tsherkin wrote:Schadenfreude wrote:Better the elbow than the shoulder, but he's probably going to need to learn how to live at 94 rather than 98.
He seems to pitch, rather than throw, anyhow, so it won't be an issue, but haven't a bunch of guys come back throwing harder than they did pre-surgery? Not that I suggest he'll throw FASTER, per se, but I was under the impression that it didn't rob velocity that bad. Or did you mean that the motion for that power is what's causing the problem?
He has a fairly high-stress delivery, using the whip-like motion of his arm to generate power, and displays the dreaded inverted W at times. Chris O'Leary, who is the guru of pitching mechanics, has been warning about this for some time, and updated his post today:
http://www.chrisoleary.com/projects/Bas ... sburg.html In terms of his having elbow problems rather than shoulder problems, the fact is that it's hard to predict which will fail first because there are lots of variables involved. However, in many cases the elbow will fail before the shoulder does (especially if the pitcher relies heavily on his slider). For example, fellow Inverted W pitcher Anthony Reyes went down with elbow problems before his shoulder problems were able to take their toll.
Going forward, the way this typically works for Inverted W guys is that they come back from the surgery and look great for a few years and then their mechanics again take their toll, but on the shoulder this time. Given Strasburg's velocity, I'm thinking that, if nothing changes in his mechanics and he remains a starter, then the Nats will get one or two years of value out of him before his shoulder blows up.
For Strasburg to have any chance of pitching more than 5 years he's got to change his arm action and get rid of the Inverted W. He also needs to ditch the slider because that is an absolute killer of the elbows. Changing his arm action may knock 5 or so MPH off of his velocity, but that's what it's going to take to reduce the load on his arm.
As the UCL tends to go first in pitchers with mechanical flaws, followed by a slow fraying of the labrum over time. Thus, if Strasburg can't fix his mechanics (and accept that doing so will take some velocity off his pitches) he could end up wrecking his shoulder...and if he does, we go from waiting 'til he returns to wondering if he'll ever be an above-average starter again.
Edit: heh, I'll insert my bi-weekly "....and this is why we should trade Marcum in the off-season" comment here, as well.
