Is the "Perfect Model" always perfect and the pitching guru wars

SMART POWER FOR PITCHERS: SMART POWER TRAINING SYSTEMS FOR PITCHERS

				SMART POWER FOR PITCHERS: SMART POWER TR... The following is a response from Paul Nyman to a post on the internet about over and underload training: The ...
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This was the tail end of one of my exchanges with Paul Nyman @ SETPRO one of the early pioneers in the pitching guru wars. He was pretty good with advanced training methods for hitters as well.

The following is a response from Paul Nyman to a post on the internet about over and underload training:

The Slav,

Words can be very difficult medium for communication. Stress for a marathoner is different than stress for a pitcher.

Stress to me means elevating the level of activity beyond the point of normal activity.

So if a person is normally throwing a baseball at 80 mph, we must find a way to elevate the stress on his body beyond the 80 mph level.

There is both physical and mental stress.

One of the least understood training issues is the need to create explosive "intent".

Without opening a can of worms, tribe999 asked the question of what is a difference in philosophy in between "other programs" and SETPRO's.

One significant difference is my belief that we need to train the intent to throw hard as opposed to following a mechanical sequence.

The way that pitching mechanics is being taught (in general) is by "picture association".

In other words a visual and verbal representation of the pitching process is used to convey the "external" picture (information) of the pitching process.

It is then left for the person doing is picture or reading the words to "internalize" this information into a sequence (motor program) of posture and muscular actions.

The problem with this is that a lot of the important information cannot be or should I say is not being transmitted by many of these pitching programs, pitching.com being one of them.

And it is not because they are intentionally doing this. It's because they just don't know how to create a richer picture (more information that can be used to more effectively create the internal actions necessary).

In short this is a long-winded way of my saying there's a difference between a pitcher being mechanical and having good mechanics (maximizing his potemtial).

I don't subscribe to the principal that if you work on your mechanics "that velocity will come".

Your velocity will not happen unless you make it happen.

If this occurs because of a specific pitching program, that all well and good.

But is not the pitching program that develops your velocity, it is YOU the player that develops the velocity.

The pitching program is/was only a means for you to achieve that.

I guess you might say that I have a more "holistic" approach to developing pitchers.

As opposed to the cure by "prescription" approach.

Anyway, back to the question of stress.

By definition as long as the effort to throw as hard as possible is there, throwing a different weight baseball has the possibility of creating greater stress.

One of the physiological aspects of the body that I don't think is really understood as much as it should by those who wish to improve their ballistic performance i.e. throwing or swinging a baseball bat, is a fact that muscular response is not linear to the force applied.

I see this phenomenon very clearly if you measure the velocity of a player throwing different weighted baseballs.

Many players can throw a 6 ounce baseball as hard (same velocity) as a five ounce baseball. Even though the 6 ounce baseball is 20 percent heavier than a five ounce baseball. This is a great illustration (to me anyways) that this particular player(s) is not trained to their maximum throwing capabilities.

The reason I say this is because with players that I work with who I believe are throwing a very high-level in terms of their potential, there is a noticeable or significant difference in velocity of their throwing a regulation five ounce baseball as compared to a 6 ounce baseball.

The same is true with them throwing a five ounce baseball as compared to a four ounce baseball.

So therefore players inability to throw a 6 ounce baseball almost as hard as a five ounce baseball indicates that there is undeveloped potential primarily in the form of neuromuscular capabilities.

And in fact significant gains can be made in short periods of time due to neuromuscular recruitment as opposed to developing additional muscle strength.

The intent to throw hard, the intent to swing hard is every bit if not more important than the actual building a strength of the muscle itself.

And we continue to "bump heads" with the specificity principal. Especially the higher we attempt to rise in our athletic capabilities.

I believe that longer durations or lower level throwing, and we have to be very careful asked what we mean by lower level, can be beneficial because my belief that prolong stress, assuming its above a certain level, will lead to physical adaptations in the form of increased tissue size (tendons and ligaments in particular).

