Mechanic question?

I am not going to give you pros and cons of this. I am going to simply make this statement. I talking to a ex-mlb pitcher he said this. Why are there so many 5 foot 9 Latin American pitchers that can throw 90+ but yet we have so many 6 foot 4 American born pitchers that can barely hit 80? It is because in Latin America all they care about is can you throw strikes and can you throw hard. In America however we are obsessed with tinkering because we do not like the way it looks. IMO if your son can throw strikes, does it really matter?

I have no idea the best answer to the question but am curious to hear from those who have a strong opinion.

It doesn't seem the take away is as important as where his hand is when he finishes the stretch phase and everything is about to come to the plate. What is the position of his wrist then?

The positon of the wrist is pretty good once he comes to the plate. He throw a lot of strikes and has a good breaking ball with this wrist action.

If it ain't broke then don't fix it. Remember we are trying to create baseball players and not robots. I think socal nailed it when he mentioned what he was discussing with the MLB player. Throw it hard and throw it at the edge of the zone and good things will happen.

Only concern here needs to be whether his delivery is causing him any joint pain. If that's the only flaw in his mechanics; and he's throwing well, I'd let it go.....

If im am picturing what he is doing correct in my head, then it sounds like the ball is facing his head at the top point of his seperation. If this is so, I would really keep an eye on him because it is elbow surgery waiting to happen. Watch the rotation of the ball when he throws a fastball, and if it has a spin that looks like a loose slider, then he needs to get some pitching instruction quick before you have doctor's bills for Tommy John Surgery.

It looks alot like Barry Zito motion.

W.Colt

This a red flag, or whatever you want to call it, and not much more.

Basically, what your son is doing is using his wrist muscles when he’s not supposed to be.

Call it wrist wrap. Call it c^ck^ng of the wrist. Call it curling. Call it hooking.

He is using more muscles than need to.

That means he outputs less power should the
argument of relaxed muscles are more powerful to use. Cocking of the wrist on the back side after separation are NOT the preferred effortless mechanics.

Pros vs Cons

Yes it is stressing that area of the arm during a unnatural motion of throwing a baseball.


Future shoulder soreness, or possibly nothing.

It’s just that his odds are probably higher for arm soreness with the wrist co^king than without it.

Can it be corrected?
It can. With patience and time.

When I see it I might promote trying to fix it.

With that certain arm motion, it might cause more problems to change the arm action than to leave it how it is and hope no injury problems.

To many, in general it isn’t very smart to alter pitching motions that are “working.”

Bottom Line:
A pitchers wrist wrap worries me slightly for injury’s sake.

It also worries me for command’s sake as the wrap causes his arm to lag and put another slower moving part in relatively quick motion.

One current starting pitcher in the big leagues that was a wrist wrapper in college was 'fixed' in three years.

Good luck. Keep us informed.

Cheers
Bear

Westcolts15,

quote:

“I have a question concerning my son's mechanics; he is a freshman in HS this year.”

Are you aware of his biological age? Is he an accelerated,equated or delayed maturer?

quote:

“He hooks his wrist with the ball on his take away.”

He is plantar flexing (palm towards forearm) contracting his wrist on the way back, this is the opposite of the dorsi-positioned (back of hand towards forearm) but plantar flexing at initial ball forwards force thru drive. He recovers in time during his transition and puts it in the proper wrist flexion ready to actually throw so do not worry about this, it is not injurious at this point worry about the other things this arm position related to the wrist causes.

quote:

“He says he see's many MLB pitchers doing it.”

Tell him seeing a MLB player performing traditional mechanics is actually very (over $500,000,000.00 in DL visits yearly) injurious and that there is a non-injurious way to perform his upper half mechanics. There is also a way to rid yourself of bottom half injuries also but people know less about later hip and knee replacements.

quote:

“I personally don't like it. Please help with the pro's con's of this type of take away.”

This is the most important aspect of eliminating late transition (traditional) centrifuging (most upper half injurious affects) and forearm bouncing (UCL degradation) that cumulatively degrades you with every pitch! How you bring the ball back initially that allows you to transition at different times is critical. If a pitcher brings the ball back with his forearm in a pronated position (thumb down) it will cause him to transition late just as if he took it back with a plantar flexed wrist but also pronated This position at glove side foot touch causes centripetal forces, supinated releases and bad transition timing late, all severely detrimental to the upper and lower half muscles, tendons, ligaments, cartilage and bone. Changing these three simple aspects rids you of most of the injurious mechanics.

By just taking the ball down and back straight to second base supinating (thumb up) allows a mid-transition or earlier and a pronated drive and finish on all pitches.
by attaining straighter driveline mechanics he can now learn how to perform the other two wrist flexions to present the balls axis to impart movement to both sides of the plate.
Ulnar flexion (little finger towards the side forearm) causes movement towards the ball arm side of home plate and Radial flexion (thumb towards the side forearm) causes movement towards the glove arm side of home plate both projected safely pronated where your elbow hinges instead of crashes. This also allows your elbow to finish up safely instead of down across your chest where inner shoulder and declarative injuries occur.

Are you the guy who have never been to my friend Soup's Sports Grill yet writes a detail analysis of his pitching mechanics?