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Last Thursday was a coming home party for some of the wounded warriors of the pitching mound, featuring the 2015 debuts of three different pitchers who were coming back from elbow injury: Jose Fernandez, Matt Cain, and Matt Moore. Fernandez’s return stole most of the headlines, but the returns of Cain and Moore were no less critical to their respective teams, and in an interesting twist of fate, all three pitchers were scheduled to start at the unusually early time of 12:10 pm EST, with Fernandez and Cain facing off head-to-head.

Naturally, the pitching mechanic in me wanted to see how these pitchers were holding up from a physical perspective, to see if there were any compromised elements of their deliveries after a year of rest and rehab. The results varied widely from pitcher to pitcher, and though each player had a modest line in the box score when all was said and done, the mechanical indicators for each player were very different.

Jose Fernandez

Stuff-wise, Fernandez picked up right where he left off, averaging more than 96 mph on his fastball and maxing out at 99 against the Giants. The velocity waned a bit as the game wore on, indicating that he was channeling some adrenaline in the first couple of frames and that he still has some work to do when it comes to stamina, but the repertoire was largely intact from the deadly arsenal that he unleashed upon the National League in 2014.

The Defector was in full force, with the same late bite and wicked movement that made the pitch so devastating. The Statcast data even indicated that the pitch had picked up some extra spin; my only qualm was that Fernandez let the pitch fly rather than keeping it in his back pocket, as he threw the pitch 30 percent of the time. That frequency was in line with what he had established in the previous two seasons, but the extreme supination necessary to throw the pitch is more taxing on the throwing arm than his fastball even though he throws the pitch the “right” way by avoiding a twist of the wrist.

What really grabbed the audience—and sent Twitter into a flurry—was his fifth-inning home run off Matt Cain, in which he launched a cookie served on a platter deep into the left-field seats. There was no Brian McCann to step in and police the situation, leaving nothing but home-crowd cheers as the grinning Fernandez rounded the bags.

Mechanics Report Card

2014

July 2, 2015

Balance

60

60

Momentum

65

65

Torque

70

70

Posture

65

65

Repetition

65

60

Overall

A

A

For an explanation on the grading system for pitching mechanics, please consult this pair of articles.

The reports on Fernandez’s mechanics are virtually the same as those for his stuff, as the new UCL and the year removed from pitching did nothing to harm his delivery. The balance was exceptional, though he did occasionally incorporate a bit more drop to his center of gravity after max lift, but he finished with the same near-elite posture that marked his motion in 2013–14. For the sake of comparison, check out this footage from the 2014 season:

And now from last Thursday:

Everything was intact, from his massive torque to the huge burst of momentum. These power categories are often compromised when a pitcher returns from injury due to the natural tendency to be tentative, but Fernandez showed no such hesitation. The momentum got going early, picked up ferocity during the stride phase, and continued through release point and follow-through as his body continued to move forward toward the target after the baseball had left his hand.

The repetition was not quite at peak levels, but that’s to be expected from any pitcher making his first start of the season, let alone one who has been off the mound for a year while recovering from major surgery. I expect that there will be a few hiccups over the next three months, but Fernandez’s return to his previous elite form is nearly complete, a rare feat for any pitcher, let alone a player so young and with such heights to climb in order to meet his established peak.

Matt Cain

Cain was the odd man out among the trio of returnees in the sense that he wasn’t coming back from Tommy John surgery, but he had missed a full year due to various arm-related maladies, including surgery to remove bone chips and a flexor strain that has commonly been a precursor to TJS. He faced off with Fernandez in the early game last Thursday, and though he had bouts of success, the home run he surrendered to his mound counterpart was not the only downside from his 2015 debut.

Cain’s velocity was down about a tick from the previous season, though his radar-gun readings were not a major concern given that it was his first start of the year. It appeared that he was taking a little bit off in order to emphasize the arm-side movement on his fastball, as indicated by a two-seam velocity that was off by multiple mph from previously established levels. His mechanics were sound, though not impressive, and the results leave one to wonder if the four-plus ERA pitcher of the previous two seasons is closer to his present reality than the DIPS-defying stud of his early-to-mid-twenties.

