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December 12, 2012

Trevor Bauer needs to be left alone

Trevor Bauer has been traded to the Cleveland Indians as part of a three-team deal. Over the weekend, I was fortunate enough to have presented at Ron Wolforth's Ultimate Coaches' Bootcamp in Montgomery, Tex., with Bauer, who spoke at length on using the lower half in the pitching delivery (with Eric Binder).

Bauer on the left, me third from the left

It's no secret that the Arizona Diamondbacks had issues with Bauer's workout routine, which involves a 60-plus minute warmup using implements like the Oates Shoulder Tube:



As well as "extreme" long toss prior to games:



Jerry DiPoto sought Bauer while he was the director of scouting in Arizona. However, after Kevin Towers replaced GM Josh Byrnes, DiPoto eventually moved on to Anaheim as the GM. It's been said that DiPoto was one of Bauer's last allies, needing to step in to prevent the player development department from further infringing on his workout routines, which include daily throwing in-season.

Let's look at his mechanics—he was kind enough to upload tons of high-speed footage on YouTube:



Overhead shot:



His deceleration pattern is extremely efficient: He rotates his throwing shoulder forward into the target significantly farther than most pitchers. This pattern allows force to be applied to the baseball in increasingly straighter lines, which is naturally more efficient and less injurious on the elbow and shoulder. Force is best applied parallel to the direction of acceleration instead of perpendicular to the lever arm. For a stark contrast, look at Stephen Strasburg's release point, which is much earlier in the delivery:



Bauer also trains and exhibits solid use of pronation through and after release of the baseball, which theoretically reduces stress on the elbow by engaging the muscles of the medial forearm (pronator-flexor mass). This and the deceleration pattern, are mainstays of the teachings at Ron Wolforth's Texas Baseball Ranch.

Bauer's training: Leave him alone

Bauer's training includes plyometrics, medicine ball training, wrist weights, rubber tubing, and a host of other things (for more information, check out The Athletic Pitcher for a basic overview). However, one thing stands out: It includes tons of throwing, often with weighted baseballs. While major league clubs are afraid that more throwing equals more injuries, we've enacted tons of pitch count and innings restrictions with no evidence that they work.

Representatives from the Cleveland Indians (including their minor league pitching coordinator) were in attendance over the weekend to hear Bauer speak. So were many other coaches who strongly believe in constant throwing year-round. Ken Knutson, pitching coach at Arizona State, has implemented a similar training program at ASU. Total number of surgeries on his pitchers over the last eight years? Zero. Only 180 days of injury time in that span, with 100 coming from a single player who didn't even play at ASU (he committed but went to pro ball).

There is room for concern when it comes to the Indians, however. One of Knutson's pitchers when he was at the University of Washington was Nick Hagadone, the fireballing lefty in Cleveland's bullpen. Hagadone credits his workout routine with getting him from the mid-80s his junior year to the mid-90s his senior year. Despite this, the indians reportedly curtailed much of his workout program after he was traded to them from the Red Sox in the Victor Martinez deal. Will they treat Bauer the same way?

To those in Cleveland's player development group, I humbly suggest this: Let thse two pitchers do their thing for one full year without interfering. Simply let them do what got them to the big leagues in the first place and made them first-round draft picks. It makes no sense to change that.

Moneyball and Oakland have had a profound effect on professional baseball with regard to statistical evaluation of players and the quantification of runs scored and wins credited. It will be another low-budget team that initiates the revolution in player development, and there's no reason it couldn't be Cleveland.

The Indians fan in me sure hopes it will be.
Posted by: Kyle Boddy

January 04, 2012

Melvin Mora career highlights

As 2011 came to a close, former Baltimore Oriole Melvin Mora announced his retirement. This isn’t too surprising since Arizona (his last team) cut him midseason and no one picked him up. Still, Mora’s recent decision to out-and-out retire makes it official.

