Read my piece and you’ll get all the evidence you need.

The fact is that Eisenberg’s analysis of Motte is generally quite bad in many cases simply wrong. His understanding of pitching mechanics is also lacking.

I am generally a fan of your website, and have read many of your write-ups and watched your video clip analysis.

I think it is incredibly rude of you to come on here and write: “I don’t know what Alex Eisenberg’s been smoking. His analysis of Motte’s mechanics is way off and in many cases simply wrong.” First, it’s an obnoxious comment to make. Second, you are arguing by assertion, rather than evidence, which is basically just bellowing in text. Third, you are shamelessly trolling for traffic to your own site, rather than giving the summary of your analysis here, where Mr. Eisenberg can at least defend himself.

Finally, you, Mr. O’Leary, have your own biases that are well known. You don’t like the Tom House School of Pitching. You think the “Flying W” and the “Inverted L” are death-knells for pitchers. And while there is certainly ample support that many House pitchers, like Prior and Harden, are injury-prone, you have not conclusively demonstrated or, as far as I am aware, even attempted to show with any kind of scientific rigor why your brand of mechanics is right and the others are wrong.

You have really lowered yourself in my eyes with your commentary here, and I will always bear that in mind when I read things from you in the future.

- Analysis of the Pitching Mechanics of Jason Motte

The bottom line is that I’m not a fan (and I think he needs to develop a change-up).

P.S. I don’t know what Alex Eisenberg’s been smoking. His analysis of Motte’s mechanics is way off and in many cases simply wrong.

I don’t think you have to steal signs to know that Motte’s going to throw a fastball most of the time, especially as his out pitch.

Some fans simply will not embrace Tony. News flash—-Whitey ain’t coming back!

Anyway, I thought that if TLR had enough sense to have Rasmus in the outfield in the 9th instead of a 2nd basemen who hasn’t played much outfield at all since 2008, that that ball gets caught and game over.

I personally believe Motte just needs a little bit of time to develop more confidence in the slider. I heard somewhere (can’t remember where as I was drinking) that Motte does indeed mix in the occasional change up and was learning it this spring. Therefor the pitch that was called a changeup probably was a changeup. I remember seeing it on TV and thinking “Oh nice, he mixed in a changeup”.

I think Motte will be just fine. Pittsburgh was sitting dead red, which is why they barely made contact on the slider. I think teams are going to sit dead red against Motte which is why he needs to up his percentage of throwing “non-fastballs” up to about 50 percent or even higher. At one point Motte shook off Molina’s slider then Molina came to the mound. Motte threw the slider than and got the batter out. That was the groundout I believe. Motte just needs to instantly gain more confidence in the slider/changeup or whatever and he will perform a lot better.

One other issue is that it was very cold outside and Motte’s fastball was 95-97. Thats different than throwin 97-101. Broxton was hitting 100 on the gun yesterday. I certainly believe Motte can do the same thing in better conditions.

I went ahead and looked through gameday and there was one pitch labeled a change-up…his slider traditionally was in the mid-80′s with a 9″ break and a 0 or 1 p-f/x. The change-up was 84 with a 7″ break and a 5 p-f/x. It was thrown for a strike and he threw it on a 2-0 pitch.

He obviously didn’t mix his pitches well enough yesterday, nor did he command them. His slider didn’t actually hurt him, other than he didn’t throw enough of them for strikes…2 of his 3 outs came in at bats where he threw a first pitch slider. The one slider hit in play was a ground out.

BTW, Azru, I went to look at Motte’s arm action for both his slider and fastball and though it’s a very small sample size, the difference was much more negligible than last year–the only real difference was Motte’s wrist had a bit more hook in it when he was throwing his fastball before his arm rotated. Last year the difference was obvious, and the slots were different. I don’t really see that this year, so that should help play the pitch up somewhat.