And we have to be very careful in what is meant by duration and intensity.

But low level throwing will not in itself develop the neural systems to be explosive.

For those people or very involved in trying to understand how the body develops athletic power, there are different classifications for this power.

As example for football the training professional is more concerned with strength-speed development.

This is different than what the baseball trainer is concerned with for a pitcher, that being speed-strength development.

As far as Coop DeRenne's program, I think is a very good and very safe program to use.

I believe the SETPRO program goes beyond what DeRenne's program started (my sales pitch for today).

As far as MLB and college coaching and training philosophy, I agree 100 percent that their primary job is to maintain a player's ability to perform everyday. As opposed to maximizing their daily performance.

When I was in Atlanta at the National Strength and Conditioning Sport Specific Training Seminar for Baseball, the head training person for the Cleveland Indians said that if a player injured himself because he was doing something that the trainer recommended and was not part of the normal training routine for that athlete then the next day he would be out looking for a new job.

Dr. Frank Fultz of the Atlanta Braves related the same story about Chipper Jones. That Chipper Jones have to come to him and that Chipper have to take total responsibility for his decisions before Dr. Fultz would designed a more aggressive training program for Chipper. This training program resulted in Chipper Jones increasing his strength significantly and going from 20 plus homeruns to 50 homeruns the next season.

I have said hundreds of times that if you expect to perform at the highest level you have to accept the risk of this expectation.

But the key point is that it is "managed" risk.

You use sound training principles, something which most baseball people haven't or won't learn about.

Training principles that former "high jumpers" knew about thirty years ago.

Principles that former major league pitchers or s should I say say someone who pitched three innings in the Major Leagues has no idea about.

Slav, I'm sorry, your post was such a good one, good questions and no sarcasm, but I couldn't resist.

Paul Nyman

Theses discussions around a set of "perfect" pitching mechanics came back to me front and center when I heard Mark Prior on MLB/Sirius say that he "cringed" when he heard the term used to describe his mechanics.

https://www.si.com/thecauldron/2016/08/03/mark-prior-chicago-cubs-no-regrets

Given what happened, I still grimace when I think about those people who said I had perfect mechanics. The Kershaws, the Greinkes, the Arrietas — even they have times when their mechanics are off, and they are the best pitchers on the planet. As a pitcher, there are just times when you feel like you can’t sync up; when your sequence is off. That’s a big part of a pitcher’s responsibility: To execute and to find that groove. I never thought my mechanics were perfect. I just thought that I had a solid delivery that suited my body. I threw the way I had been taught; the way I had since I was six years old.

This was Tom House's doing, using words more to sell than to inform, but it is what it is. If I were to apply the term "perfect" to anyone's mechanics, and I would use the word optimal, it would be Nolan Ryan, who threw 95+ from 19 years old to 45 years old at the MLB level, without much injury down time, except his blister problems early in his career, which may have been related to his National Guard duties. Next, would be Tom Seaver. 

We've come full circle in trying to change arm-slots and mechanics around some pre-conceived models, that we almost ruined guys like Jake Arieta, Clayton Kershaw, Madison Bumgarner and others, who were changed, floundered and then insisted on their own that they were going to either succeed or fail by doing it "My Way" like Sinatra.

If it ain't broke, stop trying to break it! - CS

Bumgarner hit hard in spring debut, A's beat Giants 9-4 | Yahoo Sports

I am worried more about this comparison to Hamels circa 2008-2009 than the A's mini-shelling in a practice game. I saw this in a story somewhere and immediately started feeling uneasy. Then the mini-shelling just made it worse. Even though it was in a practice game.

Cole Hamels threw 262.1 innings in 2008 in a World Series MVP season. The following season was the worst of his career (4.32 ERA, 1.286 WHIP). 

from Yahoo Sports:
Bumgarner hit hard in spring debut, A's beat Giants 9-4 - Yahoo Sports:

"Right now I'm not worried about results," Bumgarner said. "It's about getting my body back in the rhythm of making pitches, and competing. You want to get guys out, but it's more about getting my arm in shape."

