New Joel
It wasn’t the trip to Tacoma, he hasn’t changed breakfast cereals… if you listened to either broadcast for more than two seconds, you know that the New, Improved Joel now holds his hands way up at the start of his delivery.
August 5th: 6.1 IP, 8H, 2R, 2HR, 1BB, 4K, 104p, 67 strikes
August 11th: 7.2 IP, 7H, 2R, 0HR, 0BB, 4K, 98p, 72 strikes
That’s 42 outs recorded, 8 by strikeout… and 15 hits. 2 were home runs, so 47 balls in play. 32% went for hits, which is about normal for this year’s Mariner defense.
If, by some miracle, putting his hands up was the amazing mystery solution to all of Joel’s problems, that would be awesome. This version would put up average starts, a dramatic improvement from the Joel we’ve seen almost all of this year.
That said, two starts does not make a new pitcher. I remain skeptical that after all the work they’ve done with him, all the things they’ve tried, that something like hand position early in the windup has dramatically improved his mechanics, that those mechanics have resulted in a more effective pitcher, and that Pineiro will be able to consistently maintain them.
Comments
59 Responses to “New Joel”
You know the other common denominator in his last two starts?
The opponents suck. He faced the Tigers in Comerica and the Twins in Safeco Field. Welcome to the land of the perfect pitching bliss.
If he shuts down the Rangers in Texas or blows through the Red Sox at Fenway, I’ll get excited. Until then…
I’m going to bet that that doesn’t happen, and talk of the hands-up delivery drops substantially.
Any chance they’re talking up the hands thing trying to move him?
He’s still giving up a steady amount of hits, they’ve just been scattered. Luckily he’s only allowed one walk in those games. If his control gets away from him, then we’re back to square one.
Possible, but I think it’s more likely that it’s hard to find things to talk about every day for three hours, and as a new topic they can connect to every Pineiro pitch, they flogged it relentlessly for that reason.
I’d love to see him moved, but I’d be shocked if they found a taker.
Yeah… I’m gonna have to agree with you on that Derek.
I’m sending the link to this to a couple of my co-workers who belive Jo-El is “fixed”. Best part of this morning’s email thread was this doozy about Jeff Nelson:
Are these people watching a different Jeff Nelson than the one I’m seeing? Sheesh.
Jimmie
Nelson’s been erratic but effective overall. But that’s what you get with Nelson. You shouldn’t complain that a rabid dog bit you. That’s what rabid dogs do. Look at Nelson’s L/R splits this year, though, they’re crazier than even his usual nutty splits.
L: .353 .463 .588
R: .173 .313 .198
Why does Hargrove ever let him face lefties? Ever? If there’s a righty up next, intentionally walk the lefty. It’s that crazy.
But annyyway, enough about Nelson.
I thought Joel faced Chicago in U.S. Cellular. Hitters park, below average lineup.
I agree, Derek. His true test of his fragile confidence is going to be when he’s forced to make adjustments to his pitching pattern after having a run of success, albeit 2 starts.
Yeah. Aug 5 was in Chicago.
This also happen to Miguel Batista. He would hold his hands low and had really bad walk problems when he played for the Diamondbacks. So they made him change it and now he is a pretty decent closer for the Blue Jays.
Just thought I would tell you that this isn’t the first pitcher to show success after changing something so little.
OK, so it’s Chicago…who is 6th in rins scored (average).
Still, I think the point stands. If Joel goes through the rest of the year with a 3-ish ERA, there’s some hope, I guess (though remember how Meche fooled us last year?), but 2 starts is too small a sample size to make really good calls that he’s fixed, after months of suck.
I thought it was the hair color that made the difference. Makes almost as much sense as the “high hands at the start” – while starting hand position can possibly lead to improved break, symmetry in mid-stride, balance, and consistent release point (which ultimately has been Joel’s problem this year), there’s a lot of steps between start and release. I almost wonder if the hair situation wasn’t related to some other mental/emotional/personal situation which has maybe resolved itself?
Hands up is the new Border’s affect I.M.O. aka in a few starts it will mean nothing.
