ptatc

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 24, 2011 -> 07:46 PM) I'd like someone to correct me if I am wrong, but I am pretty sure the MCL and ACL both stabilize the knees on sideways movements. Walking straight forward and standing aren't bothered like sideways movements are. I know we had a guy in our softball league tear his ACL and MCL in a game who tried to keep playing. He could stand without pain, and walk without pain, but he went sideways at all, his knee literally collapsed. I haven't read every post so I don't know if it was answered. The ACL stabilizes the knee in rotation and anterior/posterior. The reason why the MCL and ACL (along with the medial meniscus, referred to as the terrible triad) are frequently injured together is that the knee has more rotation motion. When the knee buckles it doesn't just go in it rotates in as well. this is how all of them become in involved.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 24, 2011 -> 03:31 PM) Well, playing running back with that injury and playing quarterback with that injury are slightly different, don't you think? There are very different. The one thing no one knows is how unstable the knee was. A second degree sprain is a medical diagnosis but doesn't tell you how unstable it was. If every time Cutler tried to stand on it it collapsed, there is no way he could play. He would not be able to move especially side to side. This is where the medical expertise come into play. The second degree sprain will be different from person to person and the stability will return in 3-8 weeks depending on the instability. The medical staff and the coaching staff evaluated him and determined that regardless of how tough he is or isn't, the knee will not function properly to do the job. So they sat him. This is all assuming the coaches are telling the truth. It is possible to have this injury and it get worse over a few plays. Just picture when you roll your ankle. That is a sprain. Sometimes you can walk it off, other times it seems to get worse and you need to stop. They had half time to evaluate it which means the injury was somewhere in the middle where they let him try it at the beginning of the second half. He was riding the bike on the sideline to try to keep it loose. However it was severe enough that they didn't like the way he moved with it and decided to bench him.

QUOTE (Controlled Chaos @ Jan 24, 2011 -> 01:44 PM) They are defending Cutler and bashing the Bears PR for allowing Lovie to use the word Sprain instead of partial tear. they have to defend Cutler because they praised the Bears for getting rid of Orton and getting Cutler. They will do it to the end. The important aspects are: It is a ligament SPRAIN. A strain is what you do to a muscle. A sprain can be anything from a slight stretch (first degree) to a total tear (3rd degree). It's obvious from his care on the field that the sprain was a second degree. Enough tearing to cause some instability but not enough to require a brace and immobility. A player can play with this. However, it's also apparent that the Coach determined that it was bad enough that it was having a negative effect on his play. You cannot blame Cutler for the choice the coach made. If the coach felt that it was effecting him too much, he pulled him. It was also obvious that Cutler was having an really awful game so it was a combination of play and injury that made Lovie pull him.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jan 24, 2011 -> 12:21 PM) As ptatc said brilliantly earlier, if Cutler does have a tear, then it's amazing how poorly the medical staff handled the injury in the 2nd half. You saw a guy like Pouncey get hurt yesterday, and they had him on crutches almost immediately. This is part of the controversy. Tim Bream is good AT and Gordon Nuber is a good Doc. If they really thought it was a significant tear, they would have had him in a brace to attempt to play . Once that didn't work, he would have been in a brace with his leg straight with ice and probably crutches. None of this occured, which leads me to think the injury wasn't severe. I guess it was just bad enough to make him limp and limit his mobility. Remember a tear of the ligament can be anything from a mild tear (sprain) to a total rupture.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jan 24, 2011 -> 10:54 AM) Urlacher and Kreutz haven't exactly been known as organizational guys. They say what is on there mind. they aren't organIzation guys but they are good team mate. They donKt rip team mates in public. They don't like him but as good team mates they will protect him.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jan 24, 2011 -> 10:40 AM) It is pretty clear that his teammates, who didn't always like him (if you want to believe the reports of what Urlacher had once said about Jay), certainly like him now. They are all coming to his back and these are guys that are tough men themselves (Kreutz/Urlacher). I think it is pretty naive of you to go arm chair about what he could/couldnt' play through. Jay is well liked in that lockeroom and you know what, thats all that matters to me. But the national media doesn't like him cause he treats us poorly, whahaa whaaah wahaa. f*** YOU MEDIA. Very few like him and most never will. What you're hearing from the players is what you expect to hear from the leaders on the team. They will stick up for their teammates regardless of their true feelings. Just like when people stick up for AJ on the Sox. No one likes him but as good teammates they'll say the right things.

