Recap: Matt Garza

by Kyle Boddy on Aug 28, 2008 7:12 AM PDT in Pitching Mechanics Comment 4 comments

In the last post on Matt Garza I did, I asked readers to chime in:

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.

Only one person commented, saying:

It appears that in the frame on the right, he is rotating even earlier and his arm is falling behind the rest of his body…

That is correct, however it is related to what Nick pointed out - he has a faster tempo when throwing his slider, at least in this specific instance.

What I saw was something else...

Let's take a look at the image in question again:

Note at the point the animated image is frozen, Matt Garza is at ball release (where I synchronize my images to). What I noticed after additional observation is that when he throws his slider (and likely his curve), he leans his torso over further and pulls down with his whole body. In doing so, Garza stresseshis oblique muscles and risks pulling a rib away from his sternum. Pitchers who suffer from this type of chronic injury include Roy Oswalt and Tim Hudson for similar reasons.

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In fairness

Since Garza technically missed his spot with that slider down and away I’d imagine he doesn’t pull the torso out nearly as much on a located one on a regular basis.

by nickmueller on Aug 28, 2008 9:07 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Looks like Will Carroll read your piece

and told Matt about it too:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=8019

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by iamawesomer on Sep 1, 2008 11:38 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Obviously this was going to get out...

Will and I had a long, friendly email exchange about this topic. A few years ago, I flew out to Indianapolis and he taught me how to throw the gyroball (not the way I ultimately figured out how to throw it and teach to others after translating and reading material by Tezuka/Himeno, but that’s another story). Will was very accomodating and was a great guy – he charged me nothing for his time (I insisted on picking up dinner).

After that, I started researching pitching mechanics and settled on the Marshall/RPM Pitching camp, for the most part. I still like the idea of tempo as taught by Paul Nyman / SETPRO, and my work reflects that. Will realizes the utility of Marshall’s work to some extent, but he disagrees with many things that I do, and vice versa. As far as I can tell, he agrees mostly with Nyman and the Saber-Scouting guys (who are acquaintances of Carlos Gomez, another SETPRO disciple), but he obviously has a lot of influence from Tom House and ASMI, since they wrote Saving the Pitcher together.

What he wrote in that column is absolutely correct – only time will tell. But this isn’t a dick-measuring contest – we’re both trying to do what’s best for youth pitchers and to help make inroads on such a new body of work. That we disagree on some things doesn’t mean that we dislike each other – quite the opposite!

Webmaster of Driveline Mechanics
http://www.drivelinemechanics.com - An Unconventional Look at Scouting

by Kyle Boddy on Sep 1, 2008 12:10 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

On overrotating

http://baseball.bornbybits.com/2008/Matt_Garza.html

It looks like he turns more on his splitter and slider than his other pitches, based somely on his release point chart. Still, it’s not really a tip, since two of his pitches have a release point a foot further over than two others, and then a third covers the whole range.

Vogt early, Vogt often.

by Brickhaus on Sep 3, 2008 1:27 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs