Driveline Baseball - Latest Comments

Re: Craig Kimbrel’s Overpowering Velocity – How Did He Get It?

dallas terrell — Thu, 16 May 2013 11:07:00 -0000

As Craig's off season trainer I will sum up what we emphase in following concepts 1) Eccentric concentration on his backside mechanics. 2) dynamic flexibility and Mobility on the frontside mechanics. 3) 2:1 ratio on upper body work ex.two joint pull, one joint backside Stabilazation then frontside with special attention to focusing on what is occurring between the Set-up, mid point and follow thru Stabilazation. Press On!

Re: MaxVelo

Nick — Fri, 10 May 2013 14:47:09 -0000

Any word on the release of the Max Velo Program Book?

Re: Velocity Development Program (MaxVelo) Study Data and Conclusions

Garrett — Fri, 03 May 2013 07:39:41 -0000

Ya. Basically to see the extent outliers had on the data. Especially with small sample sizes and no crossover methodology.

With selection bias and the other problems in the study (non-blind), it'll be hard to make any legit statistical argument, but that is pretty pointless. (Unless we're trying to publish a statistical paper instead of training athletes.)

Re: Velocity Development Program (MaxVelo) Study Data and Conclusions

drivelinekyle — Thu, 02 May 2013 14:45:21 -0000

Hence why it's the Control Group - it's a common thing to do in the off-season (nothing).

Re: Velocity Development Program (MaxVelo) Study Data and Conclusions

drivelinekyle — Wed, 01 May 2013 23:41:00 -0000

The throwing programs were very different. Probably the area with the least overlap.

We use crow-hops for a variety of reasons - increasing intent to throw hard, working on linear movement, etc. There is also the fact that not all of the participants were pitchers. Many of our clients are position players who want a stronger arm.

We don't have any kind of disparity like that. What we find is that someone's max crow hop throw is very similar to a fully adrenalized pitcher on a mound in a game situation.

Re: Velocity Development Program (MaxVelo) Study Data and Conclusions

Thomkins — Wed, 01 May 2013 23:38:37 -0000

well that explains it

Re: Velocity Development Program (MaxVelo) Study Data and Conclusions

Thomkins — Wed, 01 May 2013 23:38:18 -0000

thanks for the replies, very interesting stuff. I can't tell from the descriptions but were the actual throwing a baseball (weighted or normal) programs the same for the basic and maxvelo groups?

also why do you gun pitchers off crow hops instead of the mound? I've seen it done many places and always wonder how much does it matter. I knew a guy who could throw 100 MPH off a crowhop and couldn't ever hit 88 off the mound and knew a guy who never had more than 1 or 2 MPH between crow hop and windup

Re: Velocity Development Program (MaxVelo) Study Data and Conclusions

drivelinekyle — Wed, 01 May 2013 22:37:14 -0000

Throwing more will help them throw harder, you are right. Most of them were doing very little throwing. Bullpens once per week is not throwing much at all.

Re: Velocity Development Program (MaxVelo) Study Data and Conclusions

drivelinekyle — Wed, 01 May 2013 22:36:40 -0000

I can post the data later when I'm at home. No massive outliers were recorded like that, however.

The differences are fairly large, IMO. I can't post the exact MaxVelo workouts, but there was - at most - a 20-25% overlap in exercises.

Thanks for doing the t-test. My stats chops are rusty; I last took 300-level Econ courses 9 years ago!

Re: Velocity Development Program (MaxVelo) Study Data and Conclusions

Thomkins — Wed, 01 May 2013 22:17:50 -0000

also it'd be great if we could see each individual before and after number and what work they did exactly. if there was one guy who was hurt or something and lost 7 MPH while one guy jumped 17 MPH that would cause big swings in the data. Also, the difference in the basic and max velo groups workouts don't seem to be large enough to justify grouping them totally separately.

one more thing, I don't know anything about ANOVA but ran a t-test between the groups to convert it to my language and got control and basic at the 90% confidence level, so not quite publishable level but still good. max velo and basic were way up there 99.5% or something but again it'd be great to see the individual data because a few outliers in something like this can make data look more convincing than it is.

I love that you keep track of all this though, great work

Re: Velocity Development Program (MaxVelo) Study Data and Conclusions

Thomkins — Wed, 01 May 2013 18:56:55 -0000

I don't understand why guys who were throwing bullpens consistently lost velocity over 12 weeks? For a 14 year old kid that seems very abnormal to me. Most every 14 year old ive seen is growing and throwing more will help them throw harder

Re: Velocity Development Program (MaxVelo) Study Data and Conclusions

drivelinekyle — Wed, 01 May 2013 14:15:57 -0000

The data has been updated. Thank you for pointing out the typo!

Re: Velocity Development Program (MaxVelo) Study Data and Conclusions

drivelinekyle — Wed, 01 May 2013 14:10:57 -0000

Median is no problem. What did you mean by Range - just min/max?

Re: Velocity Development Program (MaxVelo) Study Data and Conclusions

drivelinekyle — Wed, 01 May 2013 14:09:13 -0000

Whoops - in the source data (as you can see in the ANOVA analyses), it is correct. In the chart data it is wrong. I will be updating shortly. It was 72.0 -> 79.1 MPH. Thanks!

