Thanks to the lame mandatory registration there will be no funny Ron Popeil comments.

TAKE A STAND NOW! BRING BACK THE TROLLS!

/hijack

Posted by Flynn on May 27, 2004 at 10:01 PM (#648512)
If the war and the Mexican League didn't adversely affect Sal Maglie's career, would he have been a Hall of Famer?

Case in point, his ERA+ from from 1950-1958, when he was 33 until he was 41. He threw 84 innings in 1945 at the age of 28, but I threw that out. He had a 167 ERA+, so it would hardly damage my case.

Anyway:

1950-1958: 151, 134, 127, 103, 124, 107, 137, 150, 84.

/hijack

You can change your handle to whatever-the-hell-you-want and make a post. Just keep in mind that it will become "whatever-the-hell-you-want" on all your previous posts.

Is it really that hard to make a joke about Ron Popeil without making it as though he'd say it?

Sidney, the problem with that is when you change your name back to your regular name, the name will change on the joke post as well. So not only will you blow your cover, the joke won't make any sense later.

I thought we were going to have the ability to post semi-anonymously as "ntr whoever". What happened to that? Jim, I can work on that for you if you don't have the time.

I always thought that a "shooto" was just a Japanese word for the screwball.

I don't like to take issue with baseball writers, because they're usually more intelligent than I am. But Will Carroll is a joke! He's done a great job of bringing attention to sports medicine, but only because he writes for a high-profile site like BP.

I've heard him speak before, I read all of his articles, I pre-ordered STP and read it in a couple days - sports medicine is interesting and one of the more traditional aspects of baseball that hasn't been approach by sabermetricians or those asking DePodesta's "naive" question.

But time after time, I see Carroll never fully asserting anything, always asking questions, and then following them up with an answer like "It’s hard to know." Carroll tells me "so and so has good mechanics" - I want to know, what exactly are good mechanics - how does Dontrelle Willis have solid mechanics with that herky-jerky motion of his? What differentiates him from Hideo Nomo?

I don't care to know about the injury status of certain players on BP (although I'm sure some fantasy owners might like that) - or what certain "sources" that Carroll has have told him. I'd like to know about what is a good pitch count point (not the arbitrary 100 that Rany J. picked) or how a GM or pitching coach should set up his system to protect young arms.

Carroll tells me that pitch counts don't matter, as some pitchers can go 120+, but then cites them later as a cause for injury. How can you tell which pitchers can go 120+ without using hindsight? I wish he would answer some of those questions instead of just looking back and pointing at Dusty Baker's mistakes.

And one more minor quibble - he takes a huge shot at DIPS in his book, and takes another minor one in the article. Grrr... please explain!

I don't learn anything new from Carroll! I guess that's what disappoints me... there is so much knowledge out there I'm sure on the rising "medhead" frontier - but whether Carroll knows it or not, he refuses to write about it.

I could be, and most probably am, but just for the sake of confirming my insanity, am I the only one out there frustrated with Carroll and the great attention he's received for the little work he's done?

I always thought that a "shooto" was just a Japanese word for the screwball.

No, the Japanese word for screwball is, predictably, "sukuruubooru".

I've had great difficulty figuring out just what a "shooto" (or more precisely, a "shuuto") is. What I do know is that it's not a breaking pitch, per se. It's thrown with a fastball grip, and occassionally Japanese pitchers will be said to be struggling with their control because their fastball is getting "shuuto" spin. (Perfectly straight fastballs are the ideal in Japan.) A cut fastball with screwball like movement was to be the best explanation I'd heard until this gyroball. (Which sucks as a name, btw. Let us take a cue from the Japanese and call it a shootball.)

A couple things. Carroll doesn't know who the Japanese researchers are? He can't name them because the book is not translated? How does he know all this information, then? Hell, for a nominal fee, I'll translate the book for him.

To the best of my knowledge, Matsuzaka does not throw a shoot, or at least he didn't when I was last in Japan (2001). I'll kick this article over to the guys at JapaneseBaseball.com and make sure. He came into the pros with a fastball, curve, and slider, and was working on a forkball when I left. He may very well practice "double spin" mechanics, although I have my doubts he's working with Japanese researchers, given the highly traditional state of training and coaching in Japan. He was already having elbow problems the year I left, in just his third professional year. I have absolutely no doubt that his health issues can be laid entirely at the feet of the ungodly pitch counts he has endured. I'm not one for a strict arbitrary number, either. Pitchers have varying limits, but this was not Nolan Ryan here. These were cases where he was clearly gassed, was not getting velocity, did not have good control, and his manager was keeping him out there anyway, because, by God, he was Daisuke Matsuzaka the certified phenom, and he was pitching until they won (or more often than not, lost) the game.

