Taro sez:
Looking at the picture on the other thread, Pineda has zero, literally ZERO hip-shoulder seperation. I still haven't seen vid, but I don't like that for a hard thrower since hes pretty arming the ball.
How's his timing? Is his arm close to 90 degrees vertical at footplant?
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That's true champ...
He does not begin with his hip, torque the torso, and then unsnap the shoulder ... because the shoulder is forward already, before we ever enter the conversation. As y'know, this isn't a question of [A] and [B] standing in improper relationship. It's more a question of B really not occurring at all. :- )
Granted, this does mean he's muscling, not leveraging, the ball. As a general principle that's undesirable, but here you've got a kid throwing upper 90's that way. Walter Johnson used a very simple, compact motion. He was just a freak.
Ordinary mortals need to use a cherry-picker to get a motor out of a car. But when I was a kid, my dad used to simply pick them up out of the engine wells and set them down on tables...
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In a sense Pineda does leverage the ball, of course, or he wouldn't throw it 95-99 miles an hour. What is weird is that he achieves leverage over a 90-degree turn rather than over a 135-degree turn. He gets less leverage than Jered Weaver. Unfortunately for Jered, he's using less meat to turn the sticks around the fulcrum in the first place...
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Erased the video, sorry, so can't go track Pineda's arm position at foot plant.
But FWIW (not much) I don't hold with the foot plant dogma as much as most people anyway. I mean, my own timing is "later" than dogma dictates; I like to torque my body more. How much does a pitcher want to stretch the rubber band? Different strokes for different folks.
If we still had the vid, we'd check it for your own interest in the subject, but don't, sorry.
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In any case, Pineda's rhythm and timing is practically a moot point with such an absurdly compact motion.
It's like we watched a PGA golfer pull the club back knee-high -- and then drive 375 down the fairway. A hundred times in a row. How's his timing?, well, he has sort of bypassed the whole issue.
My question wouldn't be, hey, is that guy going to hurt himself? Is that legal? Can he teach me? Seeing a guy go back knee-high and drive 375, my question would just be, how is that possible. And put me in a different foursome.
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A golfer, the farther he pulls the clubhead back, the more he has to be careful about timing. Dr. D, a weekend 100 type, simply pulls the 3-iron back to the knees and doesn't worry about all the work needed to perfect a more serious drive. The compactness of the motion forgives a multitude of evils :- )
Pineda's hyper-simple motion shouldn't give him 89 mph, much less 99. But since it does, he's blessed with a low-maintenance motion that will probably some day allow him to run a 48/6 control ratio or something.
Cheers,
Dr D
Ya, and I mean its just one picture and I haven't even seen him in motion yet. Bad timing alone wouldn't doom him or anything like that either.
I just don't like a guy short-arming the ball without leveraging his lower body. His arm is doing all the work.
Can't remember anybody, ever, throwing that hard with such little leverage.
Faced with a different, unique, Seattle pitcher in 1993, James' reaction was, you'd better take a good look at him, because we're never going to see another one like him... James' instinctive reaction to something novel is fascination, as opposed to discomfort. :- )
Honestly don't remember seeing anything like Michael Pineda. Gigantic man, does not need to wind up, throws 98, posts 12:1 control ratios -- a (much) bigger Armando Benitez crossed with Dan Quisenberry.
He is as unique as Randy Johnson, Steven Strasburg or Tim Lincecum. If you were going to tell me that 5 years on, he'd be healthy, I'd *almost* take him over Felix as a prospect. Certainly Pineda is one of the five top pitching prospects in the M's 35 years as a franchise.
Keep an eye on the first external sources to pick up on the Pineda phenomenon.
RJ and TL were/are very mechanically sound (at least from what I can tell with my limited knowledge regarding pitching mechanics).
Strasburg is high risk for me. He might pitch a few seasons, but I think thats an injury waiting to happen.
If Pineda really short-arms without any lower body leverage..Man, its just hard for me to visualize him staying healthy in the rotation. If he ends up being Papelbon 2.0, thats not too bad either.
Jason Heyward: Huge guy (6-5, 240), age 20, with otherworldly skills? Supposedly the plate disclipline of Joe Mauer (51 walks, 51 K in 422 minor league PA last year) crossed with equal parts of Griffey and McGriff.
http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=7282459
Billy Wagner says "the most impressive homer I've ever seen."
Sure, some of it is hype, but lots of insiders have been saying they would take him ahead of Strasburg.
Not much to go on, few warm-ups on YouTube. Is he headed to AA? Looked just a bit jerky and has a bit too long of a stride. Noticed he landed on his heel. I like the arm work, someone has him breaking his hands quickly as he probably tends to lag through the delivery. That coupled with his longish stride might have him missing up a lot. Young guy, will get smoother, great arm though huh?
I didn't see the short arm, only the quick break and showing the ball behind him (which I am a big proponent of). Is there another site to watch him at?
Not far behind the Griffey, ARod class of prospects, if at all.
No hype on Heyward. He's going to be an MVP candidate.
Thanks for passing on the observation. In the mind's eye, those observations all make tons of sense, especially the length-of-stride and heel.
Odd that he should have a rep for 80 command if he's overstriding and landing on the heel. Guess we get 90 command once he lands on the ball of the foot CA.
Wow, that's incredible control. In that case, I wouldn't change a thing.... Well, I would but not until he starts hanging his breaking pitch. He may be a special one and sooner than projections would have us believe. Good catch Doc.
Of course we only saw like 14 pitches and 4 sliders, but the sliders looked practically non hangable.
Tight spin, downward plane, relatively high velo, not the kind of looping change-curve that hangs on a string when it's up. More of a hybrid Felix/Cone type slider that is tough to visualize 'hanging'.
Sounding like hyperbole, I realize, and Pineda's not going to be untouchable, but he definitely is unlike anybody I ever saw.
I haven't seen him throw....but if we are building on the golf analogy, he must have terrifically fast rotation with the lower body once he gets to his plant foot. I would think the "short arm" extension would reduce stress on the throwing shoulder.
Brett Favre is 40 years old and still throwing, as it were, fastball past people.
Penada looks like a QB going deep.
I"ll have to check up a video of him...but I'll bet his hips really move open and the arm simply follows.
There is video of him on the mlb.com archive for the last spring training game against the Giants, that ended early because of rain.
I watched it live - was awesome to watch an inning or so of Pineda - threw 95 without effort, late movement, change was devastating. He's a monster
The rotation, after the foot plants, has got to be as high-RPM as there is in baseball.
Well, mathematically, it HAS to be, since he gets to 95 MPH despite a much smaller rotation.
On TV, they said 3.1 IP, six strikeouts. So in ten outs, four plays by the fielders.
Early 60s on his pitch-count, too. Robles had one in the 80s for his start - neither guy is injured or struggling (the Ks and zeros on the board should show that), we're just being very cautious with them out of the gate. When we have both of those guys pitching full games it should get very interesting.
~G
Do they have a contingent of older, org-value guys backing up the hotshots G?