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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.