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Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Handling young pitchers
Lincecum and Hughes:
But how much to throw, and how exactly to throw, has become one of the game’s great debates. Lincecum, for example, credits his late-season surge a year ago — he went 0-5 with a 7.82 ERA in August, then went 5-1 with a 1.94 in September — to going back to the extreme long-toss program he utilized as a high school and college pitcher. After a deliberate warm-up routine, Lincecum routinely airs it out on his off days, playing catch at farther than 300 feet for five to 10 minutes to build his arm strength. There were even days when Lincecum was spotted long-tossing with a friend in a park in San Francisco. His jump in velocity from August to September and October was almost four mph.
Not everyone has had the same success bouncing back as Lincecum. According to the velocity-tracking website FanGraphs.com, Pelfrey recovered most of his velocity (getting back to 92 to 93 mph) during the second half of the 2009 season, but has dipped again for parts of the last two seasons. “I am a believer in long toss,” Pelfrey says, “Especially in spring training, it’s a great physical and mental exercise. In the beginning of the spring, I struggle to throw the ball 120 feet, and by the end of the spring I’m throwing it 250-300 feet easily. That’s great evidence that your arm is strong.”
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