SB Nation User Blog: Kyle Boddy

Pitcher Profile: Felix Hernandez (Part One)

Kyle Boddy — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 10:44:59 -0000

Felix Hernandez

#34 / Pitcher / Seattle Mariners

Height: 6-3

Weight: 230

Bats: R

Throws: R

Born: Apr 08, 1986

Ah, the King. I remember drafting him into my minor league system back in 2004, then watching him put up stats like this. Check his AAA line - he struck out 100 batters in 88 innings and allowed just 3 home runs. At age 19. Notoriously aggressive with prospects, the Mariners didn't waste time promoting him through as many levels as possible until just the big show remained. Still, Felix was very young and they knew what a prodigy they had on their hands - even though Bavasi was an idiot, he wasn't stupid. He knew that Felix had a chance to be one of the best pitchers in the league and to screw it up by overloading his arm would cause a major backlash by the fans.

Bavasi limited Felix's innings to 140 IP in 2005, but let him jump up to 190 IP the next year. He also limited the use of Felix's slider - restricting it to just 3.3% of pitched balls in 2005 and 7.0% in 2006. Take a look how much it jumped up in 2007 (Source: Fangraphs):

Season	Team	FB	SL	CB	CH	XX	PO
Total	- - -	60.1% (95.2)	12.2% (87.5)	14.6% (82.4)	13.1% (86.1)	3.4%	0.1%
2005	Mariners	60.1% (95.8)	3.3% (83.6)	21.9% (82.5)	14.7% (85.0)	8.5%	0.1%
2006	Mariners	57.1% (95.2)	7.0% (86.9)	20.6% (82.6)	15.3% (84.8)	2.9%	0.1%
2007	Mariners	57.0% (95.6)	20.7% (88.3)	12.4% (82.2)	9.9% (86.6)	2.5%	0.1%
2008	Mariners	65.9% (94.6)	12.3% (87.1)	8.5% (82.0)	13.3% (87.5)	2.7%	0.1%

When they let him throw it, he went nuts - and for good reason; it's a hell of a pitch. I find it interesting that he cut down on the use of the slider in 2008 and threw his fastball significantly more - it's probably because he fell in love with it in 2007 but decided to start mixing it up with his plus-plus fastball and average changeup rather than relying on his plus slider. Felix is still just 22 years old, which is extremely hard to believe given how much service time he's put in and how effective he is. He shows a real tenacity on the mound, refusing to come out of games even with a broken leg, and his fastball velocity routinely tops the charts of the Fangraphs average fastball velocity chart.

Readers will note a small drop in velocity in 2008 - I don't think there's anything to it, at least injury-wise. His changeup velocity is higher, so velocity is not down across the board. I would imagine that he's throwing his two-seam fastball more often, which would correlate well with the total increase of fastballs, and that he's playing around with changing the speed of his slider (like Johan Santana does).

Read on to delve farther into King Felix's stats, his PITCHf/x player card analysis, and a preview of Part Two, including a great clip of his devastating two-seam fastball...

PITCHf/x Player Card

Here is the best evidence we have that Felix Hernandez throws a ridiculous two-seam fastball:

Type	Movement in x (in.)	Movement in z (in.)	Initial Speed (MPH)	Number Thrown	Percent	Versus RHB	Percent	Versus LHB	Percent
Fastball	-3.73	9.52	96.51	237	12.15	63	8.32	174	14.59
Curve	5.67	-5.9	82.46	178	9.13	54	7.13	124	10.39
Slider	0.63	-0.7	87.88	207	10.62	112	14.8	95	7.96
Change	-7.95	4.31	88.31	302	15.49	71	9.38	231	19.36
Splitter?	-8.3	8.08	95.32	1026	52.62	457	60.37	569	47.69

Dan Fox also noted that Felix threw a lot of "splitters" using his algorithm, and this was in April 2008. It is possible that Felix might have learned a splitter along the way, but to think that he threw it 1026 times (more than every other pitch combined) is quite silly. Therefore, it's very probable that his "Fastball" is his four-seam fastball while his "Splitter" is his two-seam fastball.

That's a big difference between his two fastballs. Look at the level of horizontal movement in on a right-handed batter! Though it doesn't have much sink, it runs like hell.

