26
Oct 10
Tim Lincecum, Good Mechanics or Bad Mechanics? Explain why…
Do you think Tim Lincecum has good mechanics or bad mechanics? Please explain why…in detail.
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Good mechanics. They may not be good for most people but it gets the most out of his body.
Let me take a crack at this one…Lincecum has good pitching mechanics, looking at a few points. First off, he creates very good hip and shoulder separation, therefore he is effectively using his whole body, not just his arm to throw the ball. Lincecum also keeps his head from pulling off (yeah I said it) as his shoulders rotate towards the plate and his arm comes up into position. His head and front side stay strong through a good finish as he really throws the ball downhill. Thats my take…
Can someone please explain what “hip and shoulder separation” is? I’ve seen it mentioned a few times here and am unfamiliar with the term. Thanks!
When you release the ball, your chest should be square towards the plate. so, your hips and your shoulders will be square while doing so, and this greatly reduces the chances of hurting yourself, an example is strasburg, his hip-shoulder seperation was very bad, and he hurt himself in his rookie season
Once your pitching at that level and successfulness , your mechanics must be working for you. in turn, good for him but maybe not others. I believe for a longer career you need to use every muscle in your body.
Tim Lincecum has really good pitching mechanics.I mean just look how many batters he struck out!
first of all, the number of strikeouts you have doesn’t reflect how good your mechanics are whatsoever. You can strike out every batter you face using terrible mechanics, which just happen to get you velocity, those improper mechanics will catch up with you and eventually ruin your arm…
Look at Strasburg, he struck out 41 in his first few starts and he had very bad mechanics
Actually think he has mechanics similar to Hideo Nomo, which is a very strong whipping action. The way he whips the ball like like an upside down pendulum where the momentum is generated from the turn in his upper body and hips.
I agree with his similarities to Hideo Nomo,arched back and whip action.But,I don’t believe Nomo had shoulder and hip separation.His torque came from turning his back or showing his numbers to the hitter….Only time will tell if Tim’s mechanics will hold up for his body and arm.
He throws the ball great, but his mechanics are a little shaky.. for instance.. on his finish, he’s falling off to the side.. he’s been hit by two line drives tonight because he’s in a terrible fielding positing after he throws… but hell, he’s making the money, why work on your mechanics at that level.
He does throw the ball great and I too believe his mechanics are iffy when he’s throwing well they are good but so much could go wrong as for the line drives throwing at a high velocity u have almost no time for line drives no matter what position your in
Tim Lincecum has good mechanics.
Why?
He uses his entire body to throw the ball.
His stride is seven feet and he has excellent hip rotation.
If you’ve ever seen a video of him in slow motion, you can
tell why he can throw so hard while being relatively short for a Major Leaguer.
I think Lincecum’s mechanics are exceptional. They are not perfect as it was pointed out that he does not finish in a good defensive position. But I think that is a trade off. He could finish in a perfect position but he would likely lose velocity. He uses all of his body placing less strain on his throwing arm.
very good
1) uses the entire body through a longer range of motion than other pitchers which maximizes power from a small frame
2) his arm motion is part of the overall sychronized body flow and not segmented like most pitchers which saves his arm but perhaps even more important
3) is that his arm being part of the flow just goes for a ride which allows him more control with his hand and arm than pitchers who use their arm like a hammer.
though we all see timmys mechanics as weird, its is personal to him. After so many years of acrobatics, he is able to create enough torque to whip the ball like he does. I use my flexibility in tennis to generate a huge amount of power and need to find a personal style od my own for pitching. The cause to his lack of velocity is the fact that he has slowly pulled his head farther to the left of the plate therefore eliminating his 97 mph fastball or he is just holding back. If it works then go for it but not all people do gymnastivs to gwnerate torque like he does. Its great at throwing off the timing. A little long out of the stretch for posey though an it might be a good idea to shorten it bit?
They are obviously good mechanics for HIM specifically, but only a special athlete can make his pitching style work… I’d never “teach” it as it will not work for many… for the reasons already mentioned…
So, I’m going to give timmy a go. I’ll break his mechanics down into 4 steps.
1)Setup- posture before he begins, any motion up until leg lift
2)Liftoff- leg lift and posture up until stride
3)Stride and momentum-stride, overall energy to the plate
4)Release-point efficiency- how he transfers energy into release point, release point posture
Setup
His setup looks fine, comfortable and relaxed. Nice easy step, he gets his momentum going right away.