Explains everything, but explains nothing...

How many RPMs on the rotation?

And is "double spin mechanics" really possible? I mean at least in the context of a thrown baseball.

I would think that a ball rotates around one axis and that axis remains stable.Seems to me that the sum of the vectors imparted by the pitcher determines the axis and once out his hand it should be constant.

I simply can't picture a baseball in flight, rotating around one axis while the axis also moves. Is this possible in what amounts to a non-multiple body system?

I thought it was mentioned last year that Shiggy Hasegawa throws a shuuto. Didn't his manager make a dumb joke along the lines of, "If Shiggy was Italian, they'd call it a prosciutto."

I could be, and most probably am, but just for the sake of confirming my insanity, am I the only one out there frustrated with Carroll and the great attention he's received for the little work he's done?

No, you're not alone. Carroll lost me the day after his Team Health Report (premium) for the Cubs. He gave a yellow light to Prior, but the reason given was age. There was no mention of "Achilles tendon" or anything else related. The next day the Cubs announced Prior had a problem with his Achilles tendon and had had the problem since last September.

From the description in the article, it sure sound like the shuuto is a screwball. Carroll mentions holding the ball so it is between your hand and your ear, and then turning your wrist as you throw so that the palm of your hand is pointing away from your body after release, which sure sound like exactly the arm motion for a screwball. And it sounds like hell on the elbow.

If Tom Selleck can learn to hit the shooto, then there's hope for all hitters.

Is it true that Hideki Irabu once said "Shooto? I don't need no stinkin' shooto. That's for puss-e toads."

Smiling Joe;

Its not always a screwball....when my forearm is bothering me, I just flip it over and throw with a "screw" motion, but without snapping my wrist or spinning the ball off of a finger; its just an inversion of the fastball motion. Its pretty easy on the arm.


You lose some velocity, but it gets a really weird tail. Maybe thats what Carrol is referring to.

Flynn,

I definitely think that when we look at Sal Maglie's career, we're looking at the second half of a coulda-woulda HOF career. He was an amazingly good pitcher, and you kind of get the feeling that absolutely nobody knows about it. I think a lot of modern people, if they've heard of him at all, know him only as the cranky pitching coach in Ball Four.

The one thing that I've learned about reading Will Carroll is that he's tolerable as long as you only skim read his columns, and avoid any paragraph longer than 2 sentences (otherwise you get bogged down in his high school like writing). He's a poor mans Peter Gammons - poor writing, relying on inside sources to trot out rumours that tend not to come true, nothing particularly original to say. His "studies" have been so far below the usual BP level, that I feel a bit embarrased for him. He seems like a bright guy and all, but writing isn't his thing.

And Bangkok9, if I understand your post correctly, I think you're misinterpreting "double spin mechanics". They're talking about the "spin" of the pitchers body, and not the ball. Spin #1 is the hip rotation, and spin #2 is the upper arm rotation.

Whose career line is this?

344 W
181 L
.655 win pct
4,817.3 IP
3,168 SO
3.14 ERA

answer in a few moments

John Clarkson?

Until this piece, the descriptions I'd read of the shooto all sounded a lot like the classic "little league curve" -- four seam fasball grip with a football release, so I never really understood where the weird spin and break was supposed to come from. Throwing with a distinct forearm pronation on release makes a bit more sense, at least in terms of distinguishing it from other pitches. I'm not sure I'd want young kids learning it.

#18 is actually Sal Maglie (age 33+) combined with Bob Feller (through age 32).

Burnsy, thank you. If they would write "bio-mechanics" it would keep me from getting so confused.

The book is called "Makyuu no Shotai" or "The true nature of the Magic Pitch". If you know someone in Japan, it's widely available (on Amazon, etc.) From my experience, they won't ship outside of the country.

The authors are Himeno Ryuutarou and Tezuka Kazushi.

I'm not a scientist, but the contrast diagrams between the fastball and gyroball and why the gyroball gives movement as extreme as a screwball without doing the same damage to the arm make sense.

