interesting to see Hansen pitch in a game picked up by mlbtv...get this man an appointment with Dice-K's masseuse, or with Zito's yoga instructor asap!

His back seems to me to be the critical issue regarding his mechanics, not his elbow or arm action, or probably even the coaching. I do think that moving from the right to the left side of the rubber will make a minor improvement against LHH, but it won't matter a bit if he doesn't loosen up the back. I went back to mlbtv footage from his June games last year, and his hips were very neatly aligned with his back leg and shoulders -- he's much more hunched up at the base of the neck now as well. I'll try to post some pics if I can figure out how.

Too many hours practicing for the PBVGL, or just a long bus ride?

[edited for clarity]

I am not an expert, but I figure it is worth getting the full range of speculation in. Observing the thing with the back is a great catch, but perhaps it can be ascribed to something different than how he slept on the bus. Maybe he is stressed -- totally stressed.

Like I said, I am not an expert, but I used to tease my dad about how he coached my golf swing. After I bent my legs, but not too much, kept my head still, folded my hands over in the right way, try to bring my hips through, and all that, I suspect any number of body parts looked awkward before I duffed a grounder into the pond. Imitating those contortions he put me through in family get togethers is always good for a laugh.

Of course, getting back to Hansen, all this could be an overreaction to circumstantial stuff, which may not be any more encouraging for Hansen than it was for my golf game.

[86spike]

I hope Francona's quote about considering Hansen for a spot on the MLB roster right away was just meant to give the kid some motivation.

He really should spend some time in AAA this spring working out his mechanics until he has an easily repeatable delivery and some real consistency with his pitches. Just let him work through it without the glare of the MLB kreig lights, please.

[ChadBradfordWann...]

Hi all, thought I'd chime in...

I'm not necessarily a proponent of the inverted W. I'd much rather have a horizontal scap load (horizontal W) than the inverted W. However, what I don't like is the W, the whole Freddy Gracia thing. What I'd lke to say is that, at max scap load, I like the ball to be either level or below the elbow and shoulder line. From a performance point of view, I'd rather have the inverted W than the regular W. The problem I think with the inverted W is that it lends to the elbow coming up over the shoulder line. However, I'm more concerned with raw mechanical performance than I am injuries. That said, if there was something I'd like to take back about Liriano, is that his elbow does go above his shoulder. Joel Zumaya is another guy that worries me. That said, give me a hard throwing inverted W than the soft tossing W. However, give me a horizontal, scap loaded W over any of those. Here's hoping that at least SOME of that made sense...LOL