Mora had an impressive career for someone who was such a late bloomer. Only seven men who debuted in their age-27 season or later have ever played in over 1,500 games: Jimmy Austin, Bob Johnson, Ichiro Suzuki, Davey Lopes, Bill Bruton, Earl Averill and Mora.

Many of those guys had circumstances delay their start. It was the race line for Bruton, the Pacific Ocean for Ichiro, and Averill was a Pacific Coast League star before the minor leagues were fully tamed. Mora was just a late bloomer.

Now that he’s gone, let’s look back on his career with the Mets, Orioles, Rockies, and Diamondbacks. Listed below are his career highlights—his best and worst performances, the greatest and most important games he played in, as well as incredible and unusual occasions he was on hand for. Here’s the list:
Click for more...

Posted by: Chris Jaffe

October 31, 2011

Postseason predictions wrap-up

Twenty Hardball Times staffers made their predictions of how the 2011 postseason would play itself out. Some proved prescient, a few less so. Let's take a look at the rankings to see whose guesses came closest to, and shortest of, perfection.

Scoring was based on a 5-3-1 system similar to regular-season awards: If someone picked a Division Series correctly, that person received one point, choosing an LCS winner garnered three points, while being a fortune teller and predicting the World Series winner earned five points. (Nobody got those five points.)

Here are everyone's picks and the results, ranked by total points.
Click for more...

Posted by: Greg Simons

October 18, 2011

LCS prediction results

With the World Series competitors set—and good luck to the Rangers and Cardinals—it's time to review how the Hardball Times' staff did in the League Championship Series and compare their picks to those of our readers' contest entries.

The champion picker among our readers—and the winner of a copy of The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2012—is Eugene Douglas. He eliminated any need for a World Series-winner tiebreaker by being the only entrant to have a team actually in the World Series.

Eugene tied for the lead going into the League Championship Series by picking three Division Series winners—Detroit, Texas and Milwaukee. (Note Detroit: He's a Yankees fan.) So the Rangers won it for him, which is only proper because he works as a software programmer in Washington, D.C., where the Rangers once played....

The Annual, currently in production, will be available later this fall. We'll be sure to let you know on this site exactly when you can order yours.

There were a couple of mistakes in our previous article about Hardball Times staff picks, with "Prescient" Ben Pritchett already given credit for his pick of the Tigers winning the LDS, which put him in a three-way tie at that time. Additionally, Mat Kovach had correctly chosen the Cardinals over Philly, so he vaulted into a tie with Ben and Greg Simons with three LDS picked accurately.

In the LCS round, only Ben, Greg and Sam Hendrickson chose one of the World Series entrants correctly; Ben and Sam picked Texas, while Greg selected St. Louis.

Using a 1-3-5 scoring system, right now, Ben and Greg are tied with six points each. The only THT staffer who has a shot at getting another pick right is Sam, who chose Texas to win the Fall Classic. Check back after the World Series for the full results rundown.
Posted by: THT Staff

October 08, 2011

Our predictions (and yours)

Now that the Division Series are over—with each of the two NL series ending in dramatic fashion Friday—let's review how the Hardball Times' staff did and compare their picks to those of our readers contest entries.

Among our staff, Ben Pritchett—who was our winner for best predictions of which teams would make the playoffs—picked three of the Divsion Series winners correctly, as did Greg Simons. Nine people were right on two outcomes, eight picked only one correctly...and then there's Steve Treder. Poor Steve whiffed on all four series, but he can take comfort in the fact that his favorite team won the World Series last year.

Three of us have both our World Series entrants alive, 12 have one of them, and five are shut out from here on out. And exactly half of the 20 voters have their predicted World Series champion still in contention.

How does this stack up against our readers' picks? Well, three of you picked three Division Series out of four: Matthew Warden (Texas, Milwaukee and St. Louis), Trip Von Minden (Detroit, Texas, Milwaukee) and Eugene Douglas (Detroit, Texas, Milwaukee). One of them will win a 2012 Hardball Times Annual. Next tiebreaker: The League Championship Series.


Posted by: THT Staff


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