Saturday, February 27, 2010

“Walton employing new pitching philosophy (Major League Baseball)” plus 3 more

“Walton employing new pitching philosophy (Major League Baseball)” plus 3 more

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Walton employing new pitching philosophy (Major League Baseball)

Posted: 26 Feb 2010 04:31 PM PST

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By Jordan Bastian / MLB.com

02/26/10 6:35 PM EST

DUNEDIN, Fla. -- After Blue Jays pitchers wrapped up their portion of the first full-squad workout of Spring Training on Friday, new pitching coach Bruce Walton stopped to get a drink from the bright orange cooler at the back of the club's bullpen.

"There are a lot of guys here," Walton said. "A lot of guys. It's a big test for me."

In his first tour as a Major League pitching coach, Walton has been tasked with orchestrating a complicated spring competition for Toronto's rotation and bullpen. There are more than three dozen pitchers in camp, and among that group, roughly two dozen have a legitimate shot at finding their way onto the team's Opening Day roster.

Beyond merely determining which arms will break camp with the Blue Jays, though, Walton is also trying to find a way to get as many innings as he can out of a very young and inexperienced cast. To hopefully achieve that goal, Walton -- hired in October to replace Brad Arnsberg, who now holds the same role with the Astros -- has devised what he is calling his "arm management program."

"Obviously, I can't control how many pitches it takes for them to get three outs," Walton explained. "I can't control how many times they get up in the bullpen and stuff like that. But on our throwing days, our side days, our long-toss days, we're just going to manage them with common sense and try to save bullets in those areas where, hopefully, you keep them fresher day-to-day and game-to-game."

Walton believes that altering the pitchers' routines can benefit them throughout the course of a full season, increasing the probability that they will be able to handle larger workloads. Some studies have suggested that pitchers should only increase their innings by 20 percent each year, but Walton feels he can upgrade that to 25-30 percent by reducing the amount of throwing between appearances.

This means limiting the amount of time pitchers play catch, for example.

"They love to play catch. They're pitchers. That's what they do," Walton said. "When they start playing catch, it's fun for them, but I think sometimes we go overboard a little bit. I think we do waste some bullets, and I just want to control it the best I can."

For bullpen sessions between starts, Walton said he plans on having a "soft rule" of only having the pitcher work off the mound for eight minutes. He believes there is only so much a pitcher can work on in the bullpen, and, especially with a younger pitching staff, Walton feels the time for learning is during games.

This spring, Walton has altered the way pitchers train during workouts. One change is that pitchers are only scheduled to work through a light round of catch the day following their bullpen sessions on the mound. Walton wants the pitchers to work harder on their mound days and to take things easier when they are not scheduled to pitch.

In the past, pitchers also would routinely play catch first, then work through various practice stations before finally shifting to mound sessions. That often created downtime between playing catch and working off the hill. Now Walton has the pitchers do a long-toss workout right before they are scheduled to pitch off a mound.

"Is that saving bullets?" Walton said. "No, but it's using your bullets at the right time before you come to the mound to get your work in."

Walton was asked if the changes he is making were in response to the pile of arm injuries Toronto pitchers have experienced in recent seasons. He said the only thing behind his still-evolving program is the youth that the Blue Jays are working with this season.

"I don't think it's in response to anything other than the inexperience and the younger kids that I will have," Walton said.

Walton also acknowledged that some pitchers often push themselves too hard during Spring Training in an effort to impress the organization, especially in a camp as competitive as this one. Walton said he has tried to emphasize that not making the Opening Day roster is not the end of the world. Many pitchers have specific development plans in place and their shot at the big leagues will come at the right time.

"Hopefully I get them to understand that making the team, not making the team, it's not that big of a deal," Walton said. "Everybody is going to have an opportunity, I think, to come up over the course of the year. Hopefully by my patience and the way I talk and the way I teach, it slows guys down a little bit."

In some ways, this spring is as much a learning process for Walton as it is for the young pitchers. And he admits that his ideas and plans are all works in progress.

"I don't know where I'm going exactly," he said with a laugh. "But I know that I've started at the right spot."

Jordan Bastian is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

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New coach brings new philosophy (The Lonoke Democrat)

Posted: 26 Feb 2010 10:49 AM PST

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Konerko accepts Sox' new offensive philosophy (Daily Herald)

Posted: 26 Feb 2010 10:00 PM PST

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GLENDALE, Ariz. - Two days before SoxFest last month, Paul Konerko made a pitch for the White Sox to bring back designated hitter Jim Thome.

Konerko also lobbied management to retain another veteran slugger, Jermaine Dye, and continue on with the Sox' longball mentality.

The White Sox' captain swung and missed on both requests. Thome is now with the rival Twins and Dye is still waiting for an acceptable offer.

