Goold had some pretty interesting stuff to report out of camp the other day. Several of the Cards pitching prospects are at camp early, watching video, doing long toss and working with the new roving pitching instructor Brent Strom. Those pitchers are Garcia, Ottavino, Perez, Boggs, Mortensen and Walters- which also says something about their prospect status. One of the things that really caught my attention the work being done by Michael Witte, an on-staff consultant. Witte is not an ex-player, he’s just a fan. Doing a little googling, I found this article about him in the New Yorker. Witte is an illustrator by profession. Bored by his normal routine, he started going through old videos of games that featured Bob Gibson, Don Drysdale, and Tom Seaver and felt he found common denominator in their mechanics and what helped them become so successful. He started sending his findings to the Cardinals, and eventually they came around on some of his theories. Sounds like our own version of Chris O’Leary or Carlos Gomez.
While I believe a good pitching coach worth his weight in salt ought to be able to find mechanical flaws in pitchers, I’m intrigued by the possibilities of utilizing video and finding what durable pitchers like Gibson and Seaver did to be successful and not fall apart while doing it. If many of our modern day pitching coaches already understood it, we wouldn’t see so many promising young players have their careers shipwrecked by injury. I’m glad the Cards have an open mind to this sort of stuff. And I’m liking what I hear about Strom’s desire to not make everyone cookie cutter. Adam Ottavino’s remarks show he’s pretty enthused. Maybe I’m reaching a bit here, but it sounds like they are willing to allow him to be himself instead of force-feeding him sinkerballism. With the changes in coaching staff and the new emphasis on “classic mechanics”, could it be the Cardinals are changing in philosophies? Just musing here…
…after typing that last sentence or two, I did a little more googling, this time on Strom. He is an ex-MLB pitcher, but what intrigued me was his work at Ron Wolforth’s Baseball Ranch. I actually heard an interview by Will Carroll with Wolforth on BP’s podcast a week or so ago; it was interesting stuff. Looking at their rather ugly website, they have some pretty out of the ordinary ideas. They emphasize going retro. In their own words they teach a pitching style that is “up-tempo, dynamic, athletic, free, non-choreographed, and individually unique movements of Hall of Fame pitchers such as Bob Feller, Sandy Koufax, Whitey Ford, Dizzy Dean, and Fergie Jenkins.” They have an accent on long-tossing to build arm strength and preach a paradigm shift in coaching, stressing freedom and allowing pitchers to use their athleticism rather then trying to be robots. There are certain elements they are looking for, and they are all for making some adjustments, but they aren’t in the cloning business.
I don’t know about you, but I’m digging this. While Koufax and Dean aren’t the poster boys of mechanical success given their relatively short careers, I like the freedom they are giving their pitchers and am excited for Ottavino in particular. We may witness some breakouts this season.
[update: DG has even more info on the relationship of Strom and Witte at his blog.]
Filed under: Adam Ottavino, Chris Perez, Clayton Mortensen, Jaime Garcia, Mitch Boggs, P.J. Walters
erik
azruavatar
fewgoodcards
roarke49
theredbaaron
hopefully they can come up with something to help perez and ottavino get their control problems ironed out. i don’t think walters needs to much help with this, he seems to have a pretty good idea of what he is doing on a mound.
Maybe there’s something Walters can do to add a couple mph to his fastball. Easy mph, that is, not just throwing harder. If P.J. could even hit 90 regularly he’d be my top prospect other than Rasmus.
I thought Goold’s article was one of the best he’s written.
any indication whether TLR and Dunc have bought into any of this?
Duncan is there everyday but I don’t think he is actively participating in the camp. I think this camp is a great idea, and it should be done every year. It gets all of the pitching coaches from all of the levels on the same page which is really important. Every pitcher that moves levels has a new pitching coach and they all want different things. This confuses the players and makes them think about their mechanics on each pitch as opposed to just going out and piching.
I know with Adam they want him to go back to his mechanics from college, and thats what they want him working on. I have never understood the Cards philosophy on every pitcher should be a ground ball pitcher. Ottavino has never been a ground ball pitcher and probably will never be. If they didn’t like his approach to getting batters out then I don’t understand why they took him where they did.
Hopefully this camp will help not only the pitchers attending but all of the pitchers in the organization. If the cards can get all of the pitching coaches on the same page I think it would help all of the players.
I can’t properly express how excited I am to hear these kinds of reports coming from the Card organisation. Everything I’m hearing jibes really well with my own beliefs; ie that a large part of the reason we see so many serious injuries to pitchers nowadays is the teaching ofimproper, ‘under control’ mechanics. Under control is a fine goal, but what you tend to end up with is passive mechanics, in which the brunt of the effort is borne solely by the player’s arm.
I’m particularly excited for Ottavino in all of this. I have long criticised his delivery as far too passive; a guy with hia size and physicality needs to use it! If this direction can get him to pitch more athletically and aggressively, I might just be amenable to being talked on to the Adam Ott bandwagon. I also think a more aggressive, natural approach might help to alleviate some of his control issues, as many of his problems with command seem to be due, paradoxically, to his attempts to pitch in a more controlled fashion.