If this is true, it will be interesting if they try surgery. Surgery on this injury isn't much better than conservative treatment. I wonder why he didn't have a brace on? It is pretty irresponsible to not have at least a lateral leg brace on him after the injury.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Jan 24, 2011 -> 10:04 AM) The fact that the Bears completely dominated the 2nd half with the worst 2nd stringer in the history of the NFL and their 3rd stringer playing and had multiple chances to tie it. If you are so blind you can't see this then don't bother replying. And if you can't see that Cutler was playing one of the worst games of his career, you should watch the game again. There was no way the Bears were going to win that game with the way he was playing, whether it was from injury or nerves or whatever. He was really really bad when he was in there.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Jan 24, 2011 -> 09:44 AM) And all but two happened in the 1940's or earlier. Everyone is satisfied with 1985, though. Perhaps they're more like the Pittsburgh Pirates or the San Francisco Giants (before this year) of the NFL. My point remains. They've hardly done anything in over 50 years. your point was they've have never done anything to earn a reputation has a "historically" good team and are just like the Cubs where they've never done anything to earn that reputation. Your point is still wrong. They have earned the title as won of the best franchises in the NFL, historically. If you want to qualify and say modern era or Super Bowl era, you have a small point, as they've won only one Super Bowl. However, the Cubs haven't even done that.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Jan 24, 2011 -> 09:26 AM) My point is that they have an historic reputation as a storied franchise despite not having much to show for it. And I disagree that they don't have much to show for it. They have more NFL championships than all but a couple of teams. They were a long time ago but they historically are one of the best teams in the NFL as far as the number of championship is concerned.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jan 23, 2011 -> 11:47 PM) Very true, and as much as a lot of us are pissed at Cutler, the MRI this week is important because a torn ACL could really hurt next year also. If this is the case they better fire the Tim Bream and the Northwestern physicians. They sure didn't care of him like he had an ACL tear or any other significant injury.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Jan 24, 2011 -> 09:08 AM) The thing I hate about being a Bears fan is that they're basically the Cubs of the NFL. A "storied" franchise with just one Super Bowl to their name, the last one being over a quarter century ago. Where the Cubs are "loveable," the Bears are "tough." That is a poor comparison. The Cubs have one WS title in their history. The Bears have won multiple championships albeit in the 40's and before. At least the Bears earned their reputation at one point in their history. The Cubs never did.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 20, 2011 -> 11:34 AM) Here's my problem though...how is he calibrating his model? If he knows a bare minimum about statistics, which something tells me he does...he should know that there's going to be an average drop in performance from AAA to the bigs, with populations at the average, and others towards the extremes, probably looking something like a bell curve. If he's historically constantly overestimating the average performance of a rookie, that means that he doesn't know how to calculate an average. If I had 25 years of data and a day or two, this is something I could figure out easily. If his model consistently overestimates people, then why is he even publishing it? I'm sure you've read all of James' material as I have. He creates many of his stats and projections on what he feels are the important variables, not necessarily what anyone else thinks are important. There is alot of subjectivity to it. In this type of projection he look at Morel's projected tools and thinks that his contact rate makes him a better candidate to succeed at the next level than others (that is just an example, I have no idea if it's true). He has all of the data from the minors and could easily just take the average decrease as you say but he uses alot of subjective information to create his models. this is why you see the variability in the projection and probably an overestimation. As with many here he likes to study the minor leagues and likes to be overly optimistic on the unknowns because it's more fun to project what someone could be not just study who they are once they get to the majors. That's how he sells books.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 19, 2011 -> 08:11 PM) No one really knows what the recovery time or effect on Peavy this injury will have because it is unique. There is nothing to base it on. I've never heard of a pitcher with the same problem. We have to be happy nothing was torn, just detached, not that that seems minor. Throwing off a mound with almost 3 months until the season starts is highly encouraging. He was really starting to pitch well when he went down last season. He's a gigantic question mark. He may be ready to pitch opening day, he may not. He may be able to give you 50 innings or maybe 210. He may be horrible or he may contend for a Cy Young. Anyone who claims they really know how this is going to play out is full of it. Who knows what happens. Maybe his stuff isn't what it was, maybe its the same or better, because maybe this has actually been an issue for longer than we can imagine. Maybe he'll never have a problem with it again, or maybe it detaches again after a month or two. We just have to hope he's somewhere near the pitcher we belived KW traded for. I haven't seen a pitcher with this injury either. Howevewr, I have worked with other types of overhead athletes, javelin and discus throwers. Once they returned to competition, they had no further difficulties. Tendon reattchments here and elsewhere in the body tend to be stronger than before due to the length of time of the internal fixation. So I think that once he returns to competition the lat will be fine. They will just want to watch him to make sure he doesn't alter his mechanics and injury something else.