His slider is a typical one-plane out pitch - though it doesn't feature much horizontal movement (break), it has a lot of sink (depth). As you can see, it comes in lower than a theoretically-pitched spinless baseball while not having much side-to-side movement. This should generate plenty of groundballs when paired with his heavy two-seam fastball, and indeed we see this in his batted ball data (source: Fangraphs):

Season	Team	GB/FB	LD%	GB%	FB%	IFFB%	HR/FB	IFH%	BUH%
Total	- - -	2.33	17.0 %	58.0 %	24.9 %	7.8 %	13.3 %	5.8 %	11.1 %
2005	Mariners	3.55	14.0 %	67.1 %	18.9 %	7.1 %	11.9 %	3.4 %	0.0 %
2006	Mariners	2.35	17.7 %	57.7 %	24.6 %	7.1 %	16.4 %	5.2 %	0.0 %
2007	Mariners	2.64	16.1 %	60.8 %	23.1 %	8.3 %	15.0 %	7.1 %	10.0 %
2008	Mariners	1.77	18.5 %	52.1 %	29.4 %	8.1 %	9.9 %	6.2 %	22.2 %

Interestingly enough, we see that his GB/FB ratio has trended down in 2008. He is generating more flyballs but giving up significantly less home runs on them. HR/FB is not something that is standard for all pitchers (if I went out there and threw my arsenal, my HR/FB would be sky-high), but large variations do tend to regress to the mean. I'm not sure what it all means, but it might have something to do with the lower amount of sliders being thrown or simply adjusting because the Mariners infield defense was so terrible. Then again, with friends like these in the outfield...

(Hat tip: Lookout Landing)

When you combine the terrible Mariners lineup, their horrible defense, and Felix's dominating stuff, you end up with a year like this:

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2008 - Felix Hernandez	9-11	31	31	2	0	0	0	200.2	198	85	77	17	80	175	3.45	1.39

His FIP matches up well, but a disturbing trend in his bb/k ratios can be seen below (source: Fangraphs):

Season	Team	K/9	BB/9	K/BB	HR/9	AVG	WHIP	BABIP	LOB%	FIP
Total	- - -	8.01	2.92	2.75	0.88	.261	1.32	.317	73.6 %	3.70
2005	Mariners	8.22	2.45	3.35	0.53	.204	1.00	.258	76.0 %	2.85
2006	Mariners	8.29	2.83	2.93	1.08	.266	1.34	.322	68.2 %	3.91
2007	Mariners	7.80	2.51	3.11	0.95	.280	1.38	.337	74.7 %	3.75
2008	Mariners	7.85	3.59	2.19	0.76	.259	1.39	.316	76.7 %	3.80
2009	Bill James	8.25	3.25	2.54	0.83	.259	1.35	.319		3.67
2009	Marcel	7.99	3.07	2.61	0.85	.259	1.32	.315	73.0 %	3.71

Both Bill James and Marcel predict Felix to cut back on the walks and improve his bb/k ratio, and I do too. Creeping up and past 3.5bb/9 is dangerous, even if you generate a ton of groundballs and strikeouts.

In Part Two, I'll take a look at his pitching mechanics and how well I expect him to hold up in the long run. As a preview, take a look at the following video clip of his two-seam fastball and see if you can come up with anything yourself:

What I Hate About Line Drives

Kyle Boddy — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 06:59:57 -0000

What I Hate About Line Drives

Brian Cartwright at Fangraphs does an introductory analysis of LD% and how it relates to BABIP. Many analysts use LD% + .120 to determine simple eBABIP and to see if a player is "under expectation." Personally, I use best fit lines from historical data, but I'm researching other methods as well.

But I digress. Check out this article for some interesting research, and Tom Tango's short take over at his blog.

WTF TANGO IS A CONSULTANT FOR THE MARINERS ASDASFDSGSDGSDFSD

Pitcher Profile: Carl Pavano

Kyle Boddy — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 05:59:52 -0000

Carl Pavano

#0 / Pitcher / Cleveland Indians

Height: 6-5

Weight: 240

Bats: R

Throws: R

Born: Jan 08, 1976

Let's get a few things out of the way:

That picture is hilarious.
Carl Pavano was hurt a lot.
Pavano has serious questions about his commitment to strength and conditioning.
I'm an Indians fan.

