Me:

Like a bench press performed incorrectly (elbows chicken-winged out), there’s a certain "stretch" that you feel in the shoulder that can easily be mistaken for feeling good. Even Nyman’s followers describe it as a "stretch" during the scapular loading phase of their concept of the ideal pitching delivery – they claim the timing of the scapula is key to velocity. Not surprisingly, I disagree.

When you tell a kid who is desperately trying to increase his release velocity that he needs to put his arm in a certain position and that he’ll feel a stretch, he’ll take it as positive feedback – even if it doesn’t actually feel good, he’ll think he’s doing something right.

Lots of pitchers go home after their start with their elbow on fire or their shoulder in extreme pain thinking that it’s normal – I remember feeling the same way myself. But it’s not normal, and it’s not necessary. It is insanity.

I did not get a chance to look at Jason Knapp and to make judgments based on one still photograph is a bit much. Still, it’s not terribly surprising. Fortunately, it’s not major reconstructive surgery on his pitching shoulder. Maybe it will be a wakeup call to Jason, letting him know that he must change the way he applies force to the baseball.

But I doubt it.

ow.

It seems that it might not be a terrible strategy to take the ones with the most upside. As Kyle has mentioned, basically every major leaguer throws a supinated curve, and even if they didn’t they could break down from any number of other pitching related injuries. Pitcher injury is a little bit of truth (IE, the flawed mechanics that Kyle detailed so much) and a lot of randomness.

That requires bone spurs and collisions with sheer force. I wanna know what’s going on in THAT shoulder.