2-seamer Vs. a 4-seamer - Carlos Gomez Thoughts

Since we got into a discussion about these pitches, I thought I would ask the expert: Carlos Gomez. He posts his regular column "Bullpen Mechanics - A Scout's View" on The Baseball Factory plus has written columns for The Hardball Times as well. I also asked him about young pitchers and breaking pitches. He was gracious enough to answer, which I cut out his e-mail and pasted here:

It seems unlikely that Lincecum throws only 2-seamers. I've been wrong before, but it doesn't make sense to me.

2-seamers generally have more movement. Most, if not all, sinkers are thrown with a 2-seam grip. 4-seamers are generally the pitch that hard throwers employ when they are trying to blow the ball past the hitter and have him swing under it. 4-seamers tend to stay up more than 2-seamers so it is a power pitcher's fastball.

IT seems unlikely that Lincecum throws only a 2-seamer, but if he doesn't, and is able to learn to throw a 4-seamer effectively, he should be able to throw more fastballs upstairs past hitters. A guy with Lincecum's arm slot and velocity should really throw mostly 4-seamers in my opinion.

There is evidence that in young pitchers whose arms aren't fully developed that throw too many curveballs, their forearm bones (radius, ulna?) develop abnormally. Breaking pitches that are thrown incorrectly are very stressful on the arm. More than anything, it's the incorrect technique of the pitch and probably not the pitch itself that hurts the kid. Until I get better info and research, I won't let kids throw curveballs til age 13 or later (depending on development).

Hope that answers your questions. That game was fun watching last night. Those two are the best examples of the mechanics that I advocate.

Carlos

Thanks again to Carlos for his informative response, I greatly appreciate it. It confirms what Mike Krukow said in his morning radio show, that as good as Lincecum is now, already blowing away guys, he hasn't even learned to use a pitch that would make him that much harder to hit. Boggles the mind how good he can become.

I feel like screaming "pinch me, I must be dreaming!". :^)

Russ Ortiz's Mechanics Improvement Explained

Carlos Gomez has another analysis of a Giants' pitcher's mechanics up again - if you will recall, he covered Matt Cain's and Tim Lincecum's mechanics, in full, just a little while ago - and this time he tackles Russ Ortiz, and while not fully, it is, more importantly, about the different between last year and this year.

It is pretty cool, Carlos points out the exact different thing that Ortiz is not doing: he is breaking his hands earlier. Now, I have no idea what that means and even after he explains it all, I had no idea, but watching the video over and over again, I finally saw what he meant: his pitching arm cocks much faster last year and, while I took physics I am not totally sure what exactly happens, but it appears that the momentum he creates with his arm cock is dissipated by breaking it earlier, and thus he loses that additional velocity and apparently that caused his cut fastball not to cut anymore, or at least not enough to fool major league hitters. As Carlos notes, his throwing motion "this year seems like it's uninterrupted", which I suppose means that the throwing motion builds up the momentum imparted to the pitched ball, rather than just going along for the ride and losing the momentum that the arm can deliver.

But I swear, except for that one little detail, I cannot tell the difference between the two videos. It is incredible to me that just one little detail can be so important to a pitcher. It makes Lincecum's stuff all the more wonderous that he can duplicate that throwing motion over and over again, as even one little detail like this take something away from your velocity as a pitcher. Somebody should give Carlos a job in the professional baseball, this is great stuff, and, you know, it could have been worth, oh, about $22M to the D-backs if they had Carlos around.

I would also note, for long-suffering Giants fans who have a love/hate relationship with Ortiz that if you look at the two videos, Ortiz clearly - though he was never slim - lost a lot of weight between the two videos. I realize that the camera angle might be different and makes Russ looks bigger in the Arizona video, but what I'm referring to is basically how his clothes hang on him, it seems more puffy in the Arizona video than the Giants video.

