Last week, we posed a question: If you were to look at this young man’s delivery below, what do you think would be important to him?
We had a number of people respond and offer their best guesses. Out of all, the closest answers came from two people: Benjamin Schoettker and Joseph Vondrachek. Their responses were as follows:
Benjamin: “Get into his back leg and pushing.”
Joseph: “Seems to me that he might be thinking of loading into his back side/staying in his back leg or potentially pushing off his back leg.”
The two things this young man focused on were as follows:
Coil into back leg and explode out of it
Keep the arm short
There were a couple of people who recognized this young man was trying to coil and get into his back leg, but his thought had two parts to it. He was loading so he could explode out of it. It was a sit and push - not just a sit.
Let’s break it down.
The first thought was the one that most people figured out. Before this player even makes a move down the mound, he pre-sets with a ton of tension in his back leg. This suggests this area is very important to him. What happens downstream only confirms this.
When the lead leg comes up, this kids continues to sit into his back leg. This is where we can see the “coil” thought. The problem, however, is he doesn’t really go anywhere. Notice how his head is still stacked over the rubber?
Because this kid “coils” so much early, he pushes right out of the ground as he moves down the mound. This happens because he creates too much tension too soon. We only have so much time to hang on to tension. If we use it too early, we won’t be able to create it late - when we need it most.
As we go into foot strike, we see the problem with this early extension move. The pelvis and torso fail to stay closed and open up prematurely. By the time he’s actually ready to throw, his arm has started to lay back.
He’s not throwing his punch from deep. He’s losing it early.
Now let’s go to his second thought: Keep the arm short.
This thought was much tougher to pinpoint without context. However, based on what we see in the delivery, this would make sense. If the lower half pushes and extends early, the upper half ends up playing a game of catch up. The train doesn’t stay on the tracks. This can create feelings or sensations in the arm of being “late” or “long” with the arm.
He might be feeling the problem in the arm, but his arm isn’t the problem. The lower half is. His arm is being framed for a problem it didn’t create.
A tale of two pitchers: One MLB arm who benefited from getting shorter, and another who got significantly worse
Hint: One of them fixed their problem and is currently in the middle of the AL Cy Young race
Lower half patterns we see with pitchers who feel “late” with their arm
How certain guys compensate to get their arm up when it's not on time
Why everyone doesn't need to be long, but why everyone needs to get short at this specific moment in time
Short arm actions might be trendy, but there’s a lot more to it...
Congratulations again to Benjamin & Joseph on winning this week’s challenge! You'll receive a separate email with information on how to take advantage of your discount.
Thank you to everyone who submitted a response and gave it a shot!