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jan 19, 2011 -> 07:13 PM) How can you say that so definitely? Because of a couple of reports from Cooper saying Jake is 'ahead of schedule' and 'on track'? Used to hear that all the time with Wood and Prior. Not saying Peavy is at that level of injury risk yet. But he's getting there. Just hope for the best but expect something in the middle is my philosophy. You can never say definitely but generally when someone is coming off of surgery and progressing well the only thing that holds them back is a separate injury. In the case of Wood and Prior, most of the time they were coming off an injury that they were resting and doing rehab not surgeries. The resting and rehab stints are different because your trying to get something to heal and set backs are more common. coming off surgery the problem has been corrcted he had months to heal and is wroking on strengthening so the timeline is more concrete. All that being said this is a unique injury for a pitcher so you can use general timelines for strengthening but no one really knows for sure how long it will take for the strength to fully return. I'm stciking by my prediction of no more than a few weeks into the season and most likely he will be ready for the season. But that's just an educated guess based on rehab of other athletes with the same problem. I still think the greater concern will be is if he can be effective with not dropping down as much because I'm pretty sure they aren't going to let him do it, especially early on.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jan 14, 2011 -> 10:11 PM) Well I recall internal and external rotation both were very bad. The basic test they did on all athletes was to have you try to clasp your hands behind your back, one reaching from above one from below. I still can hardly reach my throwing hand above my waist from that below position for that test. Those tests are basic tests for internal and external rotation. The one by the waist is for internal rotation. This is not uncommon for pitchers. Your best bet is to continue to do that type of stretch to improve the range. Again no one has tied to specific injury. But some think it may lead to stretching out the capsule and creating a "loose" shoulder.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jan 14, 2011 -> 08:32 PM) The trainers here at college have found that I have really poor flexibility in both shoulders and especially my throwing arm vs my non-throwing. They were really concerned but never acted on it (probably forgot). What kind of ramification do you think this has? It's very common to have less flexibility in internal rotation from one shoulder to the other. Some researchers have speculated as to reasons why. It depends on what motions are tight as to what some of the ramifications may be. Do you remember which motions they were discussing.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 14, 2011 -> 03:51 PM) Wait, so there is actually a Dr. House? Tom House is a pitching coach and baseball coach. I don't believe he has a doctoare. But like Don Cooper he may have an honorary one. (and yes I know you were joking)

QUOTE (Jake @ Jan 14, 2011 -> 04:40 PM) O'Leary points out a commonality in Prior and others' motions that he believes led them to injury, you may want to check that out. Basically, when the elbow is higher than the shoulder before acceleration begins, the instance of injury seems much higher (I say seems because he hasn't done an empirical study, just looking at patterns). It has been noted that Prior has changed this in his latest comeback attempt, which is in progress. Guys like Clemens and Maddux didn't have this particular trait and of course have had long careers. Once again, it is hard to say whether that their durability is because of that or something else or pure luck. I was never a big fan of the towel drill either, I rarely do it because normally the towel becomes distracting and you tend to cheat just to succeed in the drill. I like several of his drills, but I don't do the towel drill nor do I throw a football. My arm angle is too low for the football drill to make as much sense. His focus with me was getting momentum towards home/stride length maximized and maximizing hip/shoulder separation. Be careful with letting your stride length get too long . This is one reason some pitcher's elbow gets too high. They get off balance and attempt to compensate. I would agree with the point about the elbow height. This will cause an impingement of the rotator cuff in the shoulder. There really is no one perfect model for mechanics. Some pitcher can get away with what many people would say were awful mechanics and never have a problem. It's only when problems occur that they need to be addressed. This applies to prfessionals after they,ve been pitching awhile. yooung pitcher's just need to work on repeating a delivery which is what the article that started this post talked about.