Interesting quotes that Drayer got from Felix. Evidently, Felix is very anti-film study but his recent troubles may have changed his mind.
Felix Hernandez is the last Mariner you would ever see in the video room. Any time he has been asked about looking at film, be it of the opposition or himself, he would always dismiss the question with an "I never look at the video." Felix believes he knows himself and he knows the hitters he faces and that he doesn't need to cloud the waters by mulling over tape. It is something he has had no use for until now.
After once again saying he had a problem with his fastball following his last start, I asked him if it might be time to look at the tape. He said it was.
Today I followed up with him to see if he got anything out of watching the tape. It sounds like he did. "I was watching film yesterday, and it looked terrible," he told me. "Everything, my upper body is up, I'm not finishing my pitches, not just because of my back. I went to the films before my bad back, and still like that. I am not pushing with my back leg, not finishing my pitches. It surprised me a lot."
Drayer does push a lot of fluff but the relationships she establishes with the players does yield some golden nuggets from time to time. I'm wondering if the pitching mechanics guru's here (Taro, Jemanji) are seeing the same thing.
Going to be interesting to see if Felix can make some adjustments and start finishing those FB's again.
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=== Specialist Referral, Dept. ===
Dr. Grumpy sez,
... will weight loss of pure body fat lead to a decrease in strength? In theory, no it should not. However, it is highly unlikely that the weight loss program you described (short period of time, with fasting etc) resulted in no loss of lean body mass. I suspect that this is the case with Felix also, although I have no idea what his program was.
It also may be possible, even likely, that while dieting/exercising, Felix just didn't feel great and maybe didn't do quite as much throwing specific preparation prior to ST. In that case, it may simply be that his arm strength is lagging behind where it normally would be at this point. This interpretation could be compatible with Felix's own statements, e.g. "It's only ST, man".
Well, sure. Great stuff amigo.
And all of a sudden the light turns on: Wedge blows it all off with "the velocity will be there when he needs it." Probably, Wedge has seen certain players go through related syndromes in the past ... lemme digress into a chess analogy one more time. You'll be playing through a game and Botvinnik will annotate a move: "In this type of position one must keep the Bishops on." You know what? Botvinnik would not be able to clearly explain what he meant by "this type of position." He has seen the positions, he's processing them intuitively, and he's giving the right answer, but he can't tell you why.
It's possible that Wedge has seen pitchers come to camp ... having lost weight, or having had minor surgery, or having been lazy over the winter, or whatnot. This type of position. And maybe Wedge has seen them simply develop their velocity later in the season. Or when they get full adrenaline. Or whatever.
Am not saying that Wedge has the gospel truth here. He and Willis are evidently casting about. But you know what: they've seen a lot of baseball "positions" that we have not. They're the ones with a feel for the biorhythms of elite pro athletes. They could be wrong, but their impressions weigh heavily. Eric Wedge's impression is that there's probably not much to worry about.
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=== Corrected Diagnosis, Dept. ===
The comment about Lean Body Mass resonates. So does phys therapist G-Money's question whether Felix has spent too little time squatting 400 lbs. and too much time doing roadwork.
Earlier, I called a 10-20% chance that Felix' velocity would return naturally. Following Dr. Grumpy's and G-Money's sparkling observations, I'd gingerly move that to 30-40%.
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=== R/X ===
During April, I (for one) will be alert, and moderately hopeful, of a velocity return. If it doesn't, the rest of the series would remain our best understanding of what Felix is looking at, his next 1,400 innings.
But as G-Money aptly said, the emphasis now goes toward watching Felix in April and May.
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=== Prognosis, Dept. ===
If you told me that Felix would finish the year at 89.8 MPH average on the fastball, I'd still draft him about 8th in the A.L. among starting pitchers. Hey, it will be grins all around if he starts chucking those 94's out again. But he's going to be an ace regardless.
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=== Hallway Chat at the Nurse's Station ===
Hey, Blake Beavan's overhand curve is much improved. Night-and-day. He short-arms it, so it looked weird seeing a 12-6 curve at 75 mph from behind the ear, but he gets nice bite and it stays low in the zone naturally.
Of about 12-15 we saw him throw, all but one came in with tight spin and good control. He got one up, and if you can believe it in this case, the proverb "he made one mistake" actually applied. He hung one and it got slapped for a double. But watching Blake Beavan throw an ML-caliber curve was weird. (The changeup was still sigh-inducing.)
Oddly, his fastball was mushy in his last outing: 89-91, not 91-93, and the catcher moved his mitt all over the place, trying to catch it. But that's the minor point. The major point is that -- assuming that its development did not cost him the edge on his fastball-- Beavan's curve looks like a plateau leap for him. Like from 45 "average-mediocre, at best" to 55 "average-solid, probably." That curve will certainly up his strikeout rate.
Cheers,
Dr D
Comments
That's REALLY interesting. Drayer comes up with far more genuinely interesting nuggets of info than she's given credit for.
I'd love to see Doc "go to the tape" on that one. Of course, more immediately I'd like Felix's back to be fine.
~G