I'm not positive, but I think that Matsuzaka did the double spin motion on his own and then the researchers interested in the pitch used him as a model.

On a sidenote, since John Kruk keeps whining about pitch counts ruining contemporary pitchers' chances to destroy their arms, maybe he should move to Japan. America: if you don't like it, why don't you go back where you came from, er, uh.

Well, the Feller/Maglie combination is interesting, but I don't think Feller's numbers are a realistic simulation of what the young Maglie's might have been. But Maglie's best comp is Mort Cooper, a guy who, coincidentally flamed out in his early thirties. Cooper's numbers are probably a very good approximation of what Maglie might have put up.

And there you're looking at a 300-game winner with a tremendous ERA+. Maglie was probably that good; not just a borderline HOF guy, but a slam-dunker.

Oops, I meant to say "250-game winner."

What's interesting is Maglie lost his very impressive fastball around 1953, but continued to be an effective pitcher for a further five years.

Interesting fact: Maglie started two of the most famous Giants games ever (gm3 of the 1951 playoff and gm1 of the 1954 WS), pitched ok in one and very well in the other, but didn't get a decision.

Maglie also started arguably the two most famous Dodgers games ever, pitched ok in one and very well in the other, but didn't win either game. (That would be the Bobby Thomson game and the Don Larsen game.)

Does anybody know if there's any surviving cuts of the third game of the 1951 playoff besides Gordon McLendon's?

AFAIK, McLendon's Liberty Radio version is the only surviving full-length cut.

This article would have been comprehensible and meaningful (especially to those of us who were pitchers -- myself in college) if some pictures or diagrams were included. Carroll's attempts to explain the positioning and motion using words simply fail.

I also have a problem with the gobbledygook. "Multiplanar"? I am a mathematician so I'm not afraid of the terminology of 3D Euclidian geometry. Perhaps you needed to have read Carroll's book to translate.

Speaking of righthanded-pitchers-who-never-really-pitched-in-the-majors-until-their-thirties-but-who-then-put-up-careers-that-look-for-all-the-world-like-the-second-half-of-Hall-of-Fame-careers ...

Spud Chandler!

I don't remember where but there is actually a video on the net of somebody throwing the gyroball.
If anybody is interested.

I think I found it but unfortunately the site has reached its bandwidth limit.

Okay, does anyone who speaks Japanese know if the "shooto" is the same word as "shuto," which is the chopping with the side of hand strike in Karate?

penguin,

it seems likely that it's an adaptation of the english "shoot," but I couldn't really tell you unless you happen to know if it's written in katakana or hiragana.

Sal Maglie also had a sweet nickname. Not too many cooler than The Barber.

I couldn't really tell you unless you happen to know if it's written in katakana or hiragana.

If it was written in kanji, then it would definitely be a native word, no?

I've had great difficulty figuring out just what a "shooto" (or more precisely, a "shuuto") is.

It's an aged, dry-cured, thin-sliced Italian ham.

;-)

Is the screwball really that hard on the arm? I seem to remember a Baseball Prospectus interview with a forward thinking, biomechanically minded pitching coach (Mike Marshall?) who advocated the screwball.

I couldn't really tell you unless you happen to know if it's written in katakana or hiragana.

If it was written in kanji, then it would definitely be a native word, no?

Virtually nothing is written solely in hiragana, unless it's by kids since that's the first thing they learn. Foreign words are in katakana, native words (or Chinese words) are in kanji.

The book is called "Makyuu no Shotai" or "The true nature of the Magic Pitch". If you know someone in Japan, it's widely available (on Amazon, etc.) From my experience, they won't ship outside of the country.

In my experience they do! Well, off to order this book, then. Nice title, though: "The truth of the magic ball."

Shuuto, in baseball, is written with katakana. That doesn't mean it didn't come from a karate term, though.

Is the screwball really that hard on the arm? I seem to remember a Baseball Prospectus interview with a forward thinking, biomechanically minded pitching coach (Mike Marshall?) who advocated the screwball.

Marshall advocated the screwball as long as one properly exercised and built up the muscles required to throw it.

Okay, does anyone who speaks Japanese know if the "shooto" is the same word as "shuto," which is the chopping with the side of hand strike in Karate?

Nope. They're pronounced differently and written differently. The Karate term has a short u; the pitch has a long u and would properly be Romanized as "shuuto". The karate term is usually written in kanji and hiragana or all hiragana; the pitch is written in katakana, since it is a borrowing of the English word "shoot".

