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April 04, 2013

Ubaldo Jimenez: perception vs. reality

Cleveland Indians' hurler Ubaldo Jimenez has a lot in common with his teammates Trevor Bauer and Scott Kazmir—they're all trying to fix various mechanical issues.

Bauer believes how his back leg operated caused a groin strain, so he's changed how he initiates linear movement. Kazmir's velocity dropped like a stone and he started becoming more methodical on the mound; after visiting the Texas Baseball Ranch and Dynamic Sports Training in Texas, he's regained that explosiveness.

Jimenez' mechanical issues have been well-documented on THT by yours truly (original article, recap article), but he and his coaches don't necessarily agree with my conclusions.

In an article yesterday, Jorge Arangure Jr. wrote:

Jimenez would spend hours watching video of his most successful years and comparing it to video of how he currently pitched. The differences were striking. Who was this guy? The new Ubaldo stopped using his left shoulder to balance himself, which in turn sapped him of all the torque that he used to create to throw the ball at high speeds. The new Ubaldo could hardly muster a ball over 90 mph. His delivery had become slow, deliberate and calculated. It was if he had been trying to deconstruct every movement.

This isn't the first time his front shoulder has been mentioned. Terry Pluto of The Plain Dealer wrote:

New pitching coach Mickey Callaway simply asked Jimenez to not pause his windup and to keep his front shoulder pointed toward home plate.

Doug Thorburn of Baseball Prospectus focused on Ubaldo's front shoulder, saying:

I happen to disagree with Kyle's assertion that Ubaldo's struggles have nothing to do with the front shoulder, especially given that the issues with early arm action are mostly harmful if they have the ripple effect of creating early rotation and "shoulder flying open." ... In this case, I had noticed both the early hand separation and the bizarre wrist-flick as the throwing arm reaches its lowest point (in CLE), however I do not consider these to be glaring issues.

Well, it appears that Jimenez has been listening to all this discussion of how to use his front shoulder. To all of that, I have this to say: Be careful what you wish for.

Here's what he looks like in 2010 (96 mph), 2012 (91 mph), and the first start of 2013 (90 mph):



Want to see what he looks like now compared to when he was a fireballing phenom in Colorado—in painfully slow motion?



If Jimenez thinks that what he is doing now is anything like what he did in Colorado when he was at his best, he is... well, obviously incorrect.

Why did he think that he "used his front shoulder to balance himself?" He never used his front shoulder in such a manner; he makes it sound like that he levered it like Andy Pettitte does. Ubaldo never once looked like that. He was more athletic, more fluid, more explosive. His arm action was more efficient; it wasn't forced.

These mechanics below are as close as he has ever gotten to regaining that 2010 tempo, rhythm, arm action, and most importantly, velocity:

Changing arm action without changing arm action

It is widely held that arm action cannot (or should not) be directly changed by manipulating the movement of the throwing arm; that instead, we should use the glove arm and other things in the delivery to make the changes we desire in the throwing arm. That is what Thorburn, Callaway, and others are espousing. Jimenez now has an incredible shoulder tilt, a pitching arm that is pinned to his side during the linear shift, a glove arm that gets no extension, a soft front side, and a stride angle that deflects open by an outrageous amount (which has strong correlation with increased elbow valgus stress).

These mechanics as displayed against Toronto cannot and will not restore his velocity. Will it allow him to be an effective pitcher? Perhaps. But the Cleveland Indians didn't trade for a No. 3 control-type pitcher when they parted with Drew Pomeranz, Alex White, Joe Gardner, and Matt McBride. They thought they were getting a fireballer who could dominate on any given night, a guy who could flash upper 90s heat at-will.

Ubaldo Jimenez will never be that guy again if he continues to throw the way he does——and I believe he will continue to lose velocity throughout the season if these mechanics keep up.
Posted by: Kyle Boddy

December 12, 2012

Trevor Bauer needs to be left alone

Trevor Bauer has been traded to the Cleveland Indians as part of a three-team deal. Over the weekend, I was fortunate enough to have presented at Ron Wolforth's Ultimate Coaches' Bootcamp in Montgomery, Tex., with Bauer, who spoke at length on using the lower half in the pitching delivery (with Eric Binder).

Bauer on the left, me third from the left

It's no secret that the Arizona Diamondbacks had issues with Bauer's workout routine, which involves a 60-plus minute warmup using implements like the Oates Shoulder Tube:



As well as "extreme" long toss prior to games:



Jerry DiPoto sought Bauer while he was the director of scouting in Arizona. However, after Kevin Towers replaced GM Josh Byrnes, DiPoto eventually moved on to Anaheim as the GM. It's been said that DiPoto was one of Bauer's last allies, needing to step in to prevent the player development department from further infringing on his workout routines, which include daily throwing in-season.

