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Brandon Webb's Mechanics Reviewed by Chris O'Leary

My commentary from the Scherzer diary:

"I found this awesome animated GIF on Baseball Think Factory.  The story is actually an interesting observation about the differences in Webb's delivery in '06 compared to '04.

Regardless, I think the GIF shows that Webb starts wonderfully by dropping his pitching hand and elbow very low out of the glove, and despite what the poster on BTF thinks, his early break out of the glove is a good thing.

However, once Webb starts cocking for delivery, things go a little haywire.  His body, which had been in a downward trajectory towards home plate, starts to stand back up and he starts to raise his elbows into that "upside-down W" position.

He follows that with a nice flare of the hips, which cause his shoulders to follow around.  His front foot comes around to a good landing position.  He doesn't land on his heel, but on the whole foot.

It's hard to tell for sure at this angle, but it seems to me that his elbow is high when it comes around for delivery.  It also appears to me that Brandon starts to pronate his upper arm, which isn't good.  However, it does look to me like he has very nice weight transfer to his front foot and his back foot slides off the rubber nicely.

I emailed Chris O'Leary last night... it'll be interesting if he responds.  In my extremely un-educated opinion (which, let's face it, O'Leary's opinion is more studied, but just as un-educated) I'd say that Webb does almost everything right, but the upside-down W and early pronation could be putting stress on his shoulder and elbow."

I asked and I received:  Chris O'Leary blogs about Brandon Webb's mechanics.

He comes to the conclusions I thought he might, but adds that he locks his glove-side knee on follow-through, which could raise the chance of hip and knee problems.

0 recs  |  Comment 7 comments

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Beckett vs. Peavy
Fairly interesting chat over on ESPN on who the best RHP is.
Rob Neyer (IMO one of the only readable ESPN columnists) ends up taking Peavy by a fairly substantial margin.
http://proxy.espn.go.com/chat/chatESPN?event_id=18782&campaign=rss&source=MLBHeadlines
What is most amusing to me in this debate is how in the middle Neyer opens the door to allow Webb to enter the argument and then by the end he says this: "But I'm sticking with Peavy, and I think I'd have Webb No. 2. But I'm big on sure things."
That seems like the real debate to me: Peavy vs. Beckett.  Of course he would have pulled in a fifth of the readership if he would have had that debate.

In other ESPN news I got a hearty chuckle reading the first few lines of this column (I wouldn't pay 50cents to be an Insider, so I don't know the full argument.  
http://insider.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?entryID=3193056&name=olney_buster&action=login&am p;appRedirect=http%3a%2f%2finsider.espn.go.com%2fespn%2fblog%2findex%3fentryID%3d3193056%26name%3dol ney_buster
Here Buster Olney cries because a bunch of folks got on him about his argument that Rice was worthy of Hall consideration due to the fact that Rice's career OPS+ is a puny 128 (he was only over 140 4 times in his career).
Olney sniffles:
"So if I understand the argument from some e-mailers: If you criticize Rice's candidacy by relying on Adjusted OPS+, through which Rice fares badly, that's analysis. But if you support Rice's candidacy citing home runs and RBI, then it's cherry-picking."
No Olney, OPS+ isn't cherry picking.  It's not like folks emailed in and pointed out that he only has 34 career stolen bases.  That would be cherry picking.  No, they emailed in and said that for a guy who had NO speed and couldn't play a lick of defense, the MAIN indicator of hitting (OPS+) ought to be downright awesome for him to be a worthy candidate.  And it's not.

by johngordonma on Jan 13, 2008 8:32 PM EST reply actions   0 recs

I mean
the real debate is Peavy vs. Webb (not Beckett).

by johngordonma on Jan 14, 2008 10:05 AM EST up reply actions   0 recs

Yeah, it is
But I think there is likely a good argument to be made for Beckett being in the argument.  Let's also not forget about Johan Santana.
Bob Melvin Sucks

by nihil67 on Jan 14, 2008 10:13 AM EST up reply actions   0 recs

Yeah
I completely missed the RHP part.
Bob Melvin Sucks

by nihil67 on Jan 14, 2008 2:19 PM EST up reply actions   0 recs

Just to lob in...
Right-handers with 500+ IP, sorted by greatest ERA+ from 2005-2007

Webb is the best over the last three seasons, but is only just ahead of Roy Oswalt. Peavy and Beckett are both well down the list, in seventh and sixteenth respectively. Danny Haren is #9.

by Jim McLennan on Jan 14, 2008 2:24 PM EST up reply actions   0 recs

Even if you cut it down
To the last two seasons, Webb is still #1, Peavy is #12, Beckett is #20.

by Jim McLennan on Jan 14, 2008 2:27 PM EST up reply actions   0 recs

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