(although it didn’t help much with Wainwright, if Chris O’Leary is to be believed).

There’s a good chunk of injuries that’s mechanics and (I know he’s reading) there’s at least as much a chunk that’s straight up unpredictable. He said Bert Blyleven, he of nearly 5000 innings, should’ve had “serious shoulder/elbow problems” (it’s since been taken down oddly/coincidentally enough). Peavy’s thrown 3 straight 200 IP years with awful (from an injury perspective) mechanics.

Point being it’s fairly unpredictable. There’s guys that all the Marshallites point to saying “aha I called it” and then there’s the Mark Mulders of the world whom are pretty much dead in line with their ideals and they’re just confirmation biasing to come up with any borderline-hilarious conclusions.

Would I enjoy giving Tim Melville’s M-arm action 2 million or whatever? Nope. Would you have been comfortable giving John Smoltz or Pedro Martinez or Jake Peavy or Bert Blyleven or Curt Schilling etc their contracts either?

It’s obviously worth doing, it’s valuable and 95% I’m all with you. But you frequently come across as though it is in fact absolute and that’s unwise(?) (cough outside of Anthony Reyes’ nuclear actions cough). Can’t think of a good word. Like I said I know I’m coming off like more of an ass than I want to but sometimes I just can’t help myself.

Kip Wells had the identical injury to Bonderman. You like Kip Wells mechanics. I don’t need to do too much deduction for anyone to find the problem with attributing Bonderman’s M to the blood clot. That’s just not smart. I’m devil’s advocate-ing on Bonderman, I don’t like his motion either but there’s no question the Tigers are happy they have had him and there’s no way you can say a blood clot was caused mechanically.

Pedro/Zito: Zito has said a million times over his arm is fine and his mechanics haven’t changed any for us to not believe him. The Giants would’ve loved to DL him…he’s lost 2-3 mph (ala Glavine/Maddux anyone?) he just doesn’t have the command/other pitches to deal with it. Every pitcher in the non-Nolan Ryan category is going to lose velocity after 1300 innings. Talk to me when he’s actually sidelined. Pedro: it’s easier to make the argument that his stature and his having been overworked (117 pitches per start in ‘97) led to the shoulder injury. 2600 innings into a career and something gives again it’s pretty damn tough to blame it on mechanics. No, the guys you need to (and you are) be focusing on to draw any conclusions are the draftees like say Phillip Humber who blow out their arms in 150 minor league innings while being babied. (on that note the one thing I see Humber doing is showing the ball to 2nd base…)

Philosophically, my biggest problem with comparing anyone to Maddux, especially the archetypical power pitcher Smoltz, is that there is a huge difference in the stresses between throwing 95 like Smoltz his entire career and 85 like Maddux for the last 2/3 of his. If I could get a Maddux ace I would; unfortunately there aren’t many (namely 1: Maddux) pitchers who can perform at an ace level while throwing 85. His injury risk was 100x lower regardless of mechanics just based on that so of course he’s going to be more durable: he has 25% less energy going through his arm and consequently drawing all these conclusions and comparisons to me seems reckless. Apples to oranges.

You say Glavine mechanically clean? He’s nearly an inverted L-er (maybe not 100% but he’s certainly of the “whip” arm action) and gets his elbow above the shoulder line. Huh?

Neither has a good outlook but mostly I remember this article…....Will Carroll here: http://www.slate.com/id/2100895/

Neither one has very much success in returning anyway they both usually mean you are toast.