Lift off
As soon as he brings his legs up, he gets his entire body moving towards the plate. He drops the ball straight down out of his glove giving him more time to get into high cocked position. I’m really impressed with his energy angle(angle of the body at highest point of leg lift), he never comes to a balance point which helps him get down the mound as fast as possible, no high leg kick needed, he is already going towards the plate.
Stride and Momentum
I have a few picks with this part of his delivery, He swings his leg out and around instead of going straight to the plate but since he is so flexible, he still gets an incredible amount of his shoulder separation upon landing. His elbow does show a bit of inverted L which could give him problems in the future but it is not terrible. Since he gets his momentum towards the plate immediately he produces the longest stride in the game. If you get slow mo of him, notice his back foot is over two feet in front of the rubber at ball release, outstanding. His landing leg is also in a great position at landing giving him a good brace to withstand the massive amounts of pressure dealt from his entire body.
Release Point Efficiency
Timmy’s release point is right over the top and because of that, his shoulders are tilted a great deal. It has to be done in order to get that high of a release point. He gets the ball out front, looks to be over 8 feet in front of the rubber. It gives the hitters less time to react in a game revolving around inches. His landing leg stiffens up as his body comes forward almost causing a recoil effect like a shotgun, helpful to give him an extra mph or two right before release.
All in all, Lincecum’c mechanics are great. He has a few things he could tweak but he does other things so well that they make up for the minor flaws. He has freakish flexibility, getting over ninety degrees of separation between his hips and shoulders. His belt buckle can be completely facing the plate and you can still see the numbers on his back, its phenomenal. I love his mechanics and preach alot of what he does to mysle fand the kids i teach.
Tim’s mechanics work for Tim. They may not work for a 6’8″ pitcher but they work for him. He must use more than just his arm with the body frame that he has and thats what he does very well. Also, his windup allows him to hide the baseball longer and in turn allows for deception with that nasty changeup! I do not have a problem at all with the way Tim finishes or his “Follow Through” as a matter of fact I like how he does this because it allows him to decelerate efficiently. One of the biggest problems with pitchers today is they don’t allow for their arm to finish and decelerate through the finishing motion allowing for lots of torque to be added to the shoulder and arm. Finally, I love how athletic his mechanics are. One of the biggest problems in baseball today is a coach who tries to clone a pitcher to being in certain positions at certain times of the windup! Be athletic and BLOW IT UP!!!
If you merely glance at Lincecum’s motion it’s easy to say he’s all over the place and even easier to say that he’s unorthodox. Well, winning 2 Cy Young awards is unorthodox as well. If you break down Lincecum’s mechanics though, you will find that he actually is technically as close to perfect as you can get.
Well from what i can tell on tv is there are sound except for him falling on his finish a tad. One of the best ways to tell in the long run is if he is putting up the same stats in the next 8 to 10 years. Just because you win for a few years is good but if it is consistant well you know the answer. REMEMBER this is on tv and unfortunately i don’t get to see him pitch as much as others do.Also my opinion hips, snoulder, drive and the head movement are good for the way he pitches. Exellent way not to give away pitches with a different arm slot and easier on his drop ball close to 12 to 6
Tim does a great job getting every ounce of power out of his 165# frame. (It’s really noticeable how small he is when you see him bat.) However, over time I think he will have problems making that unique delivery repeatable. I think we saw some signs of that in August when he was suffering. The ultimate test for any mechanics are the results. Like many people have already said, you can’t argue with the stats and I would also like to add that he hasn’t had any surgeries. That’s impressive.
As no two pitchers are a like Tim Lincecum’s mechanics a fine for him, strange no one has mentioned his stride length which matches his body height allowing him to release the ball closer to the batter allowing him to get very late movement on his pitches and also getting the batter to think that the pitch is faster than what it actually is.Another thing he has going for him is his very late shoulder rotation, his shoulder rotation starts at about 3/4 stride length.
Yes he does do some things that are unconventional. But there are certain balance points you need to get to when pitching and he generally gets to all of them well and delivers the ball with decenty location, good spped, decent movement. If it aint broke…
Tim Lincecum has great mechanics because even though he turns his back away from the hitter and whips his around, he always ends up at a perfect angle to release the baseball. He throws 100 percent over the top and pulls his glove into hos chest and gets good leverage from his legs. He also receives a “running start” by twisting around because he gains all his momentum going to the plate.