I agree 100 percent with DMZ on Joel. This past winter I was convinced a new and improved Gil Meche would emerge this season after a better second half season in 2004. And it didn’t happen. I remain a skeptic of Joel as well.
The Closer label applies pretty loosely to Batista. Check out his usage. He’s collecting saves far more slowly than traditional closers on weaker teams, because he’s typically used in the highest leverage situations, reglardless of whether a Save is available.
Hmmm. Getting Pat Borders “fixed” Aaron Sele for a while, and getting rid of him “fixed” Joel.
I think there’s more to the hands held high thing then people think.
According to Joel, with his hands up higher, he’s actually gripping the ball better. Apparently, with the over the head thing, he’s holding his ball in the glove longer, which may allow him to “hide” the ball a little better, thus confuse a few more batters as to velocity and location.
But my father noticed something else last night. Joel before was falling off the mound really badly, with his arm almost flailing out to keep balance. With his new approach, he has better balance on the follow through. It could be that his balance is what is helping him maintain control and not walk so many batters.
Whether this lasts or not, of course, remains to be seen. But there might actually be something to this.
I guess I would rather have a fixed Joel than a fixed Sele.
re 18
Hm. I can see how keeping his hands higher might do that, if it keeps him upright a bit longer or changes his center of gravity. For all we know, this is something they’ve worked on for the past few months, and this is the little bit that gets him that balance.
Or maybe not…we’ll see if it works for other teams….
So I have two responses here –
First, I don’t doubt that a thing like changing hand position can have a sort of cascading beneficial effect on his mechanics. I wonder why they only figured that out last week, but whatever.
Second, the “fixed” or “new” Joel we’ve seen isn’t all that great. He’s about average starter. Now, that’s a huge step up, but again, this heralded return to dominance is only not sucking quite so badly.
“Hands up” might not even be anything physical. It might just be a situation where he’s thinking of “hands up” instead of something else that he’s been trying to focus on. that by not thinking of the “something else” (his landing, then angle of his back, the bend of his knee, whatever), he’s not screwing up that other thing.
Wow, such skeptics…Sure, I’m not holding out hope that Pineiro will suddenly turn into a Cy Young contender after this adjustment, but it sounds like the majority of you think his last two starts were just luck and that a tweak in mechanics can’t be responsible for a change in performance. I play in a recreational baseball league and of course I won’t compare it to the majors, but I can say from experience that very small mechanical adjustments can sometimes make a huge difference.
Sounds like you all have already written off Pineiro–have you forgotten that he was once a pretty good pitcher? His velocity is back in the low 90s, he’s had some success in his last two outings…is it inconceivable that he has or will yet return to his previous form?
Derek – I doubt the team only just realised the cascading effect on mechanics one change can have. It’s possible, however, that they just couldn’t find the proper change to start the cascade.
[...] it sounds like the majority of you think his last two starts were just luck and that a tweak in mechanics can’t be responsible for a change in performance.
What? That’s clearly not true. Who argued that?
And if not being convinced by two decent outings that Pineiro has returned to being a decent pitcher after a season of suckitude makes me a skeptic, I’m okay with that and I’d say it’s a good thing.
Sounds like you all have already written off Pineiro–have you forgotten that he was once a pretty good pitcher? His velocity is back in the low 90s, he’s had some success in his last two outings…is it inconceivable that he has or will yet return to his previous form?
Pretty good… um, I’d say more promising than pretty good.
low 90s: on stadium guns, which are notoriously inaccurate. I’d be interested in seeing some real scouting evals from people with better guns.
Is it inconceivable that he could return to form?
No. But it’s highly unlikely. The Pineiro we’ve seen so far this year is an entirely different version of the good Pineiro. Not his-stuff-and-command-is-there-but-he’s-being-hit different, but his stuff is off, his command is off, and we’ve seen his velocity all over the place. That’s really bad.
So we’ll see.
it sounds like the majority of you think his last two starts were just luck
No, it’s that the sample size of 2 starts could mean anything- improved mechanics, sucky offenses, random chance.
