What I know about Strasburg is from what I have seen of him in the Olympics and read about him online, but I feel like I can at least adequately address a few concerns about his mechanics. First of all, the comparison to Mark Prior is loose at best. Sure, there are certain points of the delivery that appear to be the same in the side by side, but there are some major differences. Strasburg has been credited by some 'experts' as having a smooth pitching motion that flows. This is very good for a pitcher, as any hitches in the motion are red flags for injuries. You can notice this "smoothness" in a.) his picking up of the ball (elbow movement before forward momentum) and b.)his ability to almost separate his hips unnoticeably. Prior takes a much higher step before he begins, which ultimately leads to timing issues throughout his motion. When he changed that, he lost a lot of velocity (you can notice Strasburg takes a good size step, but does not have any timing issues throughout).
Another thing with mechanics (and this pertains to Lincecum as well) is that there is no universal perfect mechanic for pitching, there is however a such thing as almost perfect mechanics for an individual. Lincecum's father basically tailored his son's mechanics to fit his body, thus increasing the efficiency and reducing the chance of injury of the mechanics. If I recall correctly, Strasburg used to be a bit more heavier. Maybe, he is just settling into his mechanics and we could still see further improvement on what he is showing now. Either way I am sure we all get more than our fair shares of expert advice over the next couple months, along with some opportunities to check out the kid for ourselves. One thing Strasburg is not, though, is Mark Prior.
*Does anyone know why new posts in "The Farm" no longer appear under my "Show Unread Posts since Last Visit" link?