I really liked the comments of Mr. Tucker, above, and would echo those.
I would venture that the more circuitous route to the plate on his stride could be the effect of a slight counter move in the lift leg creating a little more torque/twist and enhancing the separation of upper and lower body.
Extremely athletic.
I think this is pretty easy… He is very consistance and free of injury. With bad mechanics you would eventually be either inconsistant or suffer some injuries. He looks a little unorthidox when pitching but a 5’10” Major Leaguer is a little unorthidox in itself. I think we will see much more of him.
His mechanics are the best in baseball. First, by turning on his leg lift he generates the torque all other pitchers are missing with their striaght up leg lift (leg lift balance drill is proved bologna by this). An important part is that he never stops. If he were to stop on his turn, he would lose all the momentum he built up in turning. It might be a different result control wise if he took his eyes off the target while he is doing this but he stretches about an hour before the game so he can be watching the catcher’s glove at the same time that he is turning his lower body backwards. Then he starts spinning toward the plate. Next, he drives as hard as he can off his back leg to generate the greastest amount of force toward the plate that he can. An interesting thing about his delivery is that he has the latest hand break of any pitcher, which allows him to: first not be slowed down in his spin towards the plate and second not start his actual throwing motion until all the energy from his back leg transfers forward. The low release allows the arm to act as a whip and not the initiating force of the throw such as people who lift their arms i.e. Kerry Wood, Mark Prior, Josh Johnson, Stephen Strasburg. All of those people, you may have noticed, have had Tommy John already and will continue having arm troubles because of their motion. Lincecum’s back leg drive gives him the best stride to height ratio in the major leagues (his stride is 120% of his height while the MLB average is 80%). This might not be the best stride for high school pitchers who are accustommed to their ways because this is a motion that you need to do many times before you get the feel for it. On the other hand, Paul I don’t think that it will be a problem repeating the motion as it because the motion is so fluid. This is the reason for his struggles in April 2009 and August 2010 because when he doesn’t feel right in one part of his motion the whole thing is messed up. Where as another pitcher has a list of things they have in there mind they must do before they release the ball (lift leg straight up into balanced postion, hand break, etc) and can make up for it with am stregth he feels the motion through its end and then picks up the dollar (follows through). So, when he doesn’t feel it he can go a month pitching horibbly. The perfect comparison is between him and Barry Zito. Barry throws long toss for an hour and does pays no attention to his motion on the field does all the work with his motion in bullpens. Lincecum strecthes for an hour so he can go through his motion and only throws off a mound because he understands that there is a difference betwen flat ground and raised ground. I have seen him throw long toss, and he can throws half the distance Zito can. Zito is 6’4″ and throws 85 mph. Lincecum is 5’11” and in college got up to 100 mph and is still capable of throwing high 90’s even if he doesn’t in games any more.
Well, that’s just my take,
Mateo
http://mateofischer.mlblogs.com
Not good. But, if he had “good” mechanics as most people describe them, he would not be pitching in the big leagues. He is getting the most out of what he’s got. That said, unless he changes as he gets older, we wont be seeing him take the mound at age 38 like Andy Pettite and others like him.
Scouts were very negative on him. Teams wished they had of drafted him. Tremendous job getting leverage from a non-linebacker body.
Ignore if you don’t want anything off topic, but when Lincecum was in college he hit hgh 90’s-100 mph regularly. Now two Cy Youngs later his fastball has dropped to the 90-93 zone. His first two years it was still often 95+. Any comments to that part of his mechanics? His use? I only see now a few times each year against the Rockies so limited sample for me.
I love his delivery. When I pitched in college, I used to record a pitcher who I thought had a “cool delivery” but he had to throw hard to. I’d record a few innings, then watch in slow motion. Since I stopped pitching back in 2000, I no linger record pitchers, but Tim would be someone I would study. *The way he uses his upper body is similar to dwight gooden, its unique, and provided your rotator cuff is in god shape, it’s a delivery thats effective for a skinnier typa guy. A power pitcher is more legs, Tim is more upper body, arm whip action. I approve of it.
He’s won two Cy Young awards, and the first game of this world series. If his success continues injury free for a bunch of years, I would say his mechanics are good (for him). I reallly feel that, accept for the basics, mechanics are a personal thing.