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jan 14, 2011 -> 10:45 AM) Mike Marshall is a strange bird and it's hard for the layman to understand his reasoning at times because he refuses to present his reasoning in a way that is easy to understand. You'll see O'Leary started changing his mind about Marshall: Linky I've worked with Tom House instructors and briefly House himself all my life and generally agree with their principles. Prior became the poster boy and of course that hurts House's credibility, but the pitcher that truly embodies the House method is Nolan Ryan, and of course that is a much better track record. What I appreciate most about House is that he bases his mechanical philosophy off of scientific study of proven pitchers, and his "ideal motion" is thus fluid as more technology becomes available. Many pitchers that have never been associated with House have motions that would almost completely satisfy him as well, interestingly enough. The Rocket would be one instance that comes to mind, and even Maddux. Surely there is more than one way to skin this cat, and of course genetics/work ethic/other variables can cause one instructor to look better or worse than he really is. I'm not particularly a fan of House and his methods. Prior was one example and so is Strasburg. Larry Rothschild is also a big proponent of Houses's method from their time together here in Homewood. While all pitching mechanics are debatable, the thing I don't like about it is that he based most of it on working with Nolan Ryan and a few others. It really wasn't a scientific study as much as just seeing what made some successful. A prime example is teaching to throw the curve. House like the football toss as a way to teach it as it teaches you to ulnarly deviate or move the wrist toward the little finger. It makes for a great curve however it puts a great deal of stress on the elbow as this is where the muscles for this action originate. I also think the towel drill which he teaches creates too much extension and leaves the shoulder in a poor mechanical advantage. I prefer a biomechanical model to distribute the forces throughout the body. I have a good general article on mechanics based on this approach but it's too big to attach here as it contains a number of pictures during the pitching motion.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jan 14, 2011 -> 08:36 AM) It makes them 'slightly' better. But I mean, c'mon. One, you've got the injury history. And Soriano has never produced three good seasons in a row. Two, you lose two draft picks in which the upcoming draft is believed to be loaded for a guy you might get 150-175 innings out of over the life of the deal. And you can have a bullpen with multiple Mariano's. Starting pitching will always take precedent over relief pitchers. It's not even really close. And other than Sabathia, they're going to have troubles getting to the 'pen with leads consistently with that rotation. I don't think people realize how bad Burnett was last year and how Hughes really fell off a cliff the second half. This is absolutely true. The Yankees were stuck though because every starter they tried to get didn't work out. This deal was the best thing they could currently do to imporve the pitchining staff and win games.

QUOTE (knightni @ Jan 13, 2011 -> 10:53 PM) ptatc, have you heard much about Mike Marshall's pitching techniques? Do you think that they are valid options to combat arm/shoulder injury? http://www.chrisoleary.com/projects/baseba...hanics_001.html Yes, I'm familiar with Marshall's approach. I'm not totally aginst it but I don't like the way he has them lock the front knee. It really stops the monmentum and you lose alot of kinetic energy. It does put more stress on the legs and spine which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I haven't worked with anyone who has used it so I have no direct knowledge of injuries or lack thereof. Like with any pitching model there are just a few things that make me hesitant. I prefer the kinematic pitching model which just takes into account each joint or segment and tries to minimize the forces in all of them. There are a few good articles which describe it and although it's somewhat mainstream I think it's still the best approach.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jan 13, 2011 -> 09:46 PM) I didn't read all the way through since much of it is way over my head. But why measure in innings? That seems so imprecise, why not have a pitch count? You could do it either way. Since it was done with collegiate pitchers (where most are starters and relievers) they did simulated games to be as close to real pitching as possible.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 13, 2011 -> 04:17 PM) Thanks for the article. Any chance at getting a layman's summary? That was way over my paidgrade! Basically what it means is that even after only 3 innings the pitcher is no longer unconsciously aware of the position of his elbow. He will have difficulty repeating his motion because neurologically he doesn't know where the angle of his elbow. Some ramifications are: Maybe young pitchers need time to develop more neurologically (through repetiton) in the minors realy more than innings or physically Maybe injuries can be prevented or rehabbed through different neuro methods than previously thought. Maybe its neurologic fatigue not physical fatigue that causes pitchers to lose their mechanics and increase stress on their arms. Just an intersting food for though article. It's a very important concept from a mechanics standpoint that they lost it after just 3 innings.

here is an excellent study showing how difficult it is to replicate the throwing motion. The pitchers all had decreased proprioception (unconscious awareness of joint postion) after just three innings of a simulated game. Think of the implications on an injured elbow. elbow_position_replication.pdf