One thing to keep in mind about Maglie is that he was not particularly well-liked, either by the press or by his teammates. He reportedly once said in re cofraternization, "I might get to like 'em, and then I wouldn't be able to throw at 'em."

Maglie might be known for his appearance in Ball Four, but I think it's safe to say he'll always be best known as the losing pitcher in Don Larsen's perfect game.

Marshall advocated the screwball as long as one properly exercised and built up the muscles required to throw it.

Not exactly. Marshall advocates a completely different biomechanical approach to pitching. He does not advocate throwing the screwball, or any other pitch, until one learns and masters his mechanics.

see for yourself, if you've got a few days to kill

But Will Carroll is a joke! He's done a great job of bringing attention to sports medicine, but only because he writes for a high-profile site like BP.

I've heard him speak before, I read all of his articles, I pre-ordered STP and read it in a couple days

Seems like you read a lot of his stuff considering he's a joke.

Have you ever corresponded with him? He's fairly responsive. Obviously you wouldn't want to bother with some of the comments (e.g., that he's a bad writer), but some other criticisms (the pitch count thing, or more specific discussions on who has good mechanics, etc.) might be draw a response depending on how you phrase them.

I think you have some fair criticisms of Carroll. However, I think he deserves a lot of the attention he's received because he has been able to spread interest in sports medicine. Maybe it's analogous to Neyer--it's not groundbreaking stuff, but it's a good introduction, and well, it's available to the masses, which is no small thing.

Part of the problem may be that Carroll is trying to do several different things. Some of his stuff (like his book) is supposedly about developing normative guidelines for pitcher health. Some of his stuff deals with pinpointing info about injuries so the reader will have a better idea about how a player will be effected. And some of his writing just seems to be about more precise reporting on injuries. (Cf. Pedro and how newspapers have talked about both a partially torn rotator cuff and a damaged labrum, seemingly equating the two parts).

Maybe at this point in his career, he needs to specialize more.

I don't know how his own health is (hasn't he mentioned cancer somewhere?), but maybe a good email conversation could help him improve.

Or who knows. Maybe he does have specific ideas about how to outline a minor league program, but has kept it to himself in the hopes of landing a consulting gig.


As for (another poster's) complaint about the Cubs THR, well, the full line on Prior was

"Wait... Prior and Maddux have among the purest mechanics that motion capture has, well, captured. Why the yellow on those two? The answer is age. For Prior, he's crossing the injury nexus after the heaviest per-outing workload of his career last season."

Young pitcher, heaviest per-outing workload. Makes sense there'd be a yellow light. He didn't know about the achilles in mid February. Ok. That doesn't seem like much of a criticism, though.

I doubt Maglie's best known for losing Game 5 of the 1956 World Series.

He's easily best known for his nickname and the habit that caused it.

Maglie wasn't well liked by teammates or the press because of his taciturn nature. The guy paid his dues in a way no other player on his teams had (well, maybe a guy like Robinson) and as a result of that and his age (guy was in his 30s), he didn't take an awful lot of s**t from anyone.

He's actually very similar to Kevin Brown, perhaps without the explosive temper.

Right down to the grizzle.

He's actually very similar to Kevin Brown, perhaps without the explosive temper.

Right down to the grizzle.

That's an excellent call.

I had a great idea for Baseball Prospectus the other week, a readership survey.

It'd be online, and readers could simply rate the columnists and make observations (anonymously).

It wouldn't cost much, and BP would instantly find out just what people thing of their writers. From my discussions with people and reading people here, I think they'd find that Will Carroll's stuff isn't very well regarded. And why, and therefore how to improve it.

Research can be useful.

Young pitcher, heaviest per-outing workload. Makes sense there'd be a yellow light. He didn't know about the achilles in mid February. Ok. That doesn't seem like much of a criticism, though.

He didn't know anything about Prior's problem on the day before the problem was announced (late February actually). This problem existed last season, and Carroll didn't pick up on it, either from his "sources" or by watching Prior pitch. I think this captures the problem with Will Carroll; his UTK columns, especially the Team Health Reports, are little more than regurgitations of public knowledge and his injury analysis (shoulder surgery bad!) is banal.

Seems like you read a lot of his stuff considering he's a joke.

I try not to judge writers before reading everything they've got out there. Plus, he is the only medhead writer out there - but that doesn't mean he's a good writer, of course.

