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Notes -
My claim is a bit stronger: Not only is Chad making these strategic moves, he knows he's doing it. Compare throwing a baseball. Pretty much everyone when they're a kid or with their off hand, throws a baseball badly. Even pitcher-Chad does when he's starting out. The difference is pitcher-Chad figures out the right way really fast and without explicit instruction, whereas pitcher-Virgin is still throwing with his forearm after 10 years of failure.
Then when pitcher-Virgin experiments with different techniques, tries to get more live ABs with hitters, asks for tips and exercises to improve his pitching, tries to breakdown and emulate pitcher-Chad’s form and grips, and/or wonders if being shorter is a disadvantage when it comes to velo and delivery angles: pitcher-Virgin gets scorned and shamed by hitters and told to just be himself, to stop being such a tryhard and creepy strategizer, that height doesn’t matter for pitching (taller pitchers just have an easier time pitching because they aren’t toxic and insecure like shorter pitchers are), to just focus on respecting hitters and treating them as people, and one day the strike outs will Just Happen.
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