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The thing that's difficult to assess about Romero's performance is that everyone -- including Romero, apparently -- is suggesting his problems are with his delivery. In four starts with Buffalo, however, he's walked 20 batters in 13.2 innings, suggesting that perhaps his problems have gone beyond mechanics and into Steve Blass territory.

Balki-B wrote:The notion of "loosing" one's ability to be accurate while throwing a baseball seems counter intuitive. Does a jump shooter suddenly loose his shot? Maybe the ball stops going in the hoop for a few games, but at some point the law of averages comes into play and he starts making buckets again.

This affliction seems most prominent with pitchers. What is it with pitching that seems to result in a collapse of accuracy?

Santoki wrote:

Balki-B wrote:The notion of "loosing" one's ability to be accurate while throwing a baseball seems counter intuitive. Does a jump shooter suddenly loose his shot? Maybe the ball stops going in the hoop for a few games, but at some point the law of averages comes into play and he starts making buckets again.

This affliction seems most prominent with pitchers. What is it with pitching that seems to result in a collapse of accuracy?

The mechanics of throwing a baseball accurately are incomparable to shooting a basketball. It's much closer to the complexity of a golf swing.

Schadenfreude wrote:It's comparable in complexity, rather than the actual motion. The release of a basketball is a relatively smooth motion; you jump, and as you jump you bring the ball up, shooting optimally at your highest point, with (as best possible) everything squared to the target. It's also relatively low effort/impact, and the ball is fairly large, and thus relatively easy to control with your shooting arm/guide hand. The only movement that needs to be imparted is consistent backspin. For these reasons, even a bad miss in basketball is generally going to be around a foot from the intended target.

With a baseball, you have a not-completely-round object thanks to the seams, gripped in the fingers, and a complex delivery that involves synchronizing parts that are moving in multiple directions, released at a point well off-center of the body (enough that it's generally out of your field of view). You're also throwing hard enough to be at the physiological limit, which makes mistakes more likely and magnifies their results, and you're doing it while throwing on a downward plane off a hill. Moreover, you don't use the same delivery every time; most starters use both a wind-up and a stretch delivery depending on the situation, and some even have two variants out of the stretch. Then, you have a slightly different motion for all of your pitches, each of which is also held differently and usually require varying pressure/the 'finish' with the wrist, meaning that starting pitchers naturally end up with between 8-12 discrete throwing mechanics, all of which need to be synchronized pretty close to perfection while accelerating a ball to highway speeds.

In terms of complexity, it definitely trumps shooting a basketball.

Ricky Romero off Blue Jays roster, Brandon Morrow on disabled list
The Blue Jays Saturday outrighted Romero, the club’s ace the past three years, off the 40 man roster.

SAN DIEGO—Ricky Romero’s free fall continues, with no tenable end in sight.

The Blue Jays Saturday outrighted Romero, the club’s ace the past three years, off the 40 man roster. It was part of a roster clearing move Saturday that started with another blow to the pitching staff—the placement of right hander Brandon Morrow on the 15 day disabled list with a forearm strain.

That precipitated the club purchasing the contract of veteran right hander Ramon Ortiz, whom they outrighted two days ago after he gave up back to back home runs to Atlanta in Toronto.

John Lott ‏@LottOnBaseball 34s
Ricky Romero tonight for Buffalo: 6 IP, 8 H, 5 R earned, 0 BB, 3 K, 3 WP. 83 pitches, 53 strikes. Leaves in 5-5 tie.

dagger wrote:Ricky problems lives to pitch another day in AAA

John Lott ‏@LottOnBaseball 34s
Ricky Romero tonight for Buffalo: 6 IP, 8 H, 5 R earned, 0 BB, 3 K, 3 WP. 83 pitches, 53 strikes. Leaves in 5-5 tie.

Schadenfreude wrote:It's comparable in complexity, rather than the actual motion. The release of a basketball is a relatively smooth motion; you jump, and as you jump you bring the ball up, shooting optimally at your highest point, with (as best possible) everything squared to the target. It's also relatively low effort/impact, and the ball is fairly large, and thus relatively easy to control with your shooting arm/guide hand. The only movement that needs to be imparted is consistent backspin. For these reasons, even a bad miss in basketball is generally going to be around a foot from the intended target.

With a baseball, you have a not-completely-round object thanks to the seams, gripped in the fingers, and a complex delivery that involves synchronizing parts that are moving in multiple directions, released at a point well off-center of the body (enough that it's generally out of your field of view). You're also throwing hard enough to be at the physiological limit, which makes mistakes more likely and magnifies their results, and you're doing it while throwing on a downward plane off a hill. Moreover, you don't use the same delivery every time; most starters use both a wind-up and a stretch delivery depending on the situation, and some even have two variants out of the stretch. Then, you have a slightly different motion for all of your pitches, each of which is also held differently and usually require varying pressure/the 'finish' with the wrist, meaning that starting pitchers naturally end up with between 8-12 discrete throwing mechanics, all of which need to be synchronized pretty close to perfection while accelerating a ball to highway speeds.

In terms of complexity, it definitely trumps shooting a basketball.