Grant me strength to resist the temptation to fault-find all the guys I'm not high on... :- )

ALL these guys have finely-tuned, majestic sports motions.  Hey, the guys in single-A have beautiful sports motions, much less a man like Ryan Rowland-Smith who is one of the 100-200 best in the world at what he does.  (Okay, one of the 300 best, all countries and starters and relievers.  That's still like the number of astronauts there are.)

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=== Nose-to-Leather ===

Forward Brian's RRS vid to exactly the 15-second mark and tell me at what part of the strike zone that Ryan is looking.

This is not a debatable point.  Have you ever seen a darts champion look away from the board between throws, much less during a throw?  Have you ever seen a skeet shooter gaze off into the forest for a moment between shots?

... RRS' balance over the pitching rubber is perfect.  We know why he looks down; the forward lean balances the torso nicely.

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=== Fetal Position ===

Go to 26 seconds.  Compactness is a huge plus before the stroke (you have large movements of your limbs available).  Randy Johnson got good, in part, when he started doing a fetal position at this point in the delivery.

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=== High Front Side ===

:31 to :34 ... I had no idea that RRS pitched with this high of a front side.  The front side hides the ball and promotes the lean-back of the shoulderline to CF, a Japanese secret to engaging your upper-body power and the baseball.

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=== Deceleration ===

I almost burst into tears.  :43 seconds.

There's no controversy possible about this subject.  There is no sports motion in the free or communist world that benefits from a sudden, crashing deceleration.  Well, maybe there are a couple of golf shots that gain extra spin this way.

True, a lot of ML pitchers do this locked front knee - most of them not as grotesquely.  Pitching coaches are reluctant to fix what ain't broken, I guess.  RRS does have pretty decent control and he manages to get some of his energy released off the right side of the train tracks (notice that he's on the edge of his foot and that his hip is far outside that).

He does focus past the echo-of-the-whistle, so to speak.

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=== Exec Sum ===

Because of the "praying mantis" coil and unwrap, and the shoulder engagement, RRS has a very powerful motion.  I'm guessing that he gets a lot more out of his arm, relative to his gifts, than a lot of pitchers do.

His command could theoretically benefit from better pre-pitch focus and from smoother deceleration, but, whatever.  He's not going to change at this point.

RRS probably pays the price for his painfully violent deceleration in terms of lower-body and abdominal fatigue.  This could be why he performs badly after pitch 75. Maybe his glutes, abductors, etc., weaken at this point and don't support his motion as well.

As far as the throughstroke, good balance, good leverage, good ki.  He's got the potential for more command and more durability with a coupla tweaks, IMHO.

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Cheers,

Jeff