Do Altered Pitching Mechanics Lead To Injuries?
I recently received the following e-mail from a reader… Hi, I was wondering if you can do an analysis of Brandon McCarthy while he was with the White Sox (No arm pain, throwing 95) and Brandon McCarthy with the Rangers (Lots of DL time, throwing 89). I realize that the pictures (from Dallas Morning News blog) are at different times in his delivery, but they are different none the less. This e-mail reflects a very common misconception that needs to be dispelled if we are to make progress in driving down pitching injury rates. The assumption that people make is that pitchers experience injury problems when their pitching mechanics change. As a result, they assume that the way to resolve a pitcher’s injury problems is to get them back to the pitching mechanics that made them successful. In my experience, altered pitching mechanics generally cause control problems more often than they cause injury problems. The injury problems that pitchers experience are generally a result of their pitc
