From my amateur perspective, I would say they don’t look especially good.

His elbow reaches a level higher than that of his shoulder early in the delivery where he forms the inverted W.It isn’t perfectly clear from this video, but he doesn’t appear to finish any wrist pronation.

On the bright side, his gs leg doesn’t appear to lock giving him repeatable footwork (even though he appears to be driving more than striding to his balance point, maybe where a lot of those mph come from). He also has great arm speed.

Any of that right?

I agree about the high elbow. That just doesn’t look right The arm torque in the third frame is pretty outrageous.

As for future efforts….I would be interested in either Papelbon or Okajima?

Great work!

Trying to learn some of the basics on pitching mechanics, and this helps a lot…a couple things that look bad to my very untrained eye: His upper half seems to be dragging behind his legs somewhat, putting pressure on his arm to catch up through the release point. He also doesn’t clear his glove side well at all, cutting off his follow-through.

I can’t get over how fast his hips rotate. Beside from the injury ridden mechanics, such as the inverted W, he uses his legs extremely well and loads with his back leg for him to explode to home.

The guy is incredible.

The Bad:

He rushes slightly as his shoulders begin rotating prior to his forearm being slightly vertical (which tends to stress the shoulder, which in turn can lead to elbow strain)

His finish is ok, although there is some recoiling of his arm which adds strain to the decelerating rotator cuff muscles

He fails to keep his back shoulder over the rubber as he leads with his hips, instead he actually already has a downhill slope with his shoulders which tells me that he is not completely using his hips to his advantage

His arm action (I know it is controversial), but it just depends on if you like to sacrifice velocity for health. With him being a relief pitcher, I really don’t have as much concern as I would if he was still a starter.

Appears to throw across his body (tough to tell by the camera angle) but this closes off his hips and works against himself. This can give greater movement/deception but also they will have to compensate by flying open early with their front side which often leads to shoulder injuries, particularly on the front of the shoulder.

The Good:

Really uses his core to his advantage with insane hip/shoulder separation

Powerfully drives his hips forward using more of his hamstrings than his abductors (think of doing a lunge forward compared to sliding sideways, pushing off with a lunge motion will use larger and stronger muscles for added power during leg drive)

Maintains a relatively controlled front side (I personally don’t like how he brings his glove to his chest, by already having the glove hanging down below the arm, I think this is inefficient as the front shoulder has to rotate and bring the glove back above the arm in order for it to be brought into the chest)

Summary:

Zumaya’s mechanics are powerful, but not completely efficient. I wouldn’t necessarily tell anyone to copy them, but instead take bits and parts of it, such as the hip and leg movements, as well as the good front shoulder control

His arm just looks uncomfortable. I guess throwing 103 isn’t a comfortable thing, but Verlander throws basically as hard as Zumaya does and looks a lot smoother doing it. Everything other than his pitching arm looks good to me. He doesn’t lock his front leg like Verlander does, which isn’t really a big deal for Justin, but it isn’t how you do it by the book.

For a short reliever, Zumaya will probably be fine. Billy Wagner basically is the same thing from the other side, and while he hasn’t been totally injury-free, he has been dominating while he was healthy, which is most of the time. I’m glad he isn’t a starter anymore.

If he comes back from this injury throwing well, next year or maybe the year after he will probably enter the Jenks / Street class of closers – very good, but not elite. If he comes back throwing well and has learned to locate a little better, he will probably enter the Nathan / Putz / Papelbon class of elite closers. I’m really anxious to see the guy pitch again, either way.

How about Dontrelle Willis? If possible a comparison of his Cy Young year versus current year (just the one start at this point).

Correction, I don’t think he (Willis) won the Cy Young that year. I meant his 2005, 22 win season.

But, in thinking about Cy Young’s – how about a comparison of Barry Zito from his Cy Young year to his present-day mess?

The biggest issue that I have revolves around the poor timing of his leg plant. His arm is completely behind the timing of his leg plant. Putting major pressure on the shoulder and elbow.