Tom Hackimer

used to throw weird, now trying to make guys better at pitching

[Tom Hackimer @HackAttackimer]

Please disregard the first pitch, I slipped. Otherwise, have arm, will pitch (or something like that), please tell your friends, tell your enemies, I’ll pitch anywhere any time

[Driveline Baseball @DrivelineBB]

Sidearmer Tom Hackimer (@HackAttackimer) full pro day bullpen 🔥

[Tom Hackimer @HackAttackimer]

@RobertStock6 I want it on the record that two years ago in Laredo I told you that everything you said about how you felt after you threw sounded a lot like TOS

[Jordan Steiger @J0rdan_Steiger]

7IP | 13 K | 0R | 1H vs. Farrel
FB 87-88 T(89) | SL 77-81 | CB 72

[Tom Hackimer @HackAttackimer]

Disturbing lack of changeups. Otherwise, dudes rock 🤙🏼

[Jordan Steiger @J0rdan_Steiger]

7IP | 13 K | 0R | 1H vs. Farrel
FB 87-88 T(89) | SL 77-81 | CB 72

[Thomas LoBello @thomas_lobello]

Excited to the close out the regular season with my first no hitter of the year and grateful for my team for having my back! First time I had 21ks in a game. Finished the year with 85 strikeouts in 32 innings pitched.

@ShowTime_Select
@FlatgroundApp
@BUncommitted

[Tom Hackimer @HackAttackimer]

To me, that’s preposterous.

[Thomas LoBello @thomas_lobello]

Excited to the close out the regular season with my first no hitter of the year and grateful for my team for having my back! First time I had 21ks in a game. Finished the year with 85 strikeouts in 32 innings pitched.

@ShowTime_Select
@FlatgroundApp
@BUncommitted

[Tom Hackimer @HackAttackimer]

Sancho Panza: Look, your worship, what we see are not giants but windmills

Don Quixote:

[21 @21metgala]

Bad Bunny at The 2026 Met Gala.

[Tom Hackimer @HackAttackimer]

@jonbecker_

[Tom Hackimer @HackAttackimer]

The guy in that one Harry Chapin song:

[Chase Passive Income @chasedownleads]

Hate these spam texts

[Tom Hackimer @HackAttackimer]

@jonbecker_ You should have responded with this image and nothing else

[Tom Hackimer @HackAttackimer]

@LanceBroz @DeVitoRicky Would imagine the efficiency drop is more related to the overall drop, given the fastball is down as well? And then the 1-seam orientation takes it the rest of the way, possibly some cue about finger pressure or release

[Tom Hackimer @HackAttackimer]

@GaijinBaseball

[Dylan Newcomer @DylanNewcomerPT]

This is the most common logical fallacy in baseball and it is worth unpacking.

"Better mechanics" means optimized hip-shoulder separation, efficient trunk rotation, and maximized distal segment velocity. That mechanical efficiency more often than not drives a ball velocity increase, which is a strong driver of valgus torque at the elbow. The relationship is not perfectly linear but the correlation is strong enough that meaningfully improving mechanical efficiency without also gaining velocity, and thus likely increasing torque at the UCL, is the exception not the rule.

This kid is 16 throwing 101. You do not do that with bad mechanics. He is already operating in the top 0.01% of mechanical efficiency on the planet. And that exposes the second problem with this argument: nobody has ever agreed on or clearly defined what "good mechanics" actually are. His arm action is not bad. It is an arm action that someone has subjectively decided they do not like. That is not a clinical finding. That is a preference. Aesthetics and mechanical efficiency are not the same thing, and conflating the two is exactly how bad advice gets handed to talented kids.

What actually determines injury:

Stress Applied > Tissue Capacity = Injury

That is the whole equation. The FDS, FCU, and FDP are the primary dynamic stabilizers SHARING load with the UCL, with the pronator teres and other accessory stabilizers contributing as well. When those MTUs are fatigued or underconditioned, the UCL absorbs more of the load. Not because of arm action. Because of physical capacities and workload.

Now, can specific mechanical faults create abnormal stress concentration at specific tissues? Yes, and that is worth acknowledging. Early trunk rotation, excessive elbow drop, or a broken kinetic chain can create localized shear and impingement at specific anatomical locations. Fix the fault, remove that concentrated stressor, and symptoms resolve. That mechanism is real and clinically meaningful. But it is a localized tissue irritation problem, not a global valgus torque problem. Those are two completely different injury mechanisms and conflating them is where the argument breaks down. Valgus torque at the UCL scales with velocity. It does not care how pretty the arm action looks.

And unless you have a report that this kid is in significant pain, what you are actually watching is a 16 year old whose tissues are handling the load just fine. If there is a mechanical fault present and he is symptomatic, that is a tissue irritation conversation. If he is asymptomatic, there is no conversation to be had about mechanics and injury risk at all. The actual risk is that he throws 101. The only ways to reduce that risk are throwing slower or building enough tissue capacity to absorb what 101 demands over hundreds and thousands of pitches a year, and managing tissue fatigue so he is as fresh as possible when the time comes to throw that hard. That is it. There is no third option hiding inside his arm action.

A pitcher with textbook mechanics but fatigued, compliant, underprepared tendons is at higher risk than a pitcher with ugly arm action whose flexor-pronator mass is conditioned, recovered, and easily absorbing load tit is being subjected to. Better mechanics can just mean greater torque delivered to tissue that may not be ready to handle it.

The intervention is building tissue capacity and managing workload. Not chasing a kinematic ideal that, if actually achieved, can make the physics worse.

You either have the capacity to absorb the stress your velocity generates, or you don't.

[Tom Hackimer @HackAttackimer]

Joey Gallo? The Right-Handed Pitcher?

[Jon Heyman @JonHeyman]

Joey Gallo, righty pitcher, is beginning to throw for teams now. Been working out in Florida.

[Tom Hackimer @HackAttackimer]

@drivelinekyle @SmittyOnMLB

[Tom Hackimer @HackAttackimer]

I had also heard that Tim Lincecum did this (from a reliable source) and later had the opportunity to actually ask Lincecum about it directly and he said something like “I’m glad people think I’m that cool but I definitely did not do that”

[Eric Hubbs @BarstoolHubbs]

Hope he did the Lincecum and put both his Cy Youngs on the table before the hearing started

[Tom Hackimer @HackAttackimer]

@drivelinekyle

[Tom Hackimer @HackAttackimer]

In order to make sesame noodles, you must first invent the universe

[Tom Hackimer @HackAttackimer]

@drivelinekyle @mov_axbx @IterIntellectus it’s the proper way to dispose of them

[Tom Hackimer @HackAttackimer]

@Senn_Spud @lady_valor_07 slept on synergy

[Tom Hackimer @HackAttackimer]

@BozoMode how dare you