April 28, 2008 | By Alex Eisenberg

A Second Look at the Pitching Mechanics of Francisco Liriano

Chris O'Leary of the Pitching Mechanic recently did a follow up to my article on the changes in Francisco Liriano's pitching mechanics. I agree with some of what he says, which I have squeezed into a quote below:

"The key thing to notice is how his PAS elbow stays lower. This should reduce the strain on both his elbow and his shoulder....I think that a major cause of Francisco Liriano's elbow problems was his reliance on his hard slider."

I do agree that the elbow below the shoulder reduces strain on both his elbow and shoulder and I agree with the slider possibly being a cause of his elbow problems, though there is a study that suggests otherwise (hat tip to Will Carroll from Baseball Prospectus).

However, where I disagree (split up in two parts):

"I like an early hand break because it reduces the likelihood that a pitcher will have a timing problem by giving their PAS forearm more time to get up into the high-cocked position."

This may be true. A pitcher may not be able to employ a later hand break because they cannot coordinate all the moving parts associated with a later hand break.

By breaking your hands later, you essentially are speeding up the arm into release. A later hand break is an indicator of arm speed. A pitcher that breaks their hands later has to have their arm travel the same distance as a pitcher who breaks their hands early in less time.

Another benefit of a later hand break: less hitch or loss of momentum in the pitcher's arm action. The arm doesn't have to wait forthe front foot to land before fully accelerating.

Ideally we want to see as little loss in momentum as possible. If a pitcher develops a hitch in their arm action, this actually increases the strain on the pitcher's shoulder.

If you compare the two animations of Liriano pre and post injury, you'll see the pre-injury Liriano has less of a drag (or a slowing down) in his arm action and more momentum built up going into release. This is partly due to the post-injury Liriano assuming a ready-to-throw position rather quickly. The pre-injury Liriano takes about 2 or 3 less frames less to go from a ready-to-throw position to release, which gives you an indication of how fast the arm was of the pre-injury Liriano.

If a pitcher wants to find a way to improve their arm speed, a couple of basic ways would be to:

1. Increase the tempo; by speeding up the body, you force the arm to become faster

2. Break your hands later, which I explained earlier (arm travels same distance in less time)

The second part in which I disagree (at least in part) with O'Leary:

"I also don't think breaking the hands early is necessary to throwing either hard or well."

I would agree with this as there are pitchers who break their hands early that produce excellent velocity. However, they produce velocity in different ways. There is no one magic mechanical attribute that all of a sudden increases velocity.

Pitching mechanics are a sequence of individual actions and when these individual actions are put together with precise efficiency, a pitcher can generate velocity in any number of ways. This is not to mention factors that we honestly have no clue of knowing about; for instance, how strong exactly are those ligaments, tendons, muscles, etc in the pitcher's arm/shoulder?

My feeling is if it is clear Liriano cannot speed up his tempo or break his hands later because he cannot coordinate all the moving parts, then an earlier hand break would be fine to deploy. However, if he can coordinate and time correctly a later hand break or a faster tempo, then there is no reason to continue to do things that, in my opinion, hurt the quality of his stuff.

Even with this talk about hand break and tempo, the key mechanical aspect of the pre-injury Liriano was the scap load. I would agree the scap load he showed off prior to injury heightened his injury risk considerably.

However, there are other ways to increase velocity that would be in-line with what most would consider "safe" mechanics if there are such a thing. While I agree with O'Leary that his new mechanics are "safer" than before, I do worry whether his new mechanics will ever allow him to regain the kind of quality stuff Liriano showed off prior to injury.

With that being said, I will be very interested to see the results Liriano has with his new mechanics and will be looking forward to seeing the adjustments he makes as time goes forward. I said this in the Liriano article the day after his first start:

"One start is hardly enough to make judgements on, so my advice would be to sit back, see how he develops, and make changes only when (or if) it becomes obvious his stuff isn't coming back. When that moment is only his coaches can decide."

I still feel that way. Let Liriano use this year to get all the rust out of his system and to build back the arm strength he displayed once before; then we can take a closer look at his situation.

For more articles on a pitcher's hand break and the benefits:

Lost and Found--Mulder's MPH

Quick Mechanics Take--Russ Ortiz

Breaking Down the Broken Down--Mark Prior

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References and Resources: Major League Baseball, Baseball Think Factory

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