Yeah Hughes. 95 right on the black. Nothin' Cabrera could do with that...

we have to win this game, so it doesn't become sorta home field advantage for the twins when they go back home

1-0 Yankees.

btw, how do you not re-sign matsui? clutch hit after clutch hit. jeez...

they need to just keep the team intact as they are & just sign that Cuban kid in free agency... w/CMW coming back next season that gives us 5 nice starting pitcher options & u can keep Joba & Hughes in the bullpen if u like... it just gives u so many options... this team has the best chemistry they've had in years.

If they (Damon and Matsui) want one year deals or maybe a 2 year in Damon's case, it's a no-brainer. If they want long-term deals, which I suspect they will, it's a much tougher call. Giving both of them long-term deals is just begging for another 2008 type of season in a couple of years where too many of our players are old, slow, and injury-prone.

[Edited by - bonn1997 on 10-08-2009 06:11 AM]

Posted by djsunyc:

Posted by VDesai:

Matsui murders one to deep center. Awesome!

whenever i go to a yankee game, it's ALWAYS in bleacher creature territory...why?

well tonight, you had your great "***hole" chant to anybody with a twins cap...which also included a girl. you saw 30 guys pointing at 1 girl and calling her an "***hole" in unison - that was great.

not sure if you guys recognize this japanese guy there that always holds up this yellow godzilla sign - it's a #55 with a godzilla picture. he holds it up right before matsui bats.

jimi and i were sitting right behind him. after the matsui homerun...the guy was MOBBED by 20 people. everybody was chanting matsui, jumping and hollaring, throwing beer in the air and dumping it on his head. i was holding the pour guy up otherwise he would've fell over. that was great. one dude jumped 3 rows to come hug him. hilarious.

section 202/203 is the only place to watch a yankee game.

btw, how GREAT is derek jeter. unreal.

oh, you mean these guys........

Posted by djsunyc:

getting bat to matsui - the guy is murdering left handed pitchers. yanks have a major dilemma this offseason but the smart teams always think down the road. it's why a team like the twins can lose hunter + santana and still be competetive. tough choices this offseason...

the one guy that they must bring back and give a raise to is kevin long. none of our hitters had a bad season.

That includes Pena and Cervelli. They made some impressive contributions at times.

Lost: the Velocity and Command of Joba Chamberlain
October 8, 2009

I was asked by a few people to diagnose the problems of Joba Chamberlain. I went to the tape and didn’t really see anything that looked like an obvious problem.

Joba’s problems persisted and I saw a Buster Olney blog entry detailing Joba’s velocity decline (Insider-only), so I decided to take another look and I think might have found something.

I’ll also be ignoring the yo-yo act the Yankees have used with Joba. Should he be in the rotation or should he be put in the pen? To use Joba rules or not? I’m sure he’s been mentally all over the place and that’s had something to do with his performance, but for this piece, we’ll ignore that factor.

Now, let’s compare Joba from September this year to Joba back in the middle of last season…



2008 Joba is on the left, 2009 Joba is on the right. First thing I notice are the hands…as Joba lifts his knee, the hands in 2009 lift with it while in 2008 they stay steady. That’s why in 2009, at the point the knee starts to drop, Joba’s hands are up by his head and in 2008 they are out in front of his chest. So right off the bat, we see a subtle change that might have an impact on his timing.

Joba actually breaks his hands (when the ball breaks from the glove) a couple frames earlier in 2008 than 2009. In 2009, Joba lowers the hands and then breaks.

In 2008, Joba broke his hands and then they kinda hover there. This is something I detailed last time I looked at Chamberlain. It’s an adjustment I think he made in hopes of improving his timing, which in turn would help his command. The hands hovered as Joba started striding.

In 2009, the hands also hover, but they don’t hover for as long a period. The reason for this is because his hands are higher from the start, so the time it took for them to lower ate into the time that his hands were supposed to hover. Hopefully that make sense.

Now, there are postural, hip turn, and arm action difference. Here are some of those changes…

1. Chamberlain in 2008 is a bit more seated.

2. Take the clip below and watch the front leg…



It looks like there is a bigger, more forceful step over move in 2008. That is something that could make an impact from a velocity standpoint.

In fact, just comparing his pitches from his last start, when he would throw in the upper 80’s – low 90’s, there was less of step-over move than when he threw 93 or 94.

3. For the clips below, focus on the arm action…



In the 2008 version, as Joba is making that step-over move, watch the arm action really start to load. The elbow goes up with a little bend.

Compare it to 2009…the arm swings back a bit, but it’s still pretty straight and it hasn’t really begun to load. So Joba loads his arm later in the process and this creates a timing problem.

Now, I think a pitcher’s “timing” is subjective. Some regard a problem in timing as just the throwing arm not being vertical prior to the front foot landing. That’s not really true, however.

I’ll keep try to keep this simple because there are a lot of variables here…despite the fact that Joba has always been borderline as to whether he gets the arm up to vertical before the front foot lands, he’s been able to generate pitches of high velocities and command them for the most part. When you’re able to combine high velocities with command, it’s a sign of mechanical efficiency, not a problem in timing. Proper timing for one pitcher may not be proper timing for another.

But what happens when something is altered in a mechanically efficient pitcher? It’s what you’d expect…you see a decline in velocity and a deterioration of command…in Joba’s case, the arm is later in 2009. The timing of each sequence in the kinetic chain is thrown off.

So what advice do I have for Joba? It’s pretty simple…go back to what made you successful. Sit down a little more, keep your hands low, aggressively step-over into foot plant, and the timing should correct itself. The changes themselves won’t be too hard to implement, but Joba has to know what’s wrong first.

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once again, Joba's velocity has never consistently been in the ~98 mph range as a starting pitcher in the majors... it only reaches that range when he's pitching out of the bullpen when he comes in for an inning or two & lets loose... even Joba's on record as admitting as much that when he comes in as a reliever he doesn't need to worry about leaving anything in the tank & can let loose w/his pitches... this side by side comparison while nice to analyze can also be very misleading... i've seen Joba come in during games & let loose on a pitch here & there during a start but he's also thrown the ball more casually as in the "09 clip" shown here... at what situation during the game were these splits taken from? what was the count? was it a 3-0 pitch where he was just trying to get over a strike pitch or was it in a later innings with the game on the line? these are factors which will effect the conviction w/which he's gonna throw his fastball, & that could clearly effect his mechanics on any given pitch as well... & as many ML pitchers have attested to, repeating your delivery on any given pitch time after time is not that easy to do, which is why guys like Dennis Eckersley give guys like Mariano Rivera so much props cuz he's able to do it time & time again.

bottomline, mechanics studies are great, but i have never seen Joba pitching consistently in the ~98 mph range as a starter ever... he's always been at least 3-5 mph slower when he's starting games.

my name is arod and i'm the best player in baseball...