'via Blog this'

Some of this is carry over from this blurb from the book Baseball Between the Numbers:

One of the earliest analyses of historical trends in pitcher usage was the landmark 1989 book The Diamond Appraised by Craig Wright and Tom House. The authors looked at pitchers of various ages and their workloads and discovered that young pitchers who pitched to a high number of batters per game seemed to get hurt more often. This was the beginning of the modern movement to monitor pitch counts.

In the mid-1990'2 Baseball Prospectus's Rany Jazeyern was one of the first researchers to try to organize and codify what the mishmash of evidence on pitch counts was telling us. He summed it up in his principle of pitcher fatigue: Throwing is not dangerous to a pitcher's arm. Throwing while tired is dangerous to a pitcher's arm.

All this statistical (over)analysis led to things like pitchers abuse points (PAP), and the dreaded Verducci effect which states:

Last week, Sports Illustrated writer and Jason Parks man-crush Tom Verducci put out his annual column warning about a specific type of player: A young pitcher (25 or younger) who saw a significant increase in his workload in the previous season over the season before that (defined as an increase of at least 30 innings, including postseason and minor-league work). Verducci claims that this sort of pitcher is in danger of either a significant injury and/or a performance decline in 2013 because his 2012 was much busier than his 2011. It's a proposition that's become known as the Verducci Effect.

From a rational standpoint, I should be comforted by this article which should have put a Dr. Kervorkian on the Verducci Effect (also dubbed the Year After Effect) but some of these old statistical theories die hard. Funny how that works, since the SABR folks often accuse baseball folks of the same mentality of clinging on to past theories even after they have long out-lived their utility.

And I'm still going to worry about Bumgarner just a little bit, but I'm going to wait until real-live hitters hitting in real-life situations tell me something different about him.

How perfectly old-school can you get?

from Deadspin.com
http://deadspin.com/5877565/the-verducci-effect-is-overworked-and-broken-down

Sports Illustrated's Tom Verducci came out with his annual "Year After Effect" column yesterday, based on his hypothesis that that young pitchers tend to break down the season after an increased workload. Specifically, a pitcher 25 and under is supposed to be at risk if he pitched at least 30 more innings than his previous career high.

Dubbed the "Verducci Effect" by Will Carroll at Baseball Prospectus, it's one of the most prominent early examples of a happy marriage between analytics and old journalism. Sabermetricians were some of the loudest critics of the overuse that may have contributed to the early decline of Mark Prior, Ben Sheets, and other pitchers who debuted in the early aughts.

But the Verducci Effect probably doesn't exist. Its continued popularity has little to do with the power of numbers to support rational observation and everything to do with their power to baselessly reinforce existing beliefs. The article is an example of three pervasive mistakes that the general public makes about statistics:

• Regression to the mean: When an outcome is far above or below expectation, the subsequent results tend to be closer to the average. How does a young pitcher make Verducci's list? By having been healthy and successful enough to earn a greater workload. So by chance alone, you'd expect some members of that group to pitch worse, and you'd certainly expect to see some of them get hurt. Derek Holland's good health allowed him to pitch 71 more innings than he ever had before. If he gets sidelined in 2012, it will have more to do with the random nature of injuries than with Rangers mismanagement.

• Confirmation bias: People tend to rely on anecdotal examples that confirm what they already think. There's little attention paid to the pitchers who repeat their healthy seasons the year after; instead, fans fixate on the ones that get hurt. Mets fans might look at Jon Niese's 2009 injury and point to Verducci's warning label. They'd be ignoring the fact that no other pitcher that Verducci identified in '09 spent a single day on the disabled list.

 • Correlation does not equal causation: Verducci is correct that some pitchers who pitch 30 innings more than their career highs tend to get hurt. However, that doesn't mean that his rationale for why that happens is valid. After I read his article, I went to the bathroom and peed. That doesn't mean I peed as a result of reading.

