As my site gets around on the Internet, I see many questions from readers who are genuinely interested in pitching mechanics. I think that a lot of people see video-based scouting and analysis as the next Moneyball-esque field, where mainstream baseball shuts out otherwise intelligent individuals in favor of the old guard. Some people will point to Carlos Gomez, who wrote a very popular blog named Bullpen Mechanics at The Hardball Times and Baseball Think Factory, and state that he was able to get a job as a scout. However, Carlos Gomez is also an ex-professional pitcher with undoubtably numerous contacts inside baseball already, so it's not an analogous situation to others.

People who crave information about pitching mechanics and observational analysis are typically smart individuals who are hip to the SABR revolution we are experiencing in baseball today. They understand how to think outside of the box and how to apply basic mathematic principles to game situations; something that not ten years ago would have been considered ridiculous. The big question they all seem to have after perusing various sites about pitching mechanics is this: What's the difference?

That's a good question. Unfortunately, pitching mechanics have not yet reached a point where everyone agrees on what is right and what is wrong. It is not like the Moneyball revolution, where it could be proved that OBP and SLG accurately predicted the amount of runs scored, not batting average and stolen bases. For example, while Chris O'Leary and I will be in agreement about a great many things, we will hardly agree with what the guys at Saber-Scouting or Carlos Gomez say. The reason for this is because we follow different doctrines; we have opposing views of what we think is effective and/or safe.

Paul Nyman (owner of SETPRO) is the main pitching theorist that Carlos Gomez and Saber-Scouting listen to. As I state on my Pitching page, I do not believe his theories to be safe for pitchers to utilize. Nyman and his disciples believe in an elbowy arm action, scapular loading, and many other mechanics that I feel are not safe. Chris O'Leary has done a lot of great work on these topics, and has good evidence indicating that Nyman's specific theories are in fact injurious.

In the end, it is up to you - the reader - to decide what you think is correct and what you believe to be true. I will do my best to provide evidence-based information to back up my theories on pitching along with video analysis of current MLB pitchers. The only thing I ask you to do is to compare what high-level pitchers do with what you are being told. If someone can show you multiple high-level pitchers who had very similar deliveries who were not only effective, but remained largely injury-free, wouldn't you think you were on to something? That's the point of this website - to show what I believe to be both effective AND safe pitching mechanics.