And DMZ, wasn’t Piniero projected as a 3, waaaay back when? So an average starter wouldn’t be so bad, considering how awful the rotation is now. Assuming a FA add and Moyer resigns, you’d be looking at a 5 man of Felix/FA/Pineiro/Moyer/His Name Is Legion. That could work, if you fixed the offense…
(pause to go read old Baseball America stuff)
I didn’t see any references to position, but yeah, no one said “future ace potential” in 2000-2001, though he had good stuff and “feel for pitching”
low 90s: on stadium guns, which are notoriously inaccurate. I’d be interested in seeing some real scouting evals from people with better guns.
If they’re not accurate, are we to assume that Felix wasn’t really in the upper 90′s either? Or do they alter it for different pitchers? We can assume that the stadium gun was accurate Tuesday night as the readings matched up with the scouting reports for Felix. Is this something that’s easy for the team to alter?
As far as whether or not he’s turned a corner, this is pretty much a wait-and-see situation. If he had actually turned a corner, we’d be having this same conversation at this point. The fact is, we won’t know til much futher down the line.
I mean both variance and relative truth. Stadium guns are fast, and Safeco Field’s is no difference. But in particular, depending on what stadium you’re at, you’ll see blips beyond a pitcher’s normal variance, where something is clearly awry. So say a guy gets clocked at 91 over and over and then -blip- 93 or 94, there’s no reason to flip out and go “He’s throwing up to 94! Wow!” because it’s far more likely that’s an error than it is that the pitch was 94.
Stadium guns that measured Pineiro’s fastball at 92 last night are the same stadium guns that not long ago registered it at 88. So whether the true velocity is now 92, or some other value, we can’t say. But it does appear that his velocity has increased by something close to 4 percent, which may be significant.
So joel has had 5 good starts all year and for this we are paying 5.5 million another one of bavasais 3 year deals he gave away aka winn,spiezio???How about the 1.2 we gave pokey does old billyboy get a walk on the human D.L.????Did he think we could keep him off the D.L. ???He got lucky and found a taker for winns 5 million next year heel 5 million should get you more the 10 hr and 65 rbi and a avg lf with no arm shouldnt it.?So what im saying does anyone else really think that alot of are moves are bad?Beltre will be ok and sexson is advertised 30 hr 100 rbi 150 strikeouts and a ok defender not gold glove like billyboy said in the paper this winter.I really question if his scouts are bad are he is making these calls on his own?
Re #25: Yes, I would say Pineiro was more than just a pitcher with promise and that he was a good major league pitcher, Derek. From 2001 through 2003 he posted good ERAs (2.03, 3.24, 3.78), pretty good home run, walk, and strikeout rates, and was 36-20 over that period.
All I’m saying is that the jury is out on whether or not the old Pineiro is back. Of course you can’t say 2 starts means he’s a good pitcher again, but likewise you shouldn’t just assume he’s done and that these last two starts are just a bump on the slippery slope to career oblivion.
Of course, that assumes they haven’t changed the radar guns…
Seriously, if Joel comes back, that’s great. It’s not like the market for pitchers making 6+ million with ERA’s over 5 is all that hot, anyway. But an average pitcher at Safeco with the M’s current defense behind him isn’t THAT unlikely to post an ERA in the 3′s and go 200 IP (Sele and Franklin have both done it). Add in a decent offense and you get a 15 game winner.
#21 – I agree the cascading mechanics scenario is very unlikely (I think that’s the point I was making). A more plausible explanation is that a few mechanics things were fixed, and “high hands” is a simple trigger to get the other pieces in place. It would be interesting to see some video analysis of his last two games vs previous suckfests to see what’s really changed, esp. release point consistency.
But, this seems like the old “visit to the golf pro” story. You visit a pro, he tweaks something in your setup, and a miracle occurs – for about 3 rounds. Then something else breaks down, because you’re frankly not that good a golfer.
It’s true, I’m not that good a golfer.
#31
Here is the line for another Seattle pitcher.
