Neither, it’s time to tar and feather Zito and run him out of town.

Jim Abbott? Hadn’t thought about him in a long time. How about a hand for Jim Abbott, everyone?

But it would seem to me that velocity would be easier to fix through mechanics, which could be a shorter fix then actually learning to locate your pitches.

Then again, how about we keep booing him until he retires and voids the contract :P

(i don’t actually mean that, but it wouldn’t kill me if it happened that way)

Tossy McDufftapper should start throwing with the real arm he was born to use. Enough of this ambidextrous BS.

Either that, or he just needs a slumpbuster. Just keep him from hanging out with R. Kelly as a precaution.

and is hiding it from the team because of his not so hypothetically huge contract.

I’m almost convinced that Zito is either hurt or his arm/shoulder is disintegrating.

For the doomsayers, consider this.

Right now Zito is making hitters swing and miss at his pitches at nearly the same rate as Carlos Silva, who’s game plan is to purposely let hitters make contact with his sinker.

Name    StS%    Cntc%
Silva    8%      89%
Zito     10%     86%

Sts = Strikes Swinging Percentage
Cntc = Contact Percentage

Barry Zito is Carlos Silva without the groundball tendencies, great control, or ability to throw past 6 innings in a game.

He has to be hurt, right? It’s amazing how bad he’s pitching right now. Don’t expect Peterson to come in either. According to a Buster Olney insider article, Sabean doesn’t think it would be fair to Rags. The Chron article this morning cast doubt on Peterson as well, something about how he’s still with the Mets for another year and any work he’d do with Zito would essentially be free.

Why is everyone talking about Barry Zito when Grant’s article was about hypothetical pitcher Tossy McDuffTapper?

Those hypothetical junior mints are yummy.

McDufftapper! I haven’t seen him in photographs with starlets in some time.

I don’t know anything about pitching mechanics, but the Jim Abbott comparison is a scary and fitting one, statistically. I am prepared for worst case scenario at this point. I tried to stay optimistic, but I am preparing myself for the prospect that he is done. If he can ever be an average starter again, it will feel like the biggest escape since Houdini.

Really helps the focus…

I have no idea what’s going on but wtf is this that I’m finally back where I can watch baseball and there’s no game on tonight? :(

Come on, Grant. Why do you have to pile it on Reuter like that when the guy’s been out of the league for years now?

I laughed too much at “Tossy McDufftapper” to read the rest of the post. What are you people talking about?

maybe the fact that zito is “pushing the ball” like was brought out in that HBT article has something to do with his loss of velocity. I can’t break down his motions like Nyman did, but I’ve read multiple stories that say Zito has been trying to change his mechanics. IDK if that’s the problem, but I do know that I don’t trust Rags to fix whatever’s wrong.

so, after my extremely unscientific method of comparing mlb.tv clips of 2008 Zito to 2006 Zito, I can tell you that his mechanics are pretty fucked up. I don’t know if that’s a result of him changing them or what, but 2006 Zito was a hell of a lot more forceful with his release, and he followed through towords 3B quite a bit more than 2008 Zito is.

This is me looking at it side-by-side in live motion, so it is definitely not to be taken as anything more than an uneducated guess, but it looks to me like he’s just throwing the ball differently than he used to.

I freely admit I know nothing about pitching mechanics, other than it’s an interesting read. Everyone is talking about his mechanics, and he does tweak things alot.

Maybe he should try old school pitching, like Grant mentioned, the mechanics of Juan Marichal. Instead of just the arm and shoulder, incorporate the rest of the body.

But what the hell do I know? I already said…nothing.

but I’m going to go with velocity because control can be both mechanical and mental and the mental thing can be harder to fix than the mechanics of a pitcher.

Velocity can also effect a pitcher mentally, but it is mainly mechanical.

Remember, there are many ways to add velocity through mechanics, so you have more options to tackle your mission of improving velocity.

For control, you can firm up the front side as your shoulder begins to open which allows a pitcher to have a consistent release point, but much of it involves being able to repeat the delivery consistently and this requires somebody who is at least a pretty good athlete.

the contract is so long, that Zito will have ample time to fix his delivery, break it again, fix it again, and then break it. Probably he will then Livan us after we get rid of him in 2012.