Now that we have those points out of the way, we can start to analyze Pavano's mechanics. The only reference to his mechanics on the Internet was Mike Pagliarulo's article on Dugout Central. (Note how BJ Ryan tops the list.) Mike mentioned that Pavano has problems "leaking the front side" and "balance position over the rubber." What? He doesn't go into much detail, but he does talk about "leaking the front side" - it is apparently when the front side opens too early and causes the pitching shoulder and arm to "speed up," making him a big injury risk. I actually agree with this quite a bit, and I think it helps to explain the frequent shoulder injuries that Rich Harden experiences. It's something I'll track and research a bit more. (This will probably fall under the "Arm Action" phase of my analysis.)

However, I spot other problems in Pavano's delivery that make him at-risk for injury. Take a look at this unrelated image from NoMaas:

Alright, that was uncalled for. Let's actually do some work...

Per Fangraphs, we can see that Pavano lost velocity on all of his pitches in 2008:

Season	Team	FB	SL	CB	CH	SF	XX	PO
Total *	- - -	63.1% (89.0)	13.1% (81.3)	0.1% (75.7)	17.2% (80.3)	6.4% (81.3)	0.9%	0.4%
2005	Yankees	63.5% (89.4)	11.2% (82.9)	0.1% (75.5)	18.0% (80.6)	7.2% (82.5)	0.9%	0.6%
2007	Yankees	74.5% (90.7)	8.1% (82.1)		17.4% (81.0)		2.0%
2008	Yankees	59.1% (87.9)	19.6% (79.7)	0.2% (76.0)	15.1% (79.5)	6.0% (78.9)	0.5%

R.J. Anderson (of Beyond the Box Score) wrote at Fangraphs that Pavano's swinging strike totals were similar to 2005, indicating that his stuff has held up over the years, even if his shoulder hasn't.

Here's a pitching clip from 2008 vs. Tampa Bay:

You can see what Mike P. was talking about when Pavano "leaks the front side" - he opens his shoulder a bit early, even if he does keep equal and opposite arms.

I see very small signs of Hyperabduction, but strangely enough I see something related to Mike's analysis that might explain the shoulder problems he suffered. Take a look at the frames when Pavano "swims" his glove arm back, forcibly loading the scapula. Not only does this "leak the front side," but it will stress the anterior portion of the shoulder. It is plainly obvious that this is not a "passive" load of the scapula - it is forced.

Tempo: 21-22 frames from maximal leg lift to footplant. Just slightly Below Average. What's more troubling is the fact that Pavano is a "tall-and-fall" pitcher; he simply lifts his leg and puts it back down without drifting through the balance point like most successful pitchers (Lincecum is the gold standard).

Arm Action: Like I said above, Pavano uses a swim move with his glove to load his scapula in a forced abduction pattern. I don't like this. Furthermore, he is late at footstrike - his pitching forearm barely clears his shoulders when his shoulders begin to turn, which probably explains the elbow troubles he's had. Very Bad.

Ball Release: Pretty decent, actually. There's no question that Pavano has intent to throw hard, but the steps leading up to the release phase are what causes him problems. Still, he bends over at the waist - I prefer pitchers to think "stand tall and rotate," which is a Dr. Marshall cue. I want them to stick their pitching arm shoulder into the catcher's mitt. Average.

Followthrough: Bad. I see a lot of Max Scherzer in Pavano's followthrough - he hangs his arm and doesn't firm up his glove side against his shoulder in the deceleration phase. This can cause additional stress on the anterior and posterior portions of Pavano's shoulder.

Still, Pavano's delivery is not that stressful - at least not to cause the litany of random injuries he's suffered. Strained buttocks and cracked ribs that kept him from pitching entirely in 2006? UCL rupture after pitching in spring training and nothing else? There are tons of third-hand reports of him eating candy bars and lounging around the Yankees clubhouse, doing nothing while being unable to throw - and enjoying the experience. These are pretty serious allegations - even Mike Mussina jumped on his back, telling Pavano that he had to "get tough" and that other Yankees teammates were not a fan of Pavano's indifference to physical conditioning.

I think that Carl Pavano has serious question marks about his dedication to conditioning, something that the Indians no doubt understood - signing him to a $1.5m guaranteed contract with an assured spot in the starting rotation. Jay from Let's Go Tribe broke the deal down like this:

1-17 starts — 1.5M
18-19 starts — 1.6M
20-21 starts, <130 IP — 1.7M
20-21 starts, 130-139 IP — 1.8M
22-23 starts, 130-139 IP — 1.9M
24-25 starts, 140-149 IP — 2.2M
26-27 starts, 150-159 IP — 2.5M
28-29 starts, 160-169 IP — 2.85M
30-31 starts, 170-179 IP — 3.25M
30-31 starts, 180-189 IP — 3.45M
32 starts, 190-199 IP — 4.0M
33 starts, 200-214 IP — 4.6M
33 starts, 215-224 IP — 4.9M
34 starts, 225-234 IP — 5.65M
35 starts, 235+ IP — 6.55M

The only problem with the deal I see is the guaranteed slot in the rotation. There's no reason to believe that Pavano is any better than Scott Lewis, Zach Jackson, Aaron Laffey, or Jeremy Sowers, or... hmm. Actually, that's a load of fringy pitchers, many of whom have had shots at the big league and have failed to impress. (Please spare me Scott Lewis' performance at the end of 2008.)

