Recently SI.com listed the top 20 young pitchers in baseball. Without getting into a debate about how Jeremy Bonderman was ranked way to low at #18, I wanted to highlight a related post by Will Carroll. Carroll, takes a look at each picture and assesses the pitcher’s mechanics. If you’re not familiar with Will’s work, in addition to his Under the Knife column at Baseball Prospectus, he literally wrote the book on pitching mechanics.
Here is Bonderman’s picture from the article and Will’s take:
18. Jeremy Bonderman – Nice extension. This reminds me a lot of Clemens with the retracted arm, the solid back leg, and the head slightly behind but whipping forward. (At release, he’s over the knee.) Great late hip turn gives him the velocity. I don’t like the retraction a lot, but we’ll assume Bob Cluck has him doing it properly. Look at his back leg – that’s perfect.
For your comparative enjoyment, here is a picture of said Rocket at about the same point in his delivery:
I know you didn’t want to get into a debate, but come on SI! I would take JB ahead of all the pitchers listed ahead of him up to Perez, and Sabathia too. And where the heck is Zack Greinke?
Zack Greinke is 0-4 this year, dude. That means he is no good 😉
Excellent pictures. Carroll recently wrote on BP about the pitcher moving his head one inch results in the release point moving two inches, or something like that. Interesting that Clemens appears to have moved his head bit more than Bonderman in these two snapshots.
Great post, Billfer.
Ugh, you had to get a photo of Clemens in the pinstripes, didn’t you? Blech. Still, we can only hope Bondy has a comparable career (and if he spends it all with the Tigs, so much the better).
I think in the Clemens photo he is slightly ahead of where Bonderman is in his motion. Clemens has brought the ball up and his front foot has landed, and that might be why is head is a little more forward.
Bonderman seems to have a little more leg extension, but that could be the difference between a 22 year old and someone in their thirties also.
Still a pretty similar pose – even if he is in a Yankee uni.
Great post, great blog…. I’m here every day. keep it up.
Good catch – Clemens does have a “tick tock” in his delivery, but he’s so strong, he can get away with it. Looking at both together – wow, I wish I’d gone that extra dollar on Bonderman. Must go trade for him now.
Will – how exactly does strength help in this case, that Clemens can get away with a slight flaw in his mechanics?