2001 SEA 17 4 4.25 28 27 1 0 0 0 163.0 145 79 77 21 87 118
2002 SEA 1 3 11.96 7 5 0 0 0 0 26.1 40 36 35 5 20 22
Paul Abbott looked solid in the win/loss column for 01 but we had an offense. He was still a mean level pitcher with no upside. The years you offered up for Joel are also years that the M’s played well.
I hope Joel is back to form even knowing that his normal form is good, not great but simply servicable. If the offense on this team ever produces at the rate at which a MLB team should, even Joel could win a majority of games.
#34 off topic
Playing crappy teams does not amount to victories. In fact on paper, we are amongst the worst in the American League if not the majors. Thank God there is Tampa Bay.
By EqA, our offense ranks last in the AL, and ahead of only Colorado MLB-wide.
I can’t find good team pitching rankings.
37, We also have Safeco.
The Rockies really have the worst offense? The Colorado ones? I know they’re bad, but you’d think a few more popups would drift out of the stadium, wouldn’t you?
FWIW, I’m in agreement with 33, as a long time golfer and somewhat long time pitching enthusiast, I can attest to the effect of “making one tiny little change” is usually actually capping off several other small changes.
More directly, whether it means anything or not, I too had pitching control problems (everything would drift left) and getting my hands higher and parting them sooner in my delivery also helped alleviate those problems. The change itself was nothing, but what it REALLY did was
-help maintain my balance more because you seperate while in a more intertialess state
-force me to get my arms raised into a better position during the stride. Ideally, there should a line formed from elbow to elbow through the shoulders and if a pitcher like me has troubling getting there, holding the hands higher can make it easier.
Echo all the comments on we’ll see. But if Joel’s last 2 starts become regular, I’d tend to call that more than just average or above average. I’d call that good.
EqA is park adjusted.
38, EqA is home park adjusted.
My bad
For completeness:
33 — You get three good rounds out of a tweak? I’m lucky to get three good holes.
I only get one practice swing.
Golf is not my game, it always seems I’m out of bounds and I have to delete my real score.
Re: stadium radar guns – I’d say that Eddie Guardado’s 90, 90, 91, 90, 91, 91, 91 , 91, 90, 89 etc. run last night was indicative that a) Eddie’s pretty consistent and the gun tracks with that. It’s also pretty evident that if Piniero is clocking 92, 91 regularly and Radke is hitting 89, 88 (seems about right for him) that Piniero’s velocity is indeed about 3 mph higher than Radke’s and likely to actually be in the low 90′s.
Seems like the pooh-poohing of the stadium gun is a bit overdone here. Overall, the absolute accuracy may be off, but the relative accuracy and consistency seems to be OK.
Heh heh heh.
At the risk of being off topic, I hope Cammy’s OK.
I don’t really believe pinero’s improvement is so much mediated by a change in hand position. However, it may be that Pinero is just taking a while to recover from his arm problems and is finally getting there. I do have some hope for Pinero.
49 – Ditto on Cammy.
Incidentally, how did Jason Kendall score the winning run on “defensive indifference”.
hey???
51- Looks like K-rod (i believe) missed the throw back from the catcher, allowing the runner on third to score
Thread on this down the hall thankkkkkksssssssss
Even though it was a small sample size on Joel, I’m still opitimistic about the new wind-up because he looked alot more comfortable and kept the ball lower consistently out of the wind-up last night then he did out of the stretch. When pitching out of the stretch his fastball always seemed to be higher in the zone.
Velocity aside, the major problems for Joel have been poor command/repeatibility and poor control. The first seems substantially the result of an inconsistent release point, something which may be more physiological in nature rather than mechanical, but that’s just supposing. The second is substantially the result of his opening his body too early while trying to rush the ball for better velocity, strictly a matter of mechanics. His landing off balance as noted by TIF in #18 goes along with this flying open, as do the fat pitches of months past turned around like beebees by the opposing hitters.