Mechanics Report Card

2014

July 2, 2015

Balance

80

70

Momentum

50

40

Torque

50

45

Posture

60

60

Repetition

55

50

Overall

B

B-

Cain has long emphasized stability over power, earning the rare 80 grade for balance and finishing with plus posture but earning merely average grades for momentum and torque. The key to his success for many years was an ability to repeat the timing and positioning of his delivery, but the combination of diminished stuff and slightly dented command have doomed the stat line for a pitcher who lives on the edges. When contrasting his 2014 delivery with what was on display last week, most of the essential ingredients remain intact, but the power that was never a feather in his cap was more of a detriment when analyzing his most recent performance:

Cain’s momentum during stride was slower, his torque was inconsistent, and there were some pitches where it appeared he was trying to force the ball to a certain location rather than trust the natural progression of his delivery. These elements could certainly improve over time, but pitchers have a tendency to make gains in the stability departments—balance and posture—as they age, whereas the power attributes of momentum and torque are less likely to make leaps forward for a veteran. Cain exemplified this phenomenon last week, with a noticeably slowed pace to the plate and diminished hip-shoulder separation due to a mistimed trigger that often muted his delay of trunk rotation.

It’s possible that we have already seen the best Cain has to offer, and that he will spend the later portion of his career trying to keep his balance and repetition in line so that he can eat innings as a mid-rotation starter, rather than resurrect the upside of a pitcher who had an ERA+ of 124 through the first eight seasons of his career.

Matt Moore

Moore has always had upside, but has yet to reach ceiling, and while he has struggled to iron out the finer elements of his delivery, the raw components of stuff have been in gradual decline. He averaged 96.5 mph on his fastball during his late-season cameo of 2011, dropped to 95.1 the following season, and then lost nearly two full ticks, to a 93.4 mph mark, in 2013. The pitch speed was down to 92.8 mph before he went under the knife last April, and though we expect there to be a gradual increase before he hits peak velocity after returning from injury, the fact that his speed checked in at a career-low 92.4 mph is hardly encouraging.

Pitching comprises much more than velocity, of course, but speed establishes the timing pattern for batters off of which all other pitches are based. His command has never been a tally on the pro side of his ledger, so watching his velocity dip throughout his first start of the season was a potentially ominous sign of things to come.

Mechanics Report Card

2014

July 2, 2015

Balance

70

55

Momentum

55

40

Torque

70

60

Posture

60

60

Repetition

N/A

35

Overall

B+

C+

Moore has long had excellent mechanical baselines but was missing the final string of repetition to tie it all together (he received a score of 40 for repetition in 2013). Timing is often the last thing to come around for a pitcher, and some hurlers never harness a consistent timing pattern, but Moore had all of the other mechanical baselines to portend future improvement in the category, including excellent balance and a strong pace of momentum that should theoretically be repeatable. His issues were such that his starting position on the rubber may have gone against his personal signature, making it tougher to line up the gears to find a repeatable release point. His previous mechanical scores were loaded with a dose of projection given his strong baselines; take a look at the delivery that earned the B+ mechanical grade from 2014:

His 2015 debut was quite different from what he had shown in the past. Most notable was his momentum, which had gone from an above-average attribute in the past to an exceptionally slow pace to the plate. His balance was also compromised, specifically in the Z plane, as he added an element of lean back toward second base that caused his head to trail his center of mass. Both aspects appear to be tied to a “stay back” approach, and though the theory behind such tactics is to find a more repeatable release point, my extensive experience of working with and analyzing pitchers has indicated the exact opposite: The slower the momentum, the longer it takes to get into foot strike, and the wider window in which things can fall out of whack; meanwhile a lack of balance will interfere with a pitcher’s ability to repeat the positioning elements of his delivery. Moore’s speed to the plate was so slow that he incorporated a slide step on occasion when pitching from the stretch in order to discourage opposing baserunners:

Regular readers of Raising Aces are probably familiar with my disdain for the slide step, but the frustration hits ceiling when a left-hander forgoes his natural advantages in corralling baserunners by instigating a slide step. One can only imagine the havoc the strategy wreaks on a pitcher who has struggled with timing throughout his career, as the introduction of yet another timing pattern acts to further complicate his motion and effectively steers Moore further off track in his development.

Thank you for reading

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