To Fix Aaron Heilman!

The guy has really never been the same pitcher from 2006 ever since he gave up that huge home run to Yadier Molina in the 2006 playoffs. If you are curious or a Mets fan interested in inflicting personal pain upon yourself, click to watch Molina hit the dinger.

Moving on, Heilman has a mechanical issue with his pitching form and a couple of mental issues involved. First the mental issues. Many argue that Heilman doesn't pitch well because he has always wanted to be a starter, is very spiteful and therefore "intentionally" (perhaps subconsciously) pitches poorly to "show" the Mets. If that was ever true, it no longer is. He would have been more vocal about his complaints after this long a stint in the pen, if he was really that spiteful.

The other mental issue is his confidence. A lot of pitching is the confidence that you are going to be effective. Throwing the same pitch with less confidence gives a hesitancy to the release which can effect the spin of the ball. Basically, pitching with no confidence makes a pitcher much worse.

Those issues need to be dealt with by a sports psychologist - not me.

Now on to the part I actually understand...Aaron Heilman is throwing his pitches from a very flat angle. He is blessed with great movement and a very hard fastball. The problem is, at his current arm slot, the movement is side-to-side as opposed to on both the vertical and horizontal planes. Last night is a great example of how his flat pitches simply are not effective.

Throwing from a higher arm slot should help that problem.

Yaros