Much has been made this year of Joba Chamberlain’s diminished fastball. Many have speculated that he hasn’t been the same since he hurt his shoulder, while others say it’s not unusual for young pitchers to be up and down a tick or two from one year to the next.
First, let’s get the facts on the table as we know them. Fangraphs has the data on Joba’s fastball as follows:
| Season | FA-Vel | SL-Vel | CU-Vel | CH-Vel | FT-Vel | IN-Vel | PO-Vel | Pitches |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Total
|
93.8
|
85.0
|
78.9
|
82.5
|
89.6
|
74.2
|
86.1
|
4177
|
| 2007 | 97.4 | 86.7 | 78.9 | 83.5 | 190 | |||
| 2007 | 91.7 | 84.0 | 76.9 | 82.4 | 89.1 | 71.7 | 84.2 | - – - |
| 2008 | 95.2 | 85.4 | 78.3 | 83.7 | 74.2 | 81.2 | 1695 | |
| 2008 | 91.5 | 83.9 | 76.7 | 82.5 | 89.3 | 71.2 | 83.9 | - – - |
| 2009 | 92.5 | 84.3 | 79.3 | 82.0 | 89.6 | 74.2 | 87.7 | 2292 |
| 2009 | 91.8 | 83.8 | 77.4 | 82.8 | 90.3 | 71.1 | 84.6 | - – - |
Clearly, the velocity on his fastball has declined since breaking into the bigs. It’s important to note that he came up as a Reliever, and he even split 2008 between starting and relieving which could skew the 08 numbers upward. In 2007 he was exclusively a reliever, in 2009 he has been exclusively a starter.
Next, I wanted to dig up some of the old scouting reports we had on Joba when we drafted him as a starting pitcher to see where his fastball was when he was exclusively a starting pitcher in college. I didn’t want to use the more recent ones, since they all included info on him as a relief pitcher and had reports that reflected his velocity as a relief pitcher. (h/t to Mike A of River Ave for help digging these up)
Here’s what BA said about Joba’s fastball before the draft:
Slowed by triceps tendinitis that caused him to miss a couple of starts early this spring, he has been more inconsistent than he was as a sophomore. But he’s rounding back into peak form, which for Chamberlain means throwing a 92-94 mph fastball that tops out at 97 and a devastating slider. He also has a curveball and feel for a changeup. Once he turns pro his fastball should chew up wood bats.
ESPN’s Keith Law:
Chamberlain then came out throwing bullets in the early going, pitching consistently in the 91-94 range and touching 98, along with two breaking balls and the beginnings of a changeup. Despite missing two starts in mid-March due to what was called “biceps tendinitis,” Chamberlain made starts in each of the season’s last 10 weekends. Still, one executive told me that his club had high medical flags on Chamberlain, both due to the tendinitis and due to another, more serious arm problem.
I’m not worried about him being hurt or anything, the velocity is more than enough at 92-93, which is what he’s averaging.
So it turns out the fastball velocity was almost identical in College as a full time starter to what were seeing today. Also, Joe Girardi has stated on his weekly YES show that the Yanks have him throwing more 2-seamers, to try to get him to be more efficient in getting quick outs, so that will contribute to lower readings as well.
In concluding, I don’t think there’s anything unusual going on here. I don’t believe he’s hurt, because if he was the Yanks would be crazy to send him out there every 5 days. That’s simply not credible, given we all know how uber-cautious the Yanks are with injuries. Chien Ming Wang was pulled out of a game after Posada saw him throw one unusually bad pitch. You may recall we were having this same discussion about Phil Hughes’ fastball last year, and since moving to the bullpen he’s never thrown the ball any better. I suspect our expectations have been skewed by the readings we saw when he came up as a relief pitcher, but it’s unreasonable to expect him to maintain that as a member of the starting rotation.
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The problem is that he was throwing harder as a starter last year. Maybe’s that’s why he got hurt, throwing harder than he had ever before?
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Steve S. Reply:
September 7th, 2009 at 10:45 am
A year in which he split time between starting and relief work. I think the 2-seamers explain most of the reduction, myself.
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Moshe Mandel Reply:
September 7th, 2009 at 10:48 am
I mean that his velo solely as a starter last year was higher. I cant find the numbers, but I saw a breakdown of last season according to role somewhere. ANyhow, I think the two seamer thing makes sense, and I also think that there is some psychological holding back on his part. I bet we see better velo next year when the Joba Rules are gone.
