In Part Two of the Matt Garza analysis, I talked about his early pronation and how it would eventually damage his elbow due to hard supination through release of his breaking balls. In my opinion, the most dangerous pitch today is the slider, as it is thrown with a supinated grip and the force of a fastball.

I received numerous emails telling me that I was wrong; that Garza's elbow was in good health and that the early pronation wasn't a problem. Only time will tell for sure, but radial nerve irritation is not a good place to start. The fact that other pitchers have this problem (including his teammate James Shields, whose mechanics I do like) doesn't mean that Garza's arm will be fine - people have varying degrees of response to mechanical flaws. Many people never made it to the minors with similar mechanics just because their anatomy is slightly different. Remember - the n-value of pitchers we are working with is always 1. The fact that humans all have similar anatomical structures does give us the ability to make broad generalizations about what is safe and effective, but in the end, each human is physically (and genetically) different from the next.

In the end, remember that Matt Garza is just 24 years old - very young for a professional pitcher.

However, I digress. Let's take a look at his mechanics using video-based analysis...

Pitching Mechanics Analysis

Here's Matt Garza throwing a fastball:

(For explanations on my pitching theories, see my page on Pitching. Please excuse the missing images - it's a configuration error with my old server, and I hope to have it fixed ASAP.)

Tempo: Matt Garza is 24-25 frames from maximal leg lift to footplant, which is not great. We want to see something <= 20 frames. Garza's tempo is Below Average.

Arm Action: Here is Matt Garza at the point when his shoulders begin to turn:

As you can see, his arm is not vertical. However, it is above the horizontal plane and on its way up, which is better than the arms being "hung" like a Mark Prior or Anthony Reyes. Pitchers should have their arm vertical at the point their shoulders begin to turn, or more commonly used as a cue, at footstrike. Here is a picture of Roger Clemens in the same position:

Note the position of the arm - above the horizontal and bent inwards, towards his head. This will help him pronate through release and avoid unnecessary load on his UCL and elbow in general.

Matt Garza's arm action phase of his delivery looks like this:

There's a few things to like here:

• Matt Garza does not reverse rotate his shoulders or take his arm laterally behind his body. This will contribute to timing flaws and leads to an inefficient delivery, adding wasted motion.
• Garza has a simple and straight-forward stride component which is very easily repeatable. This undoubtably aids his superb command of all of his pitches.
• Garza has a very loose arm action and mirrors the throwing arm with his glove arm very well.

Here's what I don't like:

• Garza has an arm action that goes down and back (good), though his early pronation is evident as he does not fully "pendulum swing" the arm up to driveline height; rather, he loads the elbow sideways in a forced scapular load pattern (not good).
• Garza's arm position at footstrike/shoulder turn is below average, as noted above.

Garza's arm action isn't very good, mainly due to the early pronation of the arm and the fact that he supinates the release of his breaking pitches. It's Below Average.

Ball Release / Followthrough: Garza's ball release and followthrough phase of his pitching delivery can be seen in the following clip:

Garza does a great job of pointing the pitching arm shoulder at the target with an aggressive finish - two things that I really like. His Ball Release phase is Very Good.

Garza's glove side is outstanding in the followthrough phase of the pitching delivery. He keeps the glove tight and up at his shoulder, which promotes a firm front side and will help reduce his pitching arm from "flying out." I tell pitchers to think about effortlessly pulling their glove to their shoulder and not the arm back, and Garza does a great job of effortlessly doing this (ASMI studies have shown that conscious movement of the glove arm can limit velocity on pitches).

Garza's pitching arm follows through relatively well, and it doesn't look like he is actively braking his arm by using the anterior muscles of the shoulder. Overall, I'll grade his Followthrough phase as Good.

The Final Verdict

Overall, there's a lot to like about Matt Garza from varying angles - he commands the ball well, gets a good amount of strikeouts, limits his walks and home runs, and has many things about his delivery that are positive. However, he was clearly taught a supinated slider (and probably curve ball) that will ultimately shelve him on the disabled list over his career. My prediction is that he will land on the DL sporadically with radial nerve irritation, inflammation of the elbow, and possibly eventually with UCL replacement surgery.

Edit: BONUS CONTENT

I just noticed while watching the combination image above that Garza exhibits a classic case of a supinated breaking ball, which is dangerous for not only his elbow, but his oblique muscles and his ribcage. The evidence is clear when I slow down the combination image and freeze the frame at ball release:

Did you notice a few things? Here's what I saw:

• Like fellow contributor Nick Mueller said, Garza has a faster tempo when he throws his slider, which is a tip-off. Whether or not he varies his tempo with all of his pitches or if this is just a one-time occurance is tough to tell, but it's something worth watching out for.
• Note the frame where I freeze the image for 1 second at ball release. Tell me what you see. I'll post my answer tomorrow.