I've been thinking a little more about Ian Snell's front foot today, and what effect (if any) it might be having on his performance. I'm generally loath to talk about pitching mechanics in terms of implications for health or success, since it's nigh impossible to identify any particular strong correlations, but I just did a Google image search for pretty much every good pitcher I could think of off the top of my head and to a man their front toes all point towards home plate, so I'm thinking there might be something to this.
So here's where you guys come into play. As sufficiently dedicated baseball fans to be reading a site like this, most of you should have at least a basic understanding of a typical pitching motion. For those of you who do, I'd like you to do three things for me:
1) In the safety of your own home or office or private space or whatever, slowly go through a normal pitching motion with your front foot pointed towards the plate (with an angle of 0-20 degrees)
2) Slowly go through a normal pitching motion with your front foot pointed at an angle more (but not completely) towards first or third base (depending on handedness; lefty = first, righty = third)
3) In the comments section, post your impressions
Thank you to anyone who participates. And if you can't sense any differences between the two motions, please, by all means, say so. Don't just post what you think you should feel. Post what you actually feel.
(Bunch of pictures after the jump.)
And so on.