The pitching motion is temperamental. Throwing a baseball is physically similar to swinging a golf club, particularly when it comes to timing and sequencing of movement, and anyone who swings the wrenches knows how difficult it can be to find consistency. The slightest mechanical tweak can throw a pitcher’s delivery completely out of whack.
I submit [...]

Much has been made of Stephen Strasburg’s innings count this season, and the fact that the Nats will not allow the phenom to surpass 160 innings (combined majors and minors). The talk quieted when shoulder inflammation sent Stras to the DL, effectively shaving a couple of starts from his 2010 total. Stras was sitting at [...]

All Star festivities get a bad rap these days, but at least one event continues to grab my attention year after year: The Futures Game. The greatest prospects of the minor leagues are put on a single stage, from low-A greenhorns to polished AAA players auditioning for the big show.
The game stats are pretty meaningless, but [...]

The top of this year’s draft was not as arm-centric as 2009, when 9 of the first 12 picks were pitchers, and 19 of 32 overall. This year the top dozen were balanced at six bats and six arms, and the trend continued throughout the first round, finishing with 15 pitchers among the first 32 [...]

The Washington Nationals stole the headlines for the second year in a row at the MLB amateur player draft, selecting 17-year old Bryce Harper with the #1 overall pick, a year after tabbing that Strasburg guy in the same slot. LeBryce has been scouted since before he could drive, and the young catcher-turned-outfielder is so [...]

Stephen Strasburg’s debut was so highly anticipated that the first pitch to Andrew McCutcheon was removed from the game, to be immediately sent to the Hall of Fame. Never before has a ballplayer’s debut attracted such national attention, and the expectations were impossibly high. 
Still, the rookie was unflappable. Rather than crumble beneath the Don King-shaped [...]

Our sequel begins where the original left off, with Stephen Strasburg having just completed foot strike …
From Foot Strike to Release Point
The sequence of events is critical after foot strike, with several mechanical elements taking place in the span of about a quarter-second. It’s extremely important that a pitcher waits until after foot strike to begin [...]

A sold out crowd… in Washington… on a Tuesday night. Such is the impact of one Stephen Strasburg, making perhaps the most anticipated debut in the history of Major League Baseball.
This is just one of a thousand articles that will be written about the rookie right-hander this week, so allow me to differentiate this piece [...]

Monty Hall: “I’m looking for someone with… a shortstop that steals bases!”
 
Trade season is starting to warm up. The Roy Oswalt soap opera has lit the fuse on the powder keg of Rumor Central, and the suspense will only increase between now and the end of July.
With 30% of the baseball season already in the books, [...]

“OBP is life.”
The phrase has become a mantra for the stat-minded crowd, and it epitomizes an entire generation of sabermetric thinking, one that began long before “Moneyball” hit the shelves.  A baseball game is defined by outs, and analysts have long valued on-base percentage for its ability to represent out avoidance.
The vaunted Triple Crown was [...]