Have you ever corresponded with him? He's fairly responsive.

I have emailed him, and to be fair, he is very good in replying. I appreciate that - and I like that he is always enthusiastic in setting up BP "pizza feeds" to get to interact with fans (he drives from Indianapolis to Chicago to head these things up). I just get frustrated with all the acclaim that he gets when I don't think he's covered the basic ends that you'd think a medhead would cover (i.e. pitch counts, is tandem pitching good for pitchers?, what's the best system for a GM to set up for keeping minor league arms healthy?)

I can see how it's hard for Carroll to answer these questions when he's doing so much - as you said - and he's also working as the BP radio host. I get this feeling though, that Carroll really doesn't know that much about mechanics, and all that he asserts is really a regurgitation of what Tom House told him in their latest conversation. Maybe it's too early to judge Carroll - he's been working closer with ASMI, and he could still be learning himself.

Maybe it's analogous to Neyer--it's not groundbreaking stuff, but it's a good introduction, and well, it's available to the masses, which is no small thing.

But Neyer isn't the only stathead writer out there - if you want more in-depth information, you can always come here and read MGL's or tangotiger's work, pick up a BJ historical abstract, or read the other BP articles - with Carroll's field, he's as good as it gets. Maybe I should pick up a couple anatomy books and read up on my kinesiology this summer ;D.

Neil - you're right that Carroll is the weakest of the BPro bunch, but not for the reasons you're stating. It sounds like the things you're asking him to do - set a hard pitch count, figure out how to set a minor league system - are things that NO ONE has been able to figure out in a hundred years of baseball.

He's an idiot, to be sure, and the earlier post that says he's just a niche Gammons is the right one. There's absolutely no reason for Carroll to be on a site like BP that pretends to be a sabermetric, scientific paragon.

Don't use the radio show as an excuse either. I've listened to a couple shows when he occasionally gets an interesting guest and he's worse than Ron Dibble, a low bar to not pass.

It sounds like the things you're asking him to do - set a hard pitch count, figure out how to set a minor league system - are things that NO ONE has been able to figure out in a hundred years of baseball.

Sure, that's probably true - and I'm filled with "buts" - but he speaks so much praise of Rick Peterson and Tom House, and how certain pitching coaches are incredible - but what exactly is it they do? I can see the results of the great pitchers that they churn out, but why? If he wants to be a "medhead" pioneer, then he should try to be answering these questions (not a hard pitch count maybe, but how to prevent injures other than just saying "send them to ASMI.")

(And if you've read Saving the Pitcher, Carroll outlines what Leo Mazzone does with Braves pitchers on off-days, but does not talk about any other strategies that any other great pitching coaches use.)

I am just frustrated!

Don't use the radio show as an excuse either. I've listened to a couple shows when he occasionally gets an interesting guest and he's worse than Ron Dibble, a low bar to not pass.

Yeah, I listen to the archived broadcasts on BPro.com, and he's not that great - then again, he's doing a pretty good job for someone who has (what I assume to be) no experience on the radio. I just started to do a show for a radio station sometimes, and figured out how hard it can be.

Regardless, I was just trying to find examples for where Carroll could be over-stretching himself. Of course, if I were in his position, I'd be wanting to get as involved as possible.

Back to gyroballs for a minute. Follow this thread about halfway down and it explains "double-spin mechanics" and how to throw a gyroball. There are some excellent graphics and a few video links.

http://www.oddball-mall.com/knucklertalk/viewthread.php?tid=146

Executive Summary (I got a B+ in my buisness writing class from two years ago):

Double-spin mechanical theory states that the velocity and rotation on a baseball is the product of a pitcher rotating his hips around his spine (first spin) and his forearm around an axis that is parellel to the ground (second spin). Pitch velocity is directly linked to hip rotation speed.

The gyroball is, as I see it, an ideal slider. Part of the slider's rotation is in the vertical plane and part of it is in a horizontal plane (a RHP's slider would rotate like a frisbee thrown at a point about 2/3 of the way to the plate by a lefty). A gyroball however, rotates only in a vertical plane. Using gyroball mechanics (which involves throwing the baseball like you would a football) and conciously ending the follow-through with the palm (RHP) facing 3rd base, produces this sort of rotation. The end result is a nasty slider that has a velocity halfway between a fastball and a traditional breaking pitch.