Every study I could find on the Verducci Effect suggests that it at best doesn't exist and at worst is backwards. David Gassko's 2006 study focused on the possibility of a decline in performance, and found an increase:

OK, so what happens if we limit ourselves to pitchers who threw at least 100 innings in year two? Actually, a funny thing. The pitchers who best their career high by at least 30 innings go on to throw 90% more innings in year three than they do in year one, and those who didn't only throw 78% as many innings. What's more, while the [year-after effect] candidates have an ERA 9% lower in year three than it was in year one, the guys who were accustomed to the big workload do not improve their performance at all.

Much ado about nothing.

Will Matt Harvey be the next Tom Seaver? Or Jeremy Shockey? How about Matt Harvey 1.0?

'67 Mets - Seaver, Koosman, Gentry and some guy named Ryan. First name was Nolan I think.

The Mets have been blessed with great pitching staffs at various times in the franchise history. Now, it seems like they are looking to usher in the next wave. Comparing Matt Harvey to Tom Seaver is quite heady stuff, but remember this is from the same pool of  group-thinkers that was ready, willing and able to order up a Hall of Fame bust for one Jeremy Shockey. And we see how that turned out.

So maybe he is Tom Seaver 2.0. Based on this side by side comparison, sure. Maybe better.

from Bleacher Report:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1618383-comparing-matt-harveys-first-15-mlb-starts-to-tom-seavers

Harvey's off to a great start, no doubt. Based on about a half-season of starts in his career ( small sample ) you can get to a 14-10 record 198 IP, 232 K's all good solid numbers. Even better for a 23-year old who is 6-4, 235 lbs. From there we can project further. He is, after all, only 23 years old. He can only get better, right? Well, no not really, but it's easier and more fun to project from that premise.

Pitching
Year	Team	G	GS	W	L	SV	BS	HLD	CG	SHO	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP	BAA
2012	NYM	10	10	3	5	0	0	0	0	0	59.1	42	19	18	5	26	70	2.73	1.15	.200
2013	NYM	6	6	4	0	0	0	0	0	0	40.1	21	7	7	2	12	46	1.56	0.82	.153
Career		16	16	7	5	0	0	0	0	0	99.2	63	26	25	7	38	116	2.26	1.01	.182

"He can only get better". Maybe after potential, the most damning words that can be laid on a prospect. And "projection" is a word that in hindsight gets scouts and analysts in as much trouble as the word  "potential" gets a player into.

Because the players' "perceived potential" flows naturally from the "expectations" put onto them that flow from the scouts / analysts "faulty projections". And who gets burned publicly? Not the scout or the analysts. The player who didn't live up to the "flawed analysis", that's who.

Because let's face it, in the entire range of possibilities three things can happen. He can progress or get better and that's where the mind's first reflex goes to wander. But he can also get worse (GASP!!) or remain virtually the same (DULL, no projection!?!). We never consider the other two possibilities as much. There's no fun in that.

from Yahoo Sports:
 http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-league-stew/ten-surprises-first-month-2013-baseball-season-203335280.html

4. Matt Harvey owns April: Savvy baseball pundits knew a Matt Harvey breakthrough year was a possibility, but that doesn't discount the fact that he's been the breakout star of the first month of the season. On an otherwise boring New York Mets pitching staff, the 24-year-old Harvey has been pitching more like Stephen Strasburg than Stephen Strasburg has. Harvey is 4-0 and is in the top five for strikeouts, ERA and WHIP.

I know everybody wants to be recognized as the first to "call" this guy the next whoever or whatever. It drives traffic and gets your name in the paper and junk as the "next" prospect guru, but... let's just see if the kid can be the first Matt Harvey, shall we? 

Comparisons to Seaver right out of the chute are a bit unfair to the kid. Give him time to be himself NY.

IMO, Seaver and that Ryan kid on the far right of that photo shown above were the two closest things to the "perfect pitcher" model that Tom House tried to pigeon-hole Mark Prior into. And we see how that went....good for Tom House, not so good for Mark Prior.

Talk about flawed analysis and unreasonable expectations.