The functions of putting his hands over his head are: a) it _delays_ Joel opening his front sided, since he has to bring his hands down first, b) keeps his weight centered during his wind-up so he comes into his stride balanced, and c) allows him to get a clean hand separation which can only help getting his arm through cleanly to his release point. LS in #39 summarizes this well. To the extent to which this mechanical adjustment works, it should result in Joel opening his body at the right time during his delivery in a properly balanced stride, with better control the result. This refinement should have little or not effect on Joel’s velocity or on the kind of break he gets on his pitches (unless Joel actually does get a better grip on the ball which while separate might improve the action on his pitches).
So, even if in only two games, what do we see with this adjustment?: 1W in 15 IP, which is good by any measure, but also an improving/improved percentage of strikes, which suggests that the change is not entirely dependent upon facing below average hitters, which undeniably Piniero has (Chicago and Minnestota have little power and don’t make that much contact). OTH Joel’s K9 is still back-of-the-rotation, and he’s giving up plenty of hits. I suspect that against better offensive teams, more of those hits he’s giving up are going to be XBH, and he’ll give up 4-6 runs per game because he won’t be getting the Ks to get out of trouble. In short, Joel is a 3-4 starter with some smarts at best, but heavily dependent upon his defense. A control pitcher whose out pitch is his changeup.
Why didn’t the Ms ‘try this tweak sooner?’ Well, they have thousands of feet of Joel’s motion when he was throwing reasonably well, and given what a mess Joel’s mechanics most certainly were in, say, May and June, I suspect every effort has been made to get Joel to repeat his optimal motion from those days; he’s probably been drilling and drilling on that motion, and watching film until he sees it in his sleep. —And _still_ his shoulder’s been flying open, and he’s been landing in a twist while his pitches have been all over. The fact that this change in hand position has been implemented is a concession to reality, that a _change_ has to be made in Joe’s motion rather than simply getting him to do again what he did before. Even assuming that the change in hand position has had the effect which I postulate above, it remains to be seen whether Joel can reliably repeat it over, say 7-8 starts, to say nothing of incoporate it permanently. Often, when one makes a change in mechanics (speaking from my experience in squash, & etc.) there is a positive effect at first when ones attention is concentrated on executing the physical change, but over time ingrained neuromuscular patterns reassert themselves under pressure and simply from habit. It’s not so much that the tweak doesn’t work, it’s that ones execution of it inherently erodes in the near term.
Still, supposing that Joel sustains an improvement in his control for another 4-5 starts, it’s time for those who think Bryan Price is an idiot who ruins pitchers to take a bite out of reality: this change is certainly a change which the _pitching coach_ implements, and exactly the kind of thing Price has been praised for accomplishing by any number of his PITCHERS, past and present. I’m sure that if Bryan could find a way to get Joel’s velocity back up, he would, and manifestly the two of them, coach and pitcher, have been working for five months to do that with limited results. Price has to work with the picher he’s got, and if this tweak improves Joel’s control over in the near term, that result is fully to Bryan’s credit as well as Joel’s.
Something further on my mind regarding Piniero is this: injuries to the elbow often take two years for full recovery. Velocity is the first thing to come back, but having watched the Year 1 of numerous returning pitchers, now, it certainly seems to me that control and command are very often shaky for ‘elbow’ guys the first year back. The fact that Joel’s velocity isn’t really back, or at least hasn’t been, is very worrisome, yes; that suggests some kind or permanent, or at least uncorrected, damage. However, it is not unreasonable to consider that Joel may have better command and control next year than he’s shown to this point. I’m not saying that ‘I expect that.’ But I haven’t written Joel off, either. If Joel can sustain good control, whether with this mechanical tweak, or just through normal recovery time, he can be an effective mid-rotation guy. Somebody put up his most comparable the other day, and I remember Lynn McGlothen and Richard Dotson. Yes, they were supposed by some to be ‘budding aces’ in their first year or two, only to show a sharp deterioration for physical reasons into #4 starters. Based on past comparables and present circumstances, that is a not unresonable scenario for Joel, too.
Damn right. We must not praise Joel until he’s proved himself the best offenses in baseball — the Tigers and the Twins.
*D’oh* — I was trying to point out that those are *precisely* the teams that King Felix has faced, and yet some people are quite willing to extrapolate all manner of stuff from those starts.
“Consistency is the bugbear of small minds”, I know.