CCIIIs Hair wrote:Oh, I learned my lesson with the "Ryu's going to be skinny this year!" narrative from last year's spring training. I know it's not true, but I can't help it. Spring is around the corner and somehow Ryu will be skinny by opening day despite spending the winter shooting noodle commercials.
It's pretty tough for me to judge either Alvarez or Hernandez having seen little and none of them respectively. I do trust the farm system though. They can take a kid like Alvarez, with all of his obvious natural ability, and turn him into something special. I actually more young, Dodger era Pedro in him than Ramon. I wonder if he may end up being better off dropping his arm slot to side arm, which could help his control much like it did for Pedro back in the day as well.
but Pedro was such a little guy, not just short but physically so thin, he had to create a lot of torq from wild and exaggerated movements to pitch with velocity, sort of like Lincecum. Ramon was such a smooth pitcher on the mound and very methodical with each pitch being the same motion and follow through, and was able to do it because he was a bigger, taller guy much like Alveraz's physique. as far as dropping his arm slot, I don't know... I don't think there is one conventional way to fix control. they tried to change Koufax's straight arm angle but he couldnt control any other way, which ended up eating away at his career longevity. Randy Johnson struggled with control for so long and he was always a sidearm guy as far as i can remember. some guys create more velocity from being a submariner than when they throw conventionally, which defies all ideas from what scouts or coaches may teach kids. I think arm slot and control really depends on each individual. But my coaching resume only stretches over being a pitching coach for little leagers. im not exactly a pro or semi pro so if Im wrong, I'm wrong. at the level i coached, we had to stress the same repertoire to everyone because it's about the basics at 11 year old level of competition. my playing career was over with an arm injury at age 14 back in the 80s so please excuse me if you have a sound rebuttal.
BTW those ramen noodle commercials were hilarious. change up to Jin Ramen with Clayton Kershaw... so damn corny. it reminds me of Jack Elliott's happy body drink commercial in the movie Mr. Baseball.