Alex Eisenberg of Baseball Intellect has some video analysis of Joba Chamberlain, the Yankees’ enigmatic young hurler. He tries to compare Joba’s mechanics this season to those he used in 2008, to see if they could explain his lowered velocity this season (92.5 mph avg. fastball velocity in 2009, compared to 95 in 2008). This disparity would probably be a little less pronounced if Joba’s velocity as a starter last season was compared to his starting velocity this season, but from watching him this season, his velocity has been erratic, sitting anywhere from 91-94 in a given start. I’ll let you read the article yourself and look at the videos, but Alex has noticed a few minor mechanical changes that Joba has made, which may not be conducive to higher velocity. Rather than making radical changes in mechanics, Alex offers a simple suggestion: Stick with what worked for Joba in the past. It’s a good read.
Edit: Whoops, Steve already linked to this article. Oh well, it’s an off day, and we need something to talk about other than Bruney vs. Marte vs. Guzman.
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4 Responses to What changed for Joba this season?
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It’s a good article, and it deserves some further analysis. I wish the video was synced up better – after the first one, it goes out of whack and I have to reload – maybe it’s a firefox issue? anyone else having problems?
I do think that, by next spring training, something will come out about how they fiddled with Joba’s delivery in order to prevent injury. It seems to me that there’s much less violence in his motion and that not only drops the velocity, but it affects the slider, as well.
I’ve been wanting to do a .gif analysis of his ’08 and ’09 delivery for a while now. Glad to see someone did it and did a good job with it. Joba definitely has his share of mechanical issues. I hope he irons it out next season.
I’ve been thinking this for a while! Just go back to Joba’s old delivery, yeah there were injury concerns but he could be injured just as easy with his new mechanics. If it is the difference in a mediocre Joba for 10 years and a Cy Young worthy Joba for 6 what would you rather see?
In the old Joba delivery it seems he stays back more and then drives through his motion while opening up more and finishing further down the hill, in the graphic from now he seems to stay a little more level and his follow through is no where near as good and his front foot lands clearly in front of where his foot was finishing in the past. He is creating more room between himself and the glove which could really effect his velocity by the time the ball reaches the batter as opposed to in the past.