Overall, I think the deal is fine for the Indians. It's a typical Mark Shapiro move - sign a veteran who is considered to be washed up and see if they can get anything out of him. It worked with Aaron Fultz, and uh... Joe Borowski... and not too many others. Still, the point is that these deals cost basically nothing in money and roster space (they can be released painlessly) for a shot at some serious upside. Remember when the Big Hurt was "washed up" and then went to Oakland for the first time?

As a parting note, did anyone know that Eric Mangini is Mark Shapiro's brother-in-law? I didn't, but I'm not much of a Browns fan.

Tom Tango - Consultant for the Seattle Mariners

Kyle Boddy — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 08:17:08 -0000

Tom Tango - Consultant for the Seattle Mariners

As an A's fan, I have only one thing to say about this:

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

This is the 12-year old Marshall-trained pitcher that is making the rounds about the Internet. You...

Kyle Boddy — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 10:21:52 -0000

This is the 12-year old Marshall-trained pitcher that is making the rounds about the Internet. You can see all of the pitches he throws in this video in high-speed (appears to be 210 FPS). Go to the video directly to see it in HD quality.

I'll let the viewers draw their own conclusions. The only thing I will say is that the release of the Maxline Pronation Curveball is nearly perfect.

Discussion: Internally Rotating the Shoulder

Kyle Boddy — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 09:25:16 -0000

SB Nation poster NoNameOnCard is a frequent contributor to this site and has published his own blog about biomechanical research as it pertains to baseball - TexasLeaguers.com. For those who think that I go on at length about biomechanical and anatomical concepts, you should check out his stuff!

He has an excellent article up right now that discusses the internal rotation of the shoulder and how it contributes to valgus stress on the elbow (the primary cause of UCL rupture). Dr. Marshall believes that UCL rupture occurs due to "forearm bounce," or when the pitching arm goes from zero acceleration to maximum acceleration with the forearm being "laid back" in a position of shoulder external rotation. An example of external shoulder rotation can be seen below:

As a slight digression, Paul Nyman (SETPRO) believes that shoulder external rotation is the cause of high pitched ball velocities. I disagree. It is the effect of high pitched ball velocities.

NoNameOnCard believes that by extending the pitching arm before internal rotation takes place that the triceps can maximally project the baseball towards home plate with higher velocities and reduce the risk of UCL-related injuries.

I'm not sure I agree. I emailed NoNameOnCard this blurb in hopes of stirring up some discussion:

I love the blog so far. However, I don't think that I draw the same conclusions that you do about internal rotation. Dr. Marshall's students experience significantly higher degrees of internal rotation about the shoulder than "elite" pitchers from ASMI, as documented in this study. This would indicate that Dr. Marshall's pitchers should be at much higher risk for UCL injuries than traditional pitchers. Do you think that Dr. Marshall's pitchers use of their triceps via pronation helps to protect against valgus stress?

As for your comments about the anterior deltoid needing to flex to maintain the full length of the forearm behind the shoulder to avoid "forearm bounce" (vertical pitching forearm laying back in external rotation), you are correct - their pitchers do not do this. However, Dr. Marshall does want them to do so. Bill Peterson of RPM Pitching has indicated that his son Patrick had serious injuries in the anterior portion of his shoulder - particularly the deltoid area - after years of training with Dr. Marshall. To me, using the anterior deltoid in this manner causes a position of hyperabduction and poses a serious risk of injury. It takes a genetically gifted individual to accelerate a baseball at meaningful velocities using this technique, and Patrick was one of the few that could. It directly contributed to anterior shoulder injury.

The flaw of "looping" that Dr. Marshall talks about (the bending of the pitching elbow) is not a flaw at all, IMO.