Cardsfan1-
Ah, here we come to the crux of the thing, eh? You speak a common question when you ask why they drafted Ottavino if they didn’t like the way he pitched. Here we may have further proof, if in fact more were needed, of a house divided. I think we can clearly infer from all of this that the front office wing responsible for scouting and drafting players had, shall we say, different priorities from the wing responsible for developing those players. Remember, until very recently, the player devo wing was run largely by Jocketty’s people, such as Bruce Manno, and as recently as this past season, there was still a marked division of philosophies in the FO. I think we may just now be seeing a fully integrated drafting and development wing. I do especially wonder at Duncan’s feelings about these new ideas; I hope he really is on board with this current direction. Much of the two seam/downward plane philosophy is largely his influence, and I’m curious as to whether we’ll continue to see a disconnect in philosophy at the big league level. I fervently hope not, and I choose to believe, at least for the moment, that DD is not only open to, but excited about, exploring new avenues of philosophy in his stock in trade.
Again, I’m encouraged all out of measure by these ideas that we see being advanced by this organisation at the moment. I’m hoping this all comes to fruition very soon.
the thing i don’t understand about the whole 2-seam, 4-seam argument with ottavino is that he was throwing a 2-seamer in college. go back and watch his draft video, pretty much everything he threw was a 2-seam fastball.
i really don’t care if duncan is on board with it or not. most of our SP prospects are two years away anyway, and i don’t expect TLR/DD to be back. otoh, i didn’t expect them to be back this year, either.
fewgoodcards,
actually, ottavino threw pretty much all 4-seam fastballs in college. he just gets a decent amount of movement from his arm slot from his 4-seamer.
as i said in the last post but referring to this article, much of what they are teaching is related to teaching the mechanical consistencies of top pitchers from the past 4 to 5 decades. Tim Leveque details several major points in his work, including a) having the hips start the motion forward through what is commonly thought of as the “balance point,” b) leading with the front leg diagonal, and c) the arm being on time as the front foot is planted, with the head staying behind the hips in the power position (see Roger Clemens).
these are just a few of the major points i remember Leveque going over with us as our coach in Pittsfield. if anyone is interested i can go into more detail. much of it is similar to what carlos gomez and chris o’leary describe, except slightly different in their philosophy and analysis.
this is fascinating stuff. Seeing our top pitchers excited about this mini-camp is very cool and telling as well. I thought it was interesting that goold mentioned in yesterday’s article that walters will likely be competing for a memphis rotation spot in spring training. Our big league club might be a head-scratcher this season, but our minor league teams should be fun to keep tabs on all year long.
nuhusky-we are all ears, feel free to give us more details.
Memphis could be great this year.
Here is a possible roster for Memphis this year depending on call ups and promotions:
C: Anderson
1B: Phelps, Hamilton
2B: Hoffpauir
SS: Martinez, Ryan
3B: Craig
LF: Mather
CF: Rasmus
RF: Hearther, etc.
Rotation: Boggs, Garcia, Walters, Pairisi, Mort/Ottavino (optimistic on one of them getting up fast)
Pen: Worrell, random others
I doubt this will happen since lots of these players will probably see multiple levels and might never play on the same team at the same time. But it does give you hope that Memphis might not suck this year.
I am really excited by this development also. I see this as a way to get a leg up on the competition. Because of the way baseball’s economics have changed, with ALL teams being able to afford to lock up their young talent, the free-agent market is getting thinner every year. With less talent available, the price of those FA’s has risen to the point where almost all FA’s are “overpriced” for what they deliver. This has forced all major league teams to re-emphasize the development of players in their farm systems.
With everyone doing this there are two major consequences. One, there is much roster stagnation. I think Billy Beane recognized this and saw that the only way to turn over his roster is to trade good talent for more younger talent. I think that the days of remaking your team through free agency are over. The second consequence is that most if not all of the teams have added to their scouting budgets to help them draft more efficiently. I also think that more and more teams will break from the slotting reccomendations to sign talented players because they see that these players are “worth” the larger investment, despite the inherent risks.
So, why does that make me excited about this new idea? Well, with all teams emphasizing player development, an ability to develop more healthy young pitchers would give the Cards an edge over every other team. While the window for this advantage, if this works, will be relatively short (if it works all other teams will copy within a few years), that window of time would put the Cards way ahead of these other teams in terms of the sheer number of healthy pitching prospects they possess. That advantage would allow them to pick and choose the best of what they have and the rest of the young pitchers could bring a bounty in trades.
It all comes down to this for me. Why is there the axiom TINSTAPP? Because young pitchers get hurt…very often. If the Cards can lessen that injury chance they will gain a very large edge over the competition.
I’m glad to see there is a rationale they believe in, even if it goes against all the pundits at BA and other mags. I hope they are correct in thinking they are outsmarting everyone by drafting guys like Ottavino and Mortenson.