Let's look at his mechanics—he was kind enough to upload tons of high-speed footage on YouTube:



Overhead shot:



His deceleration pattern is extremely efficient: He rotates his throwing shoulder forward into the target significantly farther than most pitchers. This pattern allows force to be applied to the baseball in increasingly straighter lines, which is naturally more efficient and less injurious on the elbow and shoulder. Force is best applied parallel to the direction of acceleration instead of perpendicular to the lever arm. For a stark contrast, look at Stephen Strasburg's release point, which is much earlier in the delivery:



Bauer also trains and exhibits solid use of pronation through and after release of the baseball, which theoretically reduces stress on the elbow by engaging the muscles of the medial forearm (pronator-flexor mass). This and the deceleration pattern, are mainstays of the teachings at Ron Wolforth's Texas Baseball Ranch.

Bauer's training: Leave him alone

Bauer's training includes plyometrics, medicine ball training, wrist weights, rubber tubing, and a host of other things (for more information, check out The Athletic Pitcher for a basic overview). However, one thing stands out: It includes tons of throwing, often with weighted baseballs. While major league clubs are afraid that more throwing equals more injuries, we've enacted tons of pitch count and innings restrictions with no evidence that they work.

Representatives from the Cleveland Indians (including their minor league pitching coordinator) were in attendance over the weekend to hear Bauer speak. So were many other coaches who strongly believe in constant throwing year-round. Ken Knutson, pitching coach at Arizona State, has implemented a similar training program at ASU. Total number of surgeries on his pitchers over the last eight years? Zero. Only 180 days of injury time in that span, with 100 coming from a single player who didn't even play at ASU (he committed but went to pro ball).

There is room for concern when it comes to the Indians, however. One of Knutson's pitchers when he was at the University of Washington was Nick Hagadone, the fireballing lefty in Cleveland's bullpen. Hagadone credits his workout routine with getting him from the mid-80s his junior year to the mid-90s his senior year. Despite this, the indians reportedly curtailed much of his workout program after he was traded to them from the Red Sox in the Victor Martinez deal. Will they treat Bauer the same way?

To those in Cleveland's player development group, I humbly suggest this: Let thse two pitchers do their thing for one full year without interfering. Simply let them do what got them to the big leagues in the first place and made them first-round draft picks. It makes no sense to change that.

Moneyball and Oakland have had a profound effect on professional baseball with regard to statistical evaluation of players and the quantification of runs scored and wins credited. It will be another low-budget team that initiates the revolution in player development, and there's no reason it couldn't be Cleveland.

The Indians fan in me sure hopes it will be.
Posted by: Kyle Boddy

May 07, 2012

Ubaldo Jimenez: A quick mechanics review

In my earlier analysis of Ubaldo Jimenez's mechanics, I noted that his initial separation from the glove was extremely early, terminating momentum and reducing athleticism out of the glove with his pitching arm. However, people said that his velocity was up in his start on Sunday against the Texas Ranges and Yu Darvish, and a few readers asked me to take a look into his mechanics. I quickly cut the video and put it up against the 2010 and older 2012 clips to take a look:



The newest clip is on the left, the Rockies (2010) clip is in the middle, and the earlier 2012 clip is on the right. Here's the important part slowed down:



(You can use a free browser plug-in like GIF Scrubber for Chrome to step through these images frame-by-frame or slow it down even further.)

If you can't tell, there's a pretty big difference in his pitching arm action between Sunday's game and the one prior to that, and the results showed it on that pitch, registering at 95 mph on the stadium gun.

Ryan from Let's Go Tribe said that Ubaldo's average four-seam fastball velocity was 94.7 mph, but the Brooks Baseball PITCHf/x tool disagrees, saying Ubaldo came in at 92.37 mph, not much different than his start on May 1, where he was averaging 92.07 mph with the same pitch. (Texas Leaguers agrees with these velocity readings for Ubaldo's May 1 and his May 6 starts.)

Since his average fastball velocity was similar but the arm actions were so different on the 91 and 95 mph fastballs, it's clear that the real problem is consistency in his delivery. Ubaldo's main problem is still the early hand break (with secondary thought to how he uses the front shoulder and glove arm), and while it's encouraging to see fastballs touch 95 mph, his arm action isn't yet as efficient or athletic as it was when he was in Colorado. The closer he gets to optimizing his arm action and remaining consistent with it, the better results you'll see with not only his fastball velocity, but his overall command and control.
Posted by: Kyle Boddy

January 23, 2012

Carmona points out an MLB inequity

Goodbye Fausto! Hello Roberto!