I need to review the videos of Dr. Marshall's students, because while it is true that the internal rotation of their shoulders is significantly higher than ASMI's "elite" group of pitchers, the lack of UCL-related injuries to pitchers in his group could be related to an extended pitching arm before internal rotation, if NoNameOnCard's theories are correct.

I've emailed Dr. Marshall about this issue as well, and I'll start pulling video to see what I can conclude.

I promise that less verbose articles will be published in the future and more pitcher analyses will go up. I'm just knee-deep in tons of research that I want to understand a bit better before I continue. Thanks for your understanding.

Quick News: Scapula Stuff, Schooling, Dr. Fleisig

Kyle Boddy — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 17:25:39 -0000

Scapula Stuff

In "Differences in Scapular Upward Rotation Between Baseball Pitchers and Position Players" (Laudner et. al. - link), it is confirmed that pitchers have significantly less scapular upward rotation than position players at 60 and 90 degrees of humeral elevation.

Your arms at rest are 0 degrees. Raising them parallel with your shoulders straight in front of you is 90 degrees.

At 120 degrees (hyperabduction), it is not statistically significant, but the trend does seem to hold water.

This is important because insufficient scapular upward rotation has been empirically linked with several shoulder disorders.

The question now is: Why does this happen?

In "The Role of the Scapula in Rehabilitation of Shoulder Injuries" (Voight, Thomson - link), Voight et. al. conclude that while "rotator cuff strengthening has been an obvious treatment for various pathologies," the scapula is the base of the rotator cuff and therefore the muscles that control it should be strengthened as well. Weakeness causes altered biomechanics of the glenohumeral joint, possibly leading to unnecessary stresses on the rotator cuff (particularly the subscapularis) and the anterior capsule.

Still, we have no real link between why scapular upwards rotation is decreased in healthy professional pitchers compared to position players of the same organization. Nevertheless, we can regain some of this upwards rotation by performing various types of PNF stretching, D2 patterns with SPRI bands, tons of different types of rows (Eric Cressey of Cressey Performance loves these exercises for pitchers), and serratus anterior punches with SPRI bands.

Altered push-ups with chains or blast straps would be a great way to work similar muscles, especially if you focused on retracting the scapula at the top of the exercise.

Schooling

After careful consideration, I have decided to go back to school and finish my undergraduate coursework. Previous to dropping out of a full-tuition scholarship at a quality private university in the Midwest (very smart, I know), I was studying Economics and Entrepreneurship - two fields of study that I still enjoy reading about today. However, since my plan in life is to work around baseball (and sports medicine/training overall), I'll be taking some general coursework at the local junior college to get my prerequisites out of the way (sadly enough I have 90+ semester credits finished but nearly none in the hard sciences) before applying for admission to a local college to study Exercise Science. After graduation, I will take the ATC and CSCS exams for certification and attend graduate school to earn a Master's degree in Kinesiology. Though I can't really see myself attaining a Ph. D., I suppose it is entirely possible that I will continue on.

Biomechanics Lab

I'm happy to report that the high-speed camera works wonderfully - if there's enough light. I took it to the batting cage to mess around with, and unfortunately there's not much to share due to the poor lighting conditions. However, I managed to take some great footage of Matrix-style choreographed fights at work last night, and that turned out wonderfully.

Dr. Glenn Fleisig of ASMI (hazel's hero, if I recall correctly) was good enough to speak with me on the phone about planning out a biomechanics lab in the Pacific Northwest. He was happy to hear that I planned to study Exercise Science and that I was interested in opening up a biomechanics lab up here to do similar studies on pitchers and hitters. He said that he had a few people interested around the country in opening up "satellite" offices and that he would put me in touch with said people in about a month, after the Injuries in Baseball Conference in Houston.

Dr. Fleisig invited me to come down to Birmingham for a few days to understand the general layout of the facility and to help me get an idea of the cost and planning it would require to build such a lab myself. I look forward to visiting him sometime in 2009 to make this happen (and to think I have yet to visit Bill Peterson of RPM Pitching in Colorado).

The goal of Driveline Mechanics was to establish a baseline of what I thought I knew and see if it panned out, and it turns out that many of you are interested in similar pursuits! There exists a significant body of work out there that I am delving into that suggests that scapular loading below the acromial line can be very beneficial, and as such I am thinking about changing my mind on this very subject (though I never really cared about people passively "loading the scapula," only people who forcibly took it behind the acromial line and especially in a hyperabducted state). I hope that you never stop questioning both what I write and what you read, because the truth is that none of us have all the answers. One day, we may very well have them - but it does us no good to simply know what we should do; we must figure out how to relate them to the youth baseball players who will grow up to be professional pitchers so they can pitch with less injury concerns.