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The other Chris H Reply:
September 7th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Have to agree with Mo I watched him start last year and throw much harder than he has this year with the exceptions of a few games here or there where he had decent velocity.
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The thing is, after Joba was drafted and Nardi cleaned up his mechanics, he was consistently throwing in the mid-90s while starting in the minor leagues. So yes, Joba sat at 92-93 before he was drafted, but he added a couple of ticks while chewing up A and AA back in 2007, before he was moved to the bullpen and he added a couple of more ticks (moving from 95-96 to 97-98).
Not to say that Joba can’t be effective without that 94-95 fastball; he can be. The absence of such a fastball DOES temper expectations for Joba, however. He can still be an ace, probably, and he can still compete for future Cy Youngs, probably, but one cannot be as confident in those possibilities as one could be when Joba was throwing 95 as a starter deep into games.
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The other Chris H Reply:
September 7th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Joba throwing 95 deep into games isn’t the worry, when he gets deep in the game he maintains velocity, heck the fastest ball I have seen him throw this year was 98 in the 8th inning of his first 8 inning start. It seems to be with the start for Joba, when he starts throwing 93 in the first he gets up to 95-97 in the 5-8 inning range it just keeps rising, I think this is do to confidence and and slowly emptying the tank towards the end, that is why I believe once the rules are gone he will know how to throw a little harder through out instead of waiting for the 7th or 8th to hit 97.
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My problem is that during some points in the game where you’d expect him to start cranking it up he tends to do the opposite – lose control while throwing about 91 MPH. Preferably he would be able to reach back in tough spots, but largely we have not seen that.
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The other Chris H Reply:
September 7th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
He doesn’t crank it up for one pitch early in games it is more of a consistent rise, you can almost chart his growth, the fastball velocity slowly rises about a MPH or 2 per inning from the 1st or 2nd on it’s strange but it shows he isn’t throwing as hard as he can from the beginning which should give hope for the velocity going up next year and maybe even in the playoffs.
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I think his #1 problem is command. He needs to control the strike zone just like every other pitcher who played MLB.
I still think it’s just a bad streak, and when he gets into a groove all of this stuff will be forgotten.
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Probably one of your worst posts ever. To say there’s not an ENORMOUS difference between Joba’s FB as a starter pre and post shoulder injury is crazy. Those of us who followed him coming up in the minors in 07 know he was sitting 95-97 AS A STARTER, and touching 99-100. In fact I recall one report from Alan Horne’s father who said Alan had the gun on him one start in AA, and when Joba got in a bit of trouble he threw 7 straight FB’s at 99 or above.
But there’s not need to go back that far….just look at him as a starter last season pre-injury. His FB was 95-97…you might see one or two 92’s a game, but nothing lower than that. Now I’ve seen starts where he sits at 89-91 mph.
We can disagree till the end of time as to WHY this is the case, but please don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining by telling me his FB hasn’t lost anything since he hurt his shoulder. You guys are better than that.
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Moshe Mandel Reply:
September 7th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Well, he is suggesting that a few scouting sources had him at 91-94 in college, which is about where he is now. As someone said above, I believe the Yankees eked some more MPH out of his arm, but the guy the Yankees drafted was at about his current velocity. How would you explain those scouting reports?
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The other Chris H Reply:
September 7th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Joba has always had terrible grips on his own mechanics and even before the year Eiland changed them again to help him go deeper in games and help him repeat it, I think that may be another problem with his velocity, he is worried about all this extra stuff going on trying to go deep, not be injured, strike guys out, worry about his inning limits and I think he hasn’t worked as much on getting his mechanics down and repeating them every delivery. You can see the change when he starts getting frustrated and hit, that is why Eiland makes so many trips out if he can master his mechanics that may also help him get a few MPH on the gun. This would explain why when he was in college and had even less help with his mechanics he didn’t throw as hard and when the Yankees worked with him originally it went up. I think in the end it is probably a mix of all these things.
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Steve S. Reply:
September 7th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
The scouting reports I both cited and linked are from Keith Law and Baseball America. You cited an unlinked second hand quote from Alan Horne’s father. I’ll let the readers decide who to believe.
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Kevin M. Reply:
September 7th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Your scouting reports are from a teenager in college. Would you rely on scouting reports from his Little League days too?
How does that compare to the scouting reports from our own eyes of watching Joba start pre-injury last year? Did that not happen? Does the data to support his average FB of over 95 MPH AS a STARTER not matter?
Cut the BS here….you guys are too good for the quite frankly embarrasing “analysis” your putting forth here.
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