“Tim Leveque details several major points in his work, including a) having the hips start the motion forward through what is commonly thought of as the “balance point,” b) leading with the front leg diagonal, and c) the arm being on time as the front foot is planted, with the head staying behind the hips in the power position (see Roger Clemens).”
I’ll weigh in on this, if I may.
First, the mechanical stuf above is solid. While momentum is often over-valued (by people like Dick Mills and Brent Rushall) it is non-trivial. I’d say it contributes something like 20 percent of velocity. If you look at guys like Nolan Ryan or Sandy Koufax, they didn’t come to the balance point. Rather they drifted through the balance point, which helped them develop and then preserve their momentum. Also, timing is critical. I think that Matt Clement may be a better pick up than Cliff Politte b/c from what I can tell Clement has a timing problem (which is fixable) while Politte has an arm action problem (Inverted L) which is MUCH harder to fix.
Second, I have talked to Mike Witte a bit. I don’t have much of an opinion of his stuff yet because he won’t open the kimino. The only concern I have is methodological; whether he has looked at both successful guys and trainwrecks (e.g. Mark Prior). If all you look at are successful guys you run the risk of focusing on things that don’t really matter and missing the things that really make a difference. That may be a distinguishing factor of my approach, but I don’t know for sure.
Third, I talked to Carlos Gomez two night ago. It sounds like our ideas are converging (more than they are diverging). He is starting to buy into my arm action and timing stuff and I see where he’s coming from in terms of momentum and tempo.
Fourth, I agree with the house divided comments. You have to draft the kind of guys you want. You really can’t expect to change them very much once you’ve drafted them (which is why, among other things, I want to trade Anthony Reyes). I think the 2007 draft, with the Mortensen and Kopp choices (both of whom are mechanically clean groundball pitchers), suggests that the house is less divided. That IMO is a good thing.
Hi all,
Chris, I thought I was going to run into you here….LOL
A little correction though…yes, I am starting to buy into your arm action theories…well, into SOME aspects of it, mainly the height of the elbow relating to the shoulder. Inverted L’s and Inverted W’s don’t bother me as much as the Freddy Garcia arm action.
Timing is something I’ve long looked at…no need convincing me there.
Brent Strom is a Nyman disciple himself, as am I, to a lesser degree (which is to say that Strom is smarter than I am).
Cards’ fans, you are in good hands. Strom is a very smart individual. You might hear the terms “tempo”, “scap load”, “intent”, and “pelvic load” thrown around more than before.
FGC- I saw that you asked Derrick Goold a question on stltoday, and that he didn’t answer it, so I figured I would try to answer it. Basically the coaches in the system have completely changed ottavino’s mechanics. A few examples: they made him shorten his stride with his lead foot, they wanted his lead arm to be pointing towards home, instead of pointing towards 3rd as he used to do. They also wanted him to have a higher arm slot. As a result of these changes, he was over compensating in other aspect of his delivery i.e. stepping off the rubber on the 3rd base side, instead of the first base side like he used to.
When I was at one of the palm beach games last year I asked leveque, if each time you change levels a new coach wants you to do something different how do you know who to listen to, he told me that the player just has to decide what feels right for him. The “problem” with Adam is that he doesn’t want to seem difficult and wants to be a ‘coachable’ kid so he listened to everyone and had a hard time figuring it out. I know that it also messed with his confidence in his pitching ablility.
I don’t know if they have changed anyone elses mechanics I just know about Adam.
Anyway so theres a long winded answer to your simple question lol.
thanks for the response. hopefully he can get back to feeling comfortable and go out and dominate this year. i guess that just goes to show the rift that had formed in the organization. luhnow said part of the reason they drafted him was b/c of his great mechanics (and obviously his stuff), but then the field staff goes and changes them all up. doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, and hopefully they have that fixed.
Thanks for that little tidbit on Ottavino, CF1. I wasn’t aware there was such a specific situation involving his delivery. Fascinating. Frustrating, but fascinating.
One last thing. I really like the ideas, but that website is brutal. Good god. Someone needs to offer some pro bono web design work to those guys, because that is just awful.
“Basically the coaches in the system have completely changed ottavino’s mechanics. A few examples: they made him shorten his stride with his lead foot, they wanted his lead arm to be pointing towards home, instead of pointing towards 3rd as he used to do. They also wanted him to have a higher arm slot. As a result of these changes, he was over compensating in other aspect of his delivery i.e. stepping off the rubber on the 3rd base side, instead of the first base side like he used to.”
Some of this bothers me a bit.
I do like that they are trying to reduce his reverse-rotation (e.g. keeping his shoulders pointed more at the target).
However, at the ML level I really wouldn’t mess with a guy’s arm slot or stride length. Making dramatic changes to a guy’s mechanics isn’t a good idea. You should draft guys for the mechanics they have and not draft them if you don’t like their mechanics.