It works for him, he has perfected a motion that works for him. He does use his whole body, would you teach this to a 12 year old, probely not. He leads with his hips, his motion is in cadince, his back schoulder never leaves his target and his stride stays with in his body restriction. Yes he falls off, but the throw has been completed. The question is can he keep such high energy style into his mid 30’s. He definitly has a motion for the young and he better keep in shape. Remember the action of throwing a ball overhand is not natural, it is not a question if he will have problems it is when. He has created something that seems to be maximizing the number of pitches in his arm. He is a freak.
I don’t think Tim Lincecum has bad and good mechanics because his follow through is bad. He seems always off balance when he finishes his motion. He has probably the best leg kick in the game and is one of the most elite pitchers in the league. Other than being off balance his mechanics are good.
Freak and that’s all I got to say.
Go Giants
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1O7t3mwYM4&feature=youtube_gdata_player
I wonder if his mechanics, especially that stride, are causing the gurus of pitching mechanics to rethink their decades of practice. I am also amazed that his head tilts to horizontal as he strides with no loss of control, something that I have corrected in every single boy I have ever coached. Is this law, too, about to undergo a revolution? And could he throw even harder if his front shoulder did not open up so much?
Not sure if mechanics are good for everyone but it works for him. He hides the ball very well. Also his violent motion makes his 91 mph fastball look like it coming at 97 or so.
Lincecum has good mechanics in my opinion. Before I talk about that, I dont like the fact that he tilts his head. My reasoning for that is when I coach my players (DIII), I teach to keep the shoulders parallel to the ground so the head stays the same. The biggest thing I need to teach them is control and command and that keeps them straight down to the plate. I explain it to them like a free throw shooter. I ask them if they will make more shots keeping their head level and both eyes straight on the target, or tilted to a side. Pitching is the same. With that said, it is amazing he does it that way, but it goes to show you that pitchers are going to be different and it took him a lot of reps and perfecting his mechanics to be that effective. He must have worked very hard. Obviously, it is probably hard for the hitters to concentrate on the ball coming out of the hand because of those mechanics. Works for him. As for the mechanics, he has a good balance point, equal and opposite, early hip rotation while front shoulder is closed; good front side control (glove); flat back follow through and over the front leg. Thanks for the question!
He never comes to a balance point, his hips are moving forward at his highest point of leg lift, that’s why he is so effective in getting down the mound quickly with a long stride
his balance point is at strikefoot where it should be instead of leg lift where it really makes little difference.
I think it is more of a knock on the undisciplined, impatient approach of professional hitters. He throws 91/92 mph, with no movement, very flat fastball, curve ball usually ends up in the dirt and his change up is his out pitch. I think he solely relies on hitters to get themselves out. If hitters make him throw strikes, his effectiveness would decline drastically! He will continue to be successful as long a ML hitters continue to be “guess” hitters.
“He will continue to be successful as long as ML hitters continue to be “guess” hitters.”
Wow, I guess Ted Williams didn’t know what he was talking about. When you face ML pitching you have to guess what is coming (unless 2 strikes, in which you have to concede to the pitcher). Are you saying if the hitters assumed fastball every time they still wouldnt go after that change up off his.
so his 91/92 mph flat fastball and bad curveball only get hitters out because the best hitters in the world all guess when they face him? He is facing the best hitters in the world but you are saying they are simply guessing? I guess winning 2 games in the world series is luck due to the hitters just guessing all the time…….he isn’t a freak with tremendous hip shoulder seperation or a stride around 8 feet making it extremely difficult for hitters to react to the baseball from 51 or 52 feet in a game that says every one foot you can release the ball closer to the plate, it look 3-4 miles faster, i wish i could be as lucky as time lincecum
He has great mechanics. He a smaller guy so he isn’t able to use his big body mass to help him throw, he not big, and hes not overly strong. the way he can throw as hard as he does is because he gets everything he can out of his body, he has incredible torque. He also is very good because he finishes every pitch very well, and his change up is just dirty, and fastball change up is the best combo in the game.
perftect hip-shoulder seperation.
Gains some serious momentum with his pelvic load and stride. Effectively transfers that momentum from his legs to his core with a perfectly timed extension of the back leg. As good hip-to-shoulder separation as any. Chest gets over the wall with the arm still relaxed. In short: throws with the body not the arm, EXPLOSIVE, and efficient as a machine.
perfict mechanics. he sneaks his fastball right through batters. hip shoulder seperation is exactly what a pitcher needs to be a great pitcher. perfect mechanics.