Lincecum-ming Down the Mound

Carlos Gomez delivers! He has posted his evaluation of Tim Lincecum at the Baseball Think Factory.

He describes Lincecum as "controlled fury":

• His speed/tempo overall in delivering the pitch is good. "He's quick, he's aggressive and there's not much to not like in this department... He's good, really good."
• Specifically, his arm action "got to be one of the quickest arms anywhere. That is just insane... What's not to like?" (though there is one thing he doesn't like that he thinks he may be nitpicking on) He notes that Lincecum's body is basically making the arm move forward.
• The lower body is where it gets interesting, Carlos states (like everything else isn't interesting! :^). He notes that Lincecum leads with his butt/hips as he carries his body forward. My hazy memory of physics is that the butt/hips being where your center of weight is and most of your mass, he builds up momentum there which he then transfer to his arm, and then the ball as he completes his pitch. He also notes that he has the "stepover" move that Matt Cain uses too and describes it thusly: "How aggressive is Lincecum's move? Outstanding, just outstanding." Lastly, he notes how Lincecum looks like he is jumping off the mound. (Does that sound familiar? That was how Zito's new pitching delivery he showed off his first day was described as. Maybe Lincecum's dad can give Zito some pointers) This results in him releasing his pitch that much closer to the plate, giving the batter that much less time to react to a 97 MPH pitch. Carlos didn't mention it, but my physics tell me that this extension helps to impart more velocity as his jump adds to the velocity of the pitch.
• Here is his summary:

  I'm almost too giddy in praise of Tim Lincecum. The power he can generate out of a 5'10", 155 lb body is just plain ridiculous. Of course, there's injury risk. He's young, he's aggressive, and his mechanics are uncommon. We know a little
  about his college workload. I can see why some may shy away from someone like this. Like I said in the draft review,
  
  "Might scare some, doesn’t scare me."

Doesn't that make you feel all warm and fuzzy feeling? Looking at his pitching motion here, I did get a flash of Sandy Koufax, who I've seen archival footage on TV before - Koufax's pitching motion was studied by Lincecum's dad, Chris, and helped him develop his theories about how a pitching motion should be, resulting in his masterpiece, his son.

All I can say is to repeat what I suggested before: hire Tim's dad to teach our pitchers how to throw better. From what I've been reading in Carlos's excellent analyses, a lot of the stuff makes sense from a physics point of view and even if he cannot change every pitcher to do that, it seems like there are the individual bits that go into an efficient pitching motion that Tim's dad could advise to our pitchers and have them add a little speed to their pitches. And sometimes a little speed is all it takes.

To this, I now would add that whoever the ex-ballplayer who helped Matt Cain out in terms of learning how to properly pitch, the Giants should try to scout each and every pitcher he has taught to see if there's another Matt Cain in the bunch. Or maybe we can hire him too.

While I'm at it, there's an article on Yahoo about Lincecum by Jeff Passan. Nothing really new there, but it is nice to see people nationally get excited by him. Plus there is a video on Youtube linked in there (is it OK for Yahoo to promote a Google site? :^).

Article on Cain's Mechanics Up on The Hardball Times

As I had noted previously, Carlos Gomez was going to analyze Matt Cain's mechanics. The article is up on The Hardball Times: Bringin’ Some Serious Cheese: Matt Cain.

It kind of makes you fall in love all over again with Matt Cain. Man-love, of course. :^) The low down:

• He's among the quickest around
• Arm action as close to ideal
• His lower body uncoils into his upper, with a "stepover" move that adds MPH
• "Great, powerful, aggressive finish."

The only worrisome comments is that "shoulder problems" cropped up twice in the article. First in the section on Arm Action, about how his shoulder loads and unloads. Second, in the section on At Release, apparently Cain does an old school "yanking the glove into the hip" that the author feels would increase the likeliness of shoulder problems plus lead to an inconsistent release point, which would account for his high walk rate.

FYI: he kindly let me know that his Lincecum article will be done in a few more days.