Thursday, April 2, 2009

Watching Lincecum and Cahill more closely

Watching Tim Lincecum and Trevor Cahill throw tonight, I found myself looking for problems with their mechanics. Lincecum is considered a poster boy for arm injuries due to his unconventional approach to pitching. Cahill, who's had rotator cuff issues in his very young career, is criticized for his velocity issues.

Searching for content on Lincecum and Cahill, I stumbled upon chrisoleary.com, which dissected both pitchers' motions to home plate. What I discovered is Lincecum is actually quite OK with most of his delivery, although he does lift his pitching arm late which causes a timing problem and potential elbow/shoulder issues for the future. Cahill has his problems as well, as I found on another site. Those issues include opening his shoulders too early, which puts some undue stress on his shoulder, but I think his biggest problem is a lack of following through. He ends up very upright, which leads to some throwing across his body and potential velocity issues.

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