Interested in your thoughts on Stephen Strasburg and his potential....

[3and2Fastball]

I find Strasburg a fascinating subject. Hugely hyped phenom who has had great success in limited MLB action:

 

Career ERA right now of 2.23 in 117 innings pitched (career ERA+ of 173!)

 

This season in 4 starts he has a 1.08 ERA and 0.920 WHIP ....

 

It would appear that he has fully recovered from his surgery.

 

Many still question his mechanics and whether he can stay healthy.... I'm wondering what all of you knowledgeable folks think about his potential? Do you think he can stay healthy? Do you think he projects as possibly an All-Time great if he can stay healthy?

[TheCrew07]

His potential is that of a perennial CY candidate, I don't think there's any doubt that he's one of the top 5 pitchers in the game.

 

I was listening or watching someplace a couple of weeks ago and the talking heads were discussing how Strasburg had changed his approach trying to pitch less stressful innings by inducing ground balls earlier in accounts as opposed to trying to strike every hitter out. I'm not sure how much we can take from the 12 starts prior to his injury and the 9 starts since but he'd be elite even with a K rate around 8 for his career. He's currently at 10.8 through 21 starts.

 

As far as future injury risk goes, there's been plenty of analysis done on his delivery prior to the injury but I haven't actually gone out and looked and for any before/after video for comparison's sake. Prior to the injury he was an inverted W guy like Marcum. I just did a search and came up empty on a before and after video comparison but even with no change in his pitching motion he's 7-10 years away from having to worry about his elbow again.

 

Here's some in depth analysis from a couple of years ago.

[3and2Fastball]

His potential is that of a perennial CY candidate, I don't think there's any doubt that he's one of the top 5 pitchers in the game.

.

 

 

Thanks for your reply. My initial response would be: perennial Cy Young candidate at the very least. While I know the sample is very small, he looks to me like he could have the potential to be Top 10 - Top 20 Pitchers of All-Time. That is just potential though of course, who knows where he'll end up. The same sort of potential talk was made about Doc Gooden at a similar stage in his career....

[umphrey]

80 grade FB and 4 plus pitches

 

Id give out 2 or 3 80 FBs to starting pitchers right now

[jerichoholicninja]

His potential is that of a perennial CY candidate, I don't think there's any doubt that he's one of the top 5 pitchers in the game.

 

I was listening or watching someplace a couple of weeks ago and the talking heads were discussing how Strasburg had changed his approach trying to pitch less stressful innings by inducing ground balls earlier in accounts as opposed to trying to strike every hitter out. I'm not sure how much we can take from the 12 starts prior to his injury and the 9 starts since but he'd be elite even with a K rate around 8 for his career. He's currently at 10.8 through 21 starts.

 

As far as future injury risk goes, there's been plenty of analysis done on his delivery prior to the injury but I haven't actually gone out and looked and for any before/after video for comparison's sake. Prior to the injury he was an inverted W guy like Marcum. I just did a search and came up empty on a before and after video comparison but even with no change in his pitching motion he's 7-10 years away from having to worry about his elbow again.

 

Here's some in depth analysis from a couple of years ago.

 

I was trying to find some video of him to show my high school players of good pitchers with bad mechanics. What I found from this year he's getting his arm in a better position. The inverted W was gone.

[brettac1]

He's pretty incredible. His potential is definitely that of a perennial Cy Young candidate. He's there already. I really hope he can avoid severe injuries from here on out. I am very glad he's refined his mechanics, because I know watching him pre-injury, all I could see in my head was Mark Prior (who was probably my favorite pitcher to watch before he broke down).

[Ennder]

I don't think he'll make it to 1000 innings for a career to be honest but I think he will be highly effective when he does pitch.

[Invader3K]

Wasn't the inverted W thing sort of debunked a while ago?

[TheCrew07]

Wasn't the inverted W thing sort of debunked a while ago?

 

I'm not sure as I didn't read much about baseball at all last summer, but I doubt it. It's not so much the motion in itself is the problem, it's the most pitchers who have that type of delivery end up dragging their arm behind the rest of the motion which adds more stress at the elbow. It doesn't matter what you throw; football, softball, baseball, whatever... if the timing of your delivery is off your elbow is going to be sore.

 

For example, Marcum talked about becoming a total upper body pitcher in a couple of stories over the winter, he realized he had been pitching all arm. It's not so much how he broke his hands it's that he really wasn't using his muscles from his legs, through his core, through his arm in sync which puts more stress on the arm, not to mention he cost himself some velocity. I'm not sure he's even changed anything because I honestly haven't watched many games so far this season, I've been following most on Gameday because of the LR on the minor league forum and work. In short, it's all about relative angles at the release point and the easing of stress on key arm joints.

 

When throwing a stressful amount, you should feel tired in your muscles, not in your joints. I wish I could go back and teach myself in grade school what I know now because for the last 5 years or so I've been able to throw pain free for the first time since little league. I can throw 60-70 passes with a football everyday during the season which is something I couldn't do even as young coach in my mid 20s. If I threw a ton on Tuesday, I wasn't able to throw again without a long warm up until the following week. I don't play baseball or softball anymore, but the motions are essentially the same until release, the difference is to spiral a football you are basically throwing a screw ball every time, and hardly any pitchers throw that pitch anymore.

[mothershipconnection]

because for the last 5 years or so I've been able to throw pain free for the first time since little league

 

I still can't, and I gave up baseball in early high school and hardly pitched. I tried to whip every throw in the spring without building up proper strength. I'm sure boxing also ruined some body parts, but now my shoulder clicks when I throw.

[Ennder]

Wasn't the inverted W thing sort of debunked a while ago?

 

It isn't about the inverted W, it is about why it is inverted. His balance is all screwed up which puts extra pressure on most of his body, you can have an inverted W with good mechanics and be ok but his mechanics are just awful. If I had to put money on his career I would say the Nationals are in the playoff hunt mid season this year, they push him to 180+ innings, he suffers an injury mid season next year, comes back from that and isn't the same guy.

[Patrick425]

I just did a search and came up empty on a before and after video comparison but even with no change in his pitching motion he's 7-10 years away from having to worry about his elbow again.

 

 

What do you base this on?

[jerichoholicninja]

Wasn't the inverted W thing sort of debunked a while ago?

 

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/7712916/tommy-john-surgery-keeps-pitchers-game-address-underlying-biomechanical-flaw-espn-magazine

 

ESPN just wrote a nice article about it recently.

[TheCrew07]

I just did a search and came up empty on a before and after video comparison but even with no change in his pitching motion he's 7-10 years away from having to worry about his elbow again.

 

 

What do you base this on?

 

An educated guess based on the history of TJ surgery performance and reduced pitch counts per outing, certainly nothing scientific. Sorry I should have made that more clear as I don't think his mechanics are anywhere near as bad as some do. He made it through Babe Ruth, High School, and College pitching the way he was. We've had players who haven't made it to A ball before TJ surgery.

[3and2Fastball]

ESPN just wrote a nice article about it recently.

 

That is a great article, thank you for that. That writer seems to be saying that further injury to Strasburg's elbow is inevitable due to undue extra stress he puts on his elbow because of timing issues where his arm lags behind his body in his delivery.