Joel Pineiro’s Release Point
Last night, Joel Pineiro gave up one run in 5 1/3 innings, lowering his ERA from 6.75 to 5.93. In some circles, that’s enough to be called a successful outing. Take a look at some of the post-game quotes:
From the Times:
“I struggled the first two innings,” the right-hander said. “Then I got a bit of a feel for the mound and got a rhythm going and I felt much better after that.”
“The first part of that game just drug on,” Hargrove said in his best Texas twang. “We had [catcher Miguel] Olivo speed it up to get Pineiro going a bit. We just had him call pitches quicker.”
In addition, Pineiro started to throw his changeup more in the third, and it worked well.
“I wound up throwing it more than I usually do and maybe that’s one thing I have to do from now on,” Pineiro said. “I felt that what Bryan [Price] and I worked on those 10 days paid off.”
From the P-I
“About the fourth inning, I started getting ahead of hitters,” Pineiro said. “I think maybe not pitching in 10 days affected me the first few innings. But after that I things started to click.”
If you missed the game and just read the recaps, you’d think Pineiro showed some improvement from his skipped start and that perhaps the side sessions with Price led to improved mechanics. It’s just not true, though.
Pineiro was a mechanical mess last night. Jeff Sullivan did the video capture breakdown again for last night, but this time, I don’t think the problems with his delivery can effectively be seen in still frame images. The biggest problem Joel was having was a pretty common one among minor league pitchers: the variable release point.
One of the most fun things to watch about Greg Maddux in his prime was that the point in his delivery when the ball left his hand was almost exactly the same on every single pitch. Fastball, curveball, change-up, it didn’t matter. Whether it was the first pitch or the last, his release point never changed, and that was the key to his impeccable command. The point of release is the cornerstone of command.
Last night, Joel Pineiro had at least five distinctly different release points that I could spot from my television, without any video equipment to slow or rewind the action. In normal live speed action, it was clear that his release point was all over the map, and yet, somehow, this isn’t a concern?
In the first inning, Pineiro was clearly attempting to get more velocity on the ball. Brian Roberts led off the game and saw a 91 MPH fastball up and away, with Pineiro clearly releasing the ball early. The second pitch was nearly identical, a 90 MPH fastball away. The third pitch was a 91 MPH fastball that Pineiro was able to get into the strike zone and actually released the ball at a semi-normal time in his delivery.
He then faced rookie Jeff Fiorentino, and the mechanics went to hell again. Early release, fastball up and away. Early release, fastball up. Early release, curveball up. Early release, fastball away. Four pitch walk.
He wasn’t “missing his spots”. From when he released the ball, it had no chance of being a strike. His fastball was getting out of his hand before his body was in proper position at least 60 percent of the time.
Pineiro had more success with the curveball, allowing his body to rotate before letting the pitch fly, but even still, he was early at least a quarter of the time. Whether it was a clear revelation that his release point was more consistent on the offspeed stuff than with his fastball or not, he threw significantly more of them as the game went on. This helped alleviate some of the command issues he was having early, but also made him, essentially, a junkballer. Joel Pineiro’s not going to get major league hitters out without his fastball.
Now, this is a fixable problem. In my minor league travels, I see this all the time. It’s rare that a kid in Double-A or below can repeat his delivery with any kind of consistency. But, it takes time, and this isn’t the kind of thing that changes overnight. It’s a gradual process of muscle memory and getting comfortable with your throwing motion. Joel Pineiro clearly does not have that. He’s a kid searching for his mechanics, experimenting on the mound, and trying to find something, anything, that works.
If the team knows why he’s lost three MPH on his fastball and is overhauling his delivery to try and get it back, they’re not saying. But right now, the only way he bears any semblance to the Joel Pineiro of 2003 is the tilde on the back of the jersey. He’s basically an entirely new pitcher, and to be frank, not a very good one. The ten days on the side retooling his mechanics did him no good last night. He’s got a long, long ways to go before he can take that delivery and be successful regularly against big league hitters.
Quick recap
I’m going to have a longer post on this tomorrow, but I wanted to get this up tonight before I went to bed: Joel Pineiro was awful tonight. It might be tempting to look at his 1 ER in 5 1/3 innings and pull something optimistic out of it, but that was as bad as I’ve seen a major league pitcher look, mechanics wise, in a long time. His release point made him look like a converted outfielder throwing off a mound for the first time. That was painful.
Also, I’d be hard pressed to imagine that, in the history of baseball, a team trailing by one run in the 9th inning has sent three hitters to the plate with the following lines:
.150/.181/.250
.176/.216/.235 (pinch hitter, none the less)
.210/.248/.269
The fact that the M’s have three players on the roster with those lines is bad enough. That they don’t have anyone, ANYONE, on the roster who could even be perceived as an improvement for any one of the three spots, is absolutely amazing.
The 2005 Mariners bench will be taught for years in Things Not To Do When Building A Roster seminars.
Ichiro! the anti-celebrity
May be nothing you don’t know as an Ichiro! fan, but one fact jumped out at me — an indirect quote from his agent:
Attanasio figures the 31-year-old Ichiro turns down close to $30 million to $35 million in endorsements each year.
This article also seems to go to the heart of something we’ve written about before — that Ichiro! isn’t interested at all in celebrity, which is a strange and ugly thing (the better you are at your craft, or at least better-known, the more trouble you’ll have eating dinner in public). It’s not so much that he’s image-conscious as that he wishes to have no image beyond his on-field actions, and he’s dedicated to the perfection of his on-field actions.
