No Shit?

I hate it when I'm right. It appears that the great and powerful Stephen Strasburg is now gone almost as soon as he arrived with the news that he will require Tommy John Surgery for his torn Ulnar Collateral Ligament. Strasburg will be out for the remainder of this season and the 2011 season as well. I've read balloon-heads like Tim Kurkjian call this a "shame for baseball", but I certainly wouldn't got that far. I'm pretty sure the game will be just fine despite this injury to a pitcher on a shitty team. To that shitty team's credit though, they definitely handled him with kid gloves as he never threw more than 99 pitches in a game all season.

I did find an interesting article about The Inverted W on mlb.com. The article does give credit to White Sox Pitching Coach Don Cooper for predicting that Strasburg does things incorrectly with his mechanics, and that he will eventually suffer arm problems. I find this a bit ironic as one of Cooper's bullpen specialists Matt Thornton is now on the DL with Elbow Inflammation, but to Coop's credit he did say what he said about Strasburg. There's other pitching coaches who offer differing theories, but none of it changes the fact that Strasburg WAS guilty of the elbow rising above the shoulder blade, and is now facing the worst surgery a pitcher can go through.

Do I think Strasburg can comeback? Absolutely he can, but as Kerry Wood showed us it's very tough to come back to the same dominant level after the surgery despite being a young guy. It's going to be even tougher for Strasburg to be dominant again if he chooses not to alter his mechanics. Otherwise, he'll have the same issues creep up again that caught up with him now.

One more thing that every team should note....NEVER pick a kid that's represented by Scott Boras.

The Inverted W

Big shout out to my brother Steven for bringing this article to my attention today! With the news that the great and powerful Stephen Strasburg has been put on the 15 Day Disabled List due to a strained shoulder, it has opened the debate floor as to why Strasburg already has arm problems. The best part about this article is that it was written over a year ago. 

I had always been aware of power pitchers who are guilty of bringing their elbows higher than their shoulder plane were usually ripe for devasting injury which sometimes required the dreaded Tommy John surgery i.e. Kerry Wood, Mark Prior, Joel Zumaya to name a few. I wasn't aware that there is an actual term for that mechanical flaw, and it's called The Inverted W (pictured above). Maybe it's part of the reason why Strasburg has shoulder problems already, or maybe it isn't. I tend to think it is, especially in light of Strasburg's 90 Mile an Hour Changeup.

One thing I can say with confidence however, is that I don't think we as baseball fans should be expecting a long career from one of the most legendary draft picks to ever come out in Baseball History.

Well That's One Way To Start...

In case you didn't see the Major League Debut of Stephen Strasburg 7 inning, 94 pitch, 14 strikeout and equally impressive ZERO Walk performance, here's a highlight reel of it. I must admit that after having my doubts when he was drafted initially, he looked really impressive tonight. I had been told that his curve-ball was the best anyone had seen since Dwight Gooden. After watching it tonight against the Pirates, it might be better than Doctor K's. I won't even mention how lightning quick that fastball looked, how well he located it, and how silly the Pirates looked at the plate.

I couldn't help but be reminded of Kerry Wood's 5th career start in 1998 when he struck out 20 Houston Astros and came within an eyelash of a no-hitter. One major difference between that start and Strasburg was I feel much better about Strasburg's mechanics than I did Wood (then again I liked Mark Prior's mechanics too, so take it with a grain of salt). Another interesting correlation is that both Wood and Strasburg had the same manager in Jim Riggleman. You recall that earlier this season Riggleman apologized for leaving Wood in games too long and for letting Wood's pitch-count reach the 120's on several occasions. Well apparently Riggleman wasn't paying lip service to his apology because he didn't even let Strasburg throw 100 pitches tonight, even though he certainly had to be tempted to let him take the mound in the 8th inning.

Anyway, I know it was against the Pirates - who don't really know how to play against anybody not named the Chicago Cubs, but still this was a debut that belongs as one of the best of all time. There are only two other pitchers that struck out more hitters than Strasburg in their debut, and they are J.R. Richard in 1971 and Karl Spooner in 1954. It bears pointing out though, that BOTH Richard and Spooner needed 9 innings to get to 15 strikeouts. So considering they got 6 more outs, it really adds to how remarkable Strasburg was tonight.

Hopefully it's the start of good things to come for both him, and for the ever increasing attendance figures of National fans.