As reported last week, 28-year-old Fausto Carmona is Roberto Hernandez Heredia and perhaps 31 years old.

There are implications here for Carmona-Heredia, for the Indians and, most importantly, for professional baseball and the uneven way it deals with international players.

Since being released on bail, The Sinkerballer Formally Known as Fausto has been apologetic but tight-lipped. He reportedly paid for a false identity that may have incorrectly represented his age. He may have been making periodic payments to maintain the false identity. He eventually balked at paying and somebody talked, leading to his arrest.

He is not the first Latin-American player to take this route. (Last year's most publicized example was Leo Nunez.)

So Heredia lied. But did he do anything wrong to the game of baseball? Does lying about your age and name affect anything about playing the game?

It does not.

While the lies are certainly deplorable, they do not affect the player's ability on the field. People will say that, because his age is uncertain, it could be advantageous for him to have people think he is younger. It could lead to larger bonuses and salaries. He’ll appear more successful since his ability will be compared to that of players younger than him.

But these are issue of deceit based on the current economic model and do not affect the play on the field.

If the same player was actually three years YOUNGER, would we be willing to rectify the situation financially? What happened, as before, is a player found a way to take advantage of the economic system in baseball. For him to be successful, he still had to demonstrate ability and skill.

In doing so, he allegedly broke laws in at least two countries* but he never de-skilled the game. While the misreported younger age would have been helpful during his development, the lying did not give him specific extra ability, or his ability to ignore Lake Erie Midges that Joba Chamberlain could not. Carmona’s lies do not hurt the on-field play of baseball.

* I have no idea if Canada would say anything about a player such as Carmona entering the country with false paperwork. I’m not even sure Canada would prosecute, but I am fairly certain that it is against Canadian law.

When looking at a situation like Carmona’s, I look directly at those running Major League Baseball and the teams. Lying about one’s identity is so advantageous for a specific set of players that it outweighs the risk of punishment. Instead of demonizing players like Carmona and Nunez, it is time to look at the system.

In Japan, younger players are able to develop in a system that gives them the ability to play in their homeland with the possibility of moving to the major leagues in America. In Latin America, players feel the need to break the law to be part of the system. So in one week, Yu Darvish, who has never pitched in even the minor leagues in America, got a $60 million contract after a team paid $51.7 million for the right to give him that contract. During that same week, we learned that, once again a player lied about his identity in an effort to get a portion of that amount of money.

In the end, both players will succeed or fail based on what they do on the field. How they got the opportunity doesn’t affect their ability on the field.

Major League Baseball needs to address the differences. If baseball officials are going to continue to encourage teams to deal individually with international players, they need to address the extreme differences in the system. It is not an easy task. How can baseball expect players not to take the route of Carmona and Nunez when the Darvish situation points out the inequity?

As for the Indians:

While Carmona has not lived up to the promise he flashed in 2007, he has shown, when healthy, to be able to provide a decent set of 30-plus starts and 200-plus innings each year.

In conjunction with this news, it appears the Indians finally pulled the trigger on obtaining Kevin Slowey. The Indians have been interested in him anyway, so this was not in direct relation to Carmona’s issues, but the trade was probably hastened. Carmona will likely end up on the restricted list, leaving the Indians with a hole in the rotation but with an extra $7 million. The Indians gave up Zach Putman, a young pitcher who may have competed for a bullpen position this year.

The Indians have other options for the rotation. David Huff and Jeanmar Gomez will be among those who compete with Slowey for spots behind Justin Masterson, Ubaldo Jimenez, Josh Tomlin and Derek Lowe. In the end, the Indians' depth should be able to cover for Carmona's absence with limited hardship.
Posted by: Mat Kovach

Career highlights: Orlando Cabrera

A fewdays ago, longtime shortstop Orlando Cabrera announced he’s retiring from baseball after 15 seasons.

When news like this happens, it’s natural to look back on a player’s career, and for me that means putting together a list of career highlights. This list includes the greatest and most memorable games Cabrera played in, his personal bests (and some worsts), as well as some oddities he was on hand for and great moments by other players that occurred in games in which he participated.


Cabrera in his element - fielding the ball.

Basically, it’s a list of Orlando Cabrera’s best “I was there for that game.” Here they are, in order:

Click for more...

Posted by: Chris Jaffe


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