News: Coaching

Kyle Boddy — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 09:15:47 -0000

A few people have emailed me about the broken Coaching link in the Pages section in the left sidebar. I have since fixed that problem, but both the Pitching and the Coaching pages should be updated with new and additional information that I've researched over the past year. For now, I think my readers are happy that I'm updating the blog with some regularity and I promise to get around to updating the pages in the near future!

As for coaching, readers have emailed me asking about my location and my availability to analyze hitting/pitching clips for a fee, so I will talk about this on the front page. The intention of this site (Driveline Mechanics) was not to tout my coaching services or analyst skills, but to publish a blog that analyzes MLB players and prospects from a different point of view - combining the performance analysis of sabermetrics with a scouting perspective as well to form player profiles. Still, this blog has attracted a fair amount of interest with regard to coaching services, and as such, I have begun work on a dedicated coaching site. This site will have free content with drills and strength and conditioning tips as well as a forum to post to, and it will have more information about my coaching availability.

Much of my background comes from a strength and conditioning background, which is how I got involved in safe and effective pitching mechanics (suffering elbow and shoulder pain myself certainly accelerated this journey). Most of what I have studied with regard to general biomechanics, strength and conditioning, and nutrition are not suitable for publication on this blog, but would be very useful for amateurs and professionals alike who are looking to improve their skills and sport-specific performance. These topics will be covered on my new coaching site.

A major coaching/analyst goal of mine in 2009 includes finding a batting cage facility to partner with to setup a complex biomechanical lab (with help from Dr. Fleisig's instructions) in Seattle, WA. It will include reports similar to what ASMI provides with traditional, high-speed, and infrared imagery available to hitters and pitchers at any level. This prospect of developing the first full-featured biomechanical lab to analyze baseball players in the Pacific Northwest is very exciting to me, and I hope to be able to share these facilities at reasonable costs with others in the area.

As always, if you have questions, please feel free to email me directly - kyle@drivelinemechanics.com, or post comments. I love feedback of all types, and I know the other authors appreciate it as well.

FanGraphs Adds Wins Above Replacement (WAR)

Kyle Boddy — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 10:24:20 -0000

FanGraphs Adds Wins Above Replacement (WAR)

There’s a new section in the batting player pages which does the job of calculating a player’s runs over replacement and wins over replacement.

Now that's awesome.

Quick Hit: Joe Mauer

Kyle Boddy — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 09:28:13 -0000

Joe Mauer

#7 / Catcher / Minnesota Twins

Height: 6-5

Weight: 230

Bats: L

Throws: R

Born: Apr 19, 1983

Joe Mauer is the definition of a "sweet swing." People point to him and love his work ethic, his amazing defensive skills, his high batting average, his great walk rate, and that beautifully simple stroke that laces line drives from gap to gap.

And why not? Take a look at his 2008 stats:

	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	K	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG
2008 - Joe Mauer	146	536	98	176	31	4	9	85	84	50	1	1	.328	.413	.451

This type of production is simply unheard of from a catcher. Hell, it's hard to find a first baseman this good.

Now, his swing:

People have been saying for years that Mauer would eventually fill out and start hitting 30 home runs annually, which would make him the best player in the major leagues and it simply would not be close (assuming he continued to hit .300 with high walk rates). However, while Mauer still racks up the doubles and walks, he's not hitting too many over the fences.

A quick analysis of his hitting mechanics might tell us why...

Joe Mauer doesn't carry his weight into the frontside as well as a typical power hitter does, and he also has more extended arms than most power hitters would at the point of contact. Take a look at a slightly slowed down version of his swing:

Mauer is a "turner," one that turns from the middle and quickly delivers the bat into the hitting zone. There's nothing inherently wrong with this, since he still has a rotational base and a quick stroke, but he doesn't gain much Lead Arm Extension or create much stretch between his core muscles and his arms. I believe that these are the reasons that Mauer does not hit for significant home run power.

Now, I'm not saying that Mauer should change anything - certainly not. Joe Mauer is the Twins' most valuable player (disregard of all the nonsense about Morneau that you hear) and it is because OBP is life - especially from the catcher position.

The day that someone complains about a catcher putting up .400 on-base percentages and .440 slugging percentages every year needs to have their head examined.