Re: Velocity Development Program (MaxVelo) Study Data and Conclusions

khan — Wed, 01 May 2013 14:06:03 -0000

Just great, especially the conclusions (always nice to see someone who is critical of their own work and unwilling to make baseless claims).

I think 79.1-73 is 6.1 rather than 7.1, though, and I assume the 6 week increase was 5.7?
Sorry to be ocd, but everything else is done so carefully that this deserves to be perfect.

Re: Velocity Development Program (MaxVelo) Study Data and Conclusions

Garrett — Wed, 01 May 2013 12:48:39 -0000

Median and range of velocity change please.

Re: The Stretch-Shortening Cycle Theory in Pitching Mechanics – Real or Imagined?

Jeff — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 20:35:47 -0000

So to be clear, a quick arm in layback is a fast, tense glove hand break into the cocked position?

Re: Getting to 95 MPH – Advanced Velocity Development

SportsSignup — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 16:12:00 -0000

"If you don’t train hard in-season, you are going to lose all of the off-season work you put in."

Best advice for in-season athletes. It's easy to fall into a "routine" in-season. You're tired so you don't want to push as hard and while that's understandable in-season is when you need to keep making progress because that's when it really counts!

Re: Andrew Cashner’s Pitching Mechanics (Quick Post)

Mime — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 15:47:26 -0000

Could you elaborate on how to better get this. Other than just intent. No disrespect at all.. Just am fishing for more info

Re: Going from 77 MPH to 90 MPH in Five Months – The Joe Marsh Story

bill — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 22:19:13 -0000

you think you could help a 38 yr old who has never topped 75 in his life that probably can only throw 55 now....help me throw 85?

Re: Michael Pineda, SLAP Tears, Forcing a Change-Up, and Pitching Mechanics

Ryan — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 14:53:02 -0000

It's not the changeup that's the problem. Despite what the Yankees PR department would have you believe, the problem is their own unbelievable recklessness. Pineda was an obvious case of a seriously injury-prone pitcher...

It's amazing how this caught the Yankees of guard. They're investing tens of millions in Pineda--even more include the value lost in the prospects they traded away--and they had a bevy of evidence that said "watch out! check the shoulder for injury!"

The Yankees have already been burned by Carl Pavano, Jaret Wright, Damaso Marte, Pedro Feliciano and many others over the years because of labrum tears and elbow blow-outs. They should know the signs to look for.

Pineda's effectiveness and velocity fell off a bridge in the second half of 2011. That should've been enough to stay away--or at least ignite a strong enough suspicion to exercise a much more precise physical exam.

Even worse though, Pineda already had a history of arm trouble--mainly his elbow--and his mechanics have the exact warning signals that lead to so many injuries--mainly hyperabduction and bad timing. Taking all of this in to account, and that SLAP tears end pitching careers virtually half of the time, they should've known better. Unbelievable.

Re: Does Throwing Harder Mean Throwing Wilder?

David Hirsh — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 17:00:24 -0000

Got it. The thing I would find more interesting is whether taking and training a pitcher with good control (however you can quantify that) and so-so velocity messes with their ability to throw strikes. At least for a little while until they get used to all that newly earned velo and reacquaint themselves with their release etc.

Re: Does Throwing Harder Mean Throwing Wilder?

drivelinekyle — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 14:44:25 -0000

True, but that wasn't the point of the article. If we want to discuss the science behind kinesthetic sense and how control and velocity improve together - and what exactly *is* control, anyway? - that's an article for another day.

The point of the article was just to show that in the population where we have a ton of data, that throwing harder is not correlated with less control. If data was available in the low minors, that might make a more convincing argument. Sadly, we are handcuffed to what we have available.

Re: Does Throwing Harder Mean Throwing Wilder?

David Hirsh — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 14:25:02 -0000

I understand, appreciate, and would like to belive the argument you're making. But these data are not convincing.

You're in the business of getting (youth through HS for the most part) pitchers to throw harder as INDIVIDUALS. A more specific statement of your argument should then be "training and teaching young pitchers to throw harder doesn't mess with their command (assuming they have something approaching command going into the training/teaching)".

Instead, these data show that there's no GENERAL correlation between higher velocity and command amongst a GROUP of (not to mention highly experienced) pitchers, which is a different thing.

You can put me in that group of dads who believes you do sacrifice some command in a young pitcher when you focus on velocity development IN THAT individual pitcher, for the time that you focus on velocity development. But I also believe that doesn't mean command is forever lost once you get a kid throwing 6MPH harder after a period of training/teaching. I believe there's nothing preventing a bright, young, motivated pitcher with newly developed velocity from reacquiring that command without having to throw less forcefully.

Anyways, I'm not sure how much any of this matter as we all know that velocity catches eyes more than command no matter how lip service the scouts and recruiters pay to the latter.

Re: The Facts Behind Long Toss

Phil Tognetti — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 15:08:22 -0000

Nice write up, Kyle. So many athletes think they are missing just that one special program or pill that will take them to the next level. What they fail to realize is that there is a larger recipe being implemented with multiple ingredients. You cannot make a successful ballplayer with one ingredient. You need the whole recipe - one part strength training, one part mobility, one part throwing program, one part genetics, so on and so on.

Bring all the ingredients together in the right quantities, and now you have a recipe for success.