Jair Jurrjens

#49 / Pitcher / Atlanta Braves

Height: 6-1

Weight: 200

Bats: R

Throws: R

Born: Jan 29, 1986

In Part One of our Pitcher Profile analysis of Jair Jurrjens, we talked about how uncommon it was to see a pitcher throw a changeup faster than his slider and also profiled the location of said off-speed pitch. We also discussed the concept of trading with the Braves (usually a bad idea) and Jurrjens' profile from a sabermetric viewpoint.

Today, we'll be analyzing his pitching mechanics using the same clip we saw in the previous post.

Read on!

Tempo: Jurrjens is 17-18 frames from maximal leg lift to footplant. Anything under 20 is great. Excellent.

Arm Action: I really like what I see here. Though Jurrjens has a bit of reverse rotation in his stride, it's not very much. I see no visible evidence of forced scapular loading, which is very good news. Additionally, Jurrjens uses a pendulum arm swing down, back, and up and his pitching arm gets nearly vertical when his shoulders begin to turn. This should limit the amount of stress placed on his elbow as a result. Very Good (borderline Excellent).

Ball Release: Let's take a look at the picture below, which is approximately at the point of release:

What I see here is very good - his glove arm is up near his shoulder with the palm facing inward. This is commonly referred to as "throwing against a firm front side." Excellent.

Followthrough: Initially I looked at the video and saw evidence of an active braking mechanism on his arm - meaning that he was pulling back with the pitching arm to slow the followthrough. This is very bad, as it can place extreme stress on both the anterior and posterior muscles of the shoulder. However, after carefully reviewing the source material again (thanks, VictorW), what I see is forceful rotation of the shoulders as he turns them nearly sideways to the target. In my opinion, this will help slow the arm down and take some of the load off the decelerator muscles in the shoulder and upper arm. Jurrjens gets a Very Good from me on this point.

There's a lot to like in Jurrjens' delivery, if you ask me - he works quickly, has a clean arm action, uses his glove side well, and has a solid followthrough phase. There's no wonder why the Braves' scouts are some of the best in the business, and Jurrjens is just one of many examples of how they managed to find hidden talent that was passed over by other organizations.

On a side note, I still can't believe that the Mike Hampton deal didn't work out for them. If you didn't know how favorable of terms John Schuerholz managed to negotiate, well, take a look here. Hampton's contract was 8 years/$121M, of which the following teams paid him salary:

(acquired by Atlanta 11/02 in trade with Colorado & Florida)

-Colorado to pay $49M ($20M signing bonus, $8M in 2001, $8.5M in 2002, $2M in 2003, $2M in 2004, $2.5M in 2005, and $6M for 2009 buyout, which was converted to a signing bonus 11/02, eliminating club option)
-Florida to pay $23.5M ($7M of 2003 salary, $8M in 2004, $8.5M in 2005
-Atlanta to pay $48.5M ($2M of 2003 salary, $2M in 2004, $1.5M in 2005, $13.5M in 2006, $14.5M in 2007, $15M in 2008)

The Braves paid just $48.5M of Hampton's contract for 5 years, meaning they got him at an AAV of $9.7M that was heavily backloaded, giving them the maximum time value of money in the deal as well. Hampton turned in two pretty good years in 2003 and 2004, posting FIPs of 4.08 and 4.32, but then only threw 69 innings of 3.96 FIP ball in 2005 and not coming back until 2008, when he pitched at near replacement level, throwing 78 innings resulting in a 4.94 FIP. I'm no contract wizard, but it's highly unlikely that the Braves ended up with the better end of this deal - regardless, we should judge contracts at the time they were signed and the variables known, and if you do that, this deal was a no-brainer.

It just goes to show you how dangerous trading with Frank Wren and John Schuerholz can be.