The one thing that I caught that I don’t at all agree with is this, on Ichiro’s particular interview style, where he always uses his interpreter and thinks about each question:
But when his responses are interpreted back moments later, they are disappointingly devoid of any great insight.
That’s not really true. They’re like zen koans. Take for instance the two paired in the article:
“I think there is another level,” Ichiro says. “Where there’s a possibility, I just can’t see it right now. I think that’s the fun of baseball. You just don’t know if there’s a next level, you can’t see it. You just have to go and work at it.”
Does that mean there is a pressure to be perfect? Again Ichiro pauses.
“You know, I don’t think I know what a perfect player is,” he says. “You don’t know really what to do to get there. But you want to be that perfect player. I sometimes think you know you can’t be perfect as a baseball player. But I think there is always pressure on players to have confidence in themselves, who go out and try to play well. Of course, there is not going to be pressure on those who don’t have confidence. But there is always pressure.”
That’s not devoid of insight. If anything, compared to the easy cliches of a post-game Boone interview, they’re the path to enlightenment. I could write a whole other post on what Ichiro might mean here — and sometimes, I think what’s overlooked is that Ichiro gives the questions the answers they deserve. Talk to Ichiro about a single, and he’ll tell you he swung at a slider and ran it out, or something equally simple. Ask him about the relationship between a player and their equipment, and you might get a treatise (and your time extended).
Anyway, check it out. Ichiro! rules.
New Ichiro feature
Ol’ Les Carpenter sure is mining familiar ground in his new gig at the Washington Post. First, Lou Piniella; now a feature on Ichiro. And it’s a good one, covering familiar ground well and opening up some new windows into the world around him.
But only the world around him.
Colleagues know how little Ichiro likes to reveal personal details about himself, so they just don’t. That, in itself, is revealing. They won’t even talk about the stuff that would make for great public relations.
“I can’t say anything about this because Ichiro wouldn’t want me to, but he does extraordinary things, extraordinarily private things philanthropically,” [Howard] Schultz says.
Indeed, Bob Melvin comes off like he’s worried about finding an ahi tuna head in his bed if he says the wrong word:
After discussing Ichiro a few weeks ago in the visitor’s office at RFK Stadium, his former manager in Seattle, Bob Melvin, grows quiet. “I don’t think I said anything that he wouldn’t like, but if you think I did could you please make sure to leave it out,” he says.
Personally, I think that not touting one’s charitable giving is a very classy thing to do. Plus, how about foregoing the near-total salary of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in pander funds every year? According to Carpenter, “Ichiro’s agent, Tony Attanasio … figures the 31-year-old Ichiro turns down close to $30 million to $35 million in endorsements each year.”
This doesn’t surprise me. In a climate where many choose ducats over dignity, Ichiro’s never been like that. Even if western stars take advantage of the Japanese market to make decorum-impaired advertising, it’s not something to expect from baseball’s most private superstar.
When I think of Ichiro, I think of Joe DiMaggio, and not because of the hitting streak. I think of all the mystique surrounding the Yankee Clipper, a man focused on playing the game precisely — also a man who wouldn’t let himself be embarassed by wild tales in the media, guarding his privacy jealously even after he married Marilyn Monroe.
The analogy isn’t perfect at all: the Clipper wasn’t playing in a foreign country, after all. But there’s a common undercurrent there. Common to them, rare to us.
Felix watching
The Mariners have the day off, it’s supposed to be a nice day, and King Felix is taking the hill in Cheney Stadium tonight.
Seriously, you have no excuses. Get thee to Tacoma tonight. 6:05 pm Pacific time first pitch.
Lookout Landing
I’ve plugged Jeff Sullivan’s blog several times before, but it bears repeating: if you’re not reading his stuff, you’re really missing out. He used mlb.TV and screen captures to break down Aaron Sele’s release point change from his starts against the Yankees and the Padres, and he’s doing great work all around over there.
Seriously, go check it out. It’s good stuff.
Doyle update
After being drilled in the hand by Andy Pratt yesterday, X-rays came back and he’s okay. He’ll be “day-to-day” for a bit, but the important thing is nothing broke.
Doyle’s line so far: .404/.484/.635. 2 doubles, 5 HR, 16 walks, 19 strikouts. No steals.
Game 43, Padres at Mariners
My turn to just get home and toss up a game thread. I’m exhausted, though, so I’m going to bed. Be nice to eath other in the thread.
Game 42, Padres at Mariners
Just got back from giving a speech at my hometown university — just in time to free the mind from creeping ivy coverage — and it’s time for the game. Brian Lawrence goes for the Padres, Gil Meche for the M’s.
Lawrence has been had on the road and Meche has been bad on the road, so the runs could flow. Stay out of the big inning, Gil.
TV FSN, Radio KOMO.
D’Angelo Jimenez
From MLB.com:
Designated INF D’Angelo Jimenez for assignment and purchased the contract of INF Luis Lopez from Triple-A Louisville.
Jimenez plays 2b/SS, mostly 2b, and would be fine pickup to stick in Valdez’s place and try and patch the lineup. He’s 27 and his last two years:
2003, White Sox: .255 .332 .410
2003, Reds: .290 .365 .421
2004, Reds: .270 .364 .394 in a full-season.
That’s not earth-shaking, certainly, but I’d take a shortstop who could give the team 100 more points of on-base percentage — for free.