[baseball1974]

I think that with Shepherd it was inevitable that his was coming...He threw hard but had very poor mechanics early on. However, after his surgery they did change.


I could never understand either why you would have a kid that threw upper 80's and touching 90, throwing 50+ % curve balls against 15th region competition.

That does have a huge question mark to it. It would have been much more productive for him if he'd been taught a good changeup while still in middle school and he could've used that as his go to breaking pitch all through high school. He ended up going to college without that in his pitch selection. A smart pitcher like him could've easily developed a great changeup.

I think you're correct in that it was inevitable. The way he threw and the amount of stress he put on his upper body when he threw was going to cause him problems