It's going to be an adjustment, but Konerko said the change in offensive philosophy manager Ozzie Guillen has been pushing for has its good points.

"It's a different lineup," Konerko said. "I think we'll hit a good number of home runs, probably more than people think, but it won't be 40, 40, 40, 20. It might be more 15 to 25 with a bunch of guys and we can still win games."

With a solid rotation headed by Jake Peavy and Mark Buehrle and quality bullpen arms, maybe the White Sox won't have to launch 200 home runs to win.

"The main thing for this team I think is getting that mind-set where we go into every game thinking this is going to be a 1-0, 2-1, 3-2 knockdown, drag-out affair of tough baseball," Konerko said. "If anything happens better than that, great. But that mind-set, if you can get that mind-set in your head early, you're a tough team."

Meet and greet: With cameras rolling for 'The Club,' a reality series featuring the White Sox on the MLB Network this summer, manager Ozzie Guillen spoke to his players before Friday's first full-squad workout of training camp.

"I was more calm, more relaxed," Guillen said. "I cursed a little less. I finished up the meeting when I said, 'Good teams win games, bad teams have meetings.' I got my point across to the players: Don't just prepare to play, prepare to win."

Making a pitch: The Sox are being widely projected as a first- or second-place team in the AL Central and are again expected to face their stiffest challenge from Minnesota.

Some of the offensive pop is gone, but Jake Peavy and Freddy Garcia are back at the top and bottom of the rotation for the full season, and J.J. Putz looks like a viable option if closer Bobby Jenks struggles.

"From a players' standpoint, you like the pitching side of it," Paul Konerko said. "That's not our department, but when you look at it, it's very solid. Deep in the rotation, very good at the back end so that could make the game shorter. As a position player you just look at it as if we can score some runs early and get that habit going early in the year, that's how it happens."

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Light, shadow illustrate photographer’s philosophy (Vietnam Net)

Posted: 26 Feb 2010 06:56 PM PST

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VietNamNet Bridge – Dao Tien Dat began taking photographs at the age of 42, achieving fairly respectable success considering his late start.

"Last year was fruitful for Dat with 84 international and domestic photographic prizes, an impressive result," Le Hong Linh, chairman of the Art Council of the Viet Nam Association of Photographic Artists said.

"His hard work and creativity deserves an honourable mention."

Dat was also recognised last year as an Associate of the Wilmington International Exhibition of Photography and was given the Excellent FIAP title by the Federation of International Photographic Artists.

"Most of his works describe people's fate and are full of humanitarianism and philosophical questions," Linh said.

Born in a village in the central province of Binh Dinh, Dat never considered a career in photography during his difficult childhood and youth. He worked as a real farmer and rubbish trader when he was young and had no idea that a career in photography awaited.

"Each person has their own turning point, which changes their fate," Dat said, "I was shocked at my mother and then father's deaths. I then by chance read an article about Lewis W Hine's photographs in a local newspaper. The article inspired me to take up photography as a way of sharing and expressing deep feelings."

Turning Point is the title he gave to some of his photographs taken on the sand dunes in Binh Thuan Province, which have brought him various prizes at international contests.

He recalled his first field trip on a motorbike to central province of Kon Tum after asking an experienced photographer to help buy a Nikon FG camera. Excited by the trip, he stopped at a photo shop to buy two rolls of celluloid. But discovered that he didn't even know how to put a roll of film into his camera.

After the help of the photography shop owner, he grasped the most basic of photographic skills. Dat still keeps the photos he took during that trip as a valuable memory recording his first steps into photography.

"Dat's photos aren't ground-breaking," said Chu Chi Thanh, former chairman of VAPA, "But he knows how to portray his philosophy of life through light and shadow." His portrayal of a funeral of a Cham ethnic man, shows a dog following the funeral procession, which move slowly along a sand dune, depicting the love of a dog for its lost owner.

"Photography is the art of capturing a moment filtered from reality's chaos. It is the artist's thinking process. He should not take what he sees but what he thinks," Dat said about his creative principle. "That's why my photos are not only images, but also feelings on the beauty of landscapes, and thoughts on people's fates. I don't care how many photos I take, but I instead am concerned about how much the photos express my feelings, whether I'm satisfied with them and whether they are appreciated by the public."

Each year, Dat thinks hard and focuses on a certain topic. He even takes the same scenes many times over different years.

"Life is always changing, but I will always remain fascinated by people," he said. "People and what we do, never grows stale. And it's always my abundant source of creativity."

Since his first steps into photography, he has won 236 prizes, 201 of which were won at international competitions held in 31 countries and territories.

Dat is now a member of the VAPA's management board for the 2010-15 term and is responsible for photographic activities in southern of central highland region.

However, Dat always said that he had never lived off his photography, instead making a living through his wife's little shop in Quy Nhon city.

VietNamNet/VNS
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