Joel Zumaya: Throws Hard. Doesn't Help Anyone.

Is it time we can quit getting caught up in the whole "velocity is key" for pitchers? I don't want to hear "if this guy threw 94 instead of 91, he'd be a top ten pick in the draft," or similar statements about major league pitchers. Need proof? How about this post from Dave Cameron at Fangraphs:

This is just nutty. In his last appearance against the A’s, his fastballs went like this.

102
102.6
102.7
101.9
99.7 (I guess he took a little off)
99.9
99.2
100
100.4
101
101.3

12 fastballs, with an average velocity of 100.9 MPH. And he didn’t strike anybody out. In fact, he didn’t strike anyone out in the appearance before that, either, when he threw 25 fastballs that averaged 100.6 MPH. Despite throwing as hard as anyone ever has, it isn’t helping him much. Here’s Zumaya’s line for June, when he just started hitting triple digits on nearly every pitch.

10 1/3 IP, 12 H, 2 HR, 14 BB, 10 K, 8.43 FIP

As his fastball has edged up in velocity, his command has gone away entirely, and he’s been a Triple-A level reliever. Compare that with his 12 appearances in April/May, when he threw 16 innings, allowed 15 hits, walked 2, and struck out 15 for a 3.33 FIP. In his best outing of the year (May 19th vs Texas), he threw 10 fastballs and cracked 100 just once. He recorded three outs on 11 pitches, eight of which were strikes.

Either he's too bull-headed to notice that when you throw at absolute maximum, you probably aren't going to control it into a 2-foot by 2-foot strike zone, or no one's brought this to his attention. I don't care what scenario is true, but he's got to stop this attempt at throwing 115 every time out. It's not helping him (health-wise, with his mechanics, inverted-L/V/W -- whatever you want to call his motion in which his elbow comes above the shoulder -- or production-wise), and it's most definitely not helping the team. Let me put this bluntly:

If you're a reliever who's job it is to come late into games where you cannot allow base runners, then you pretty much are a failure at baseball if you're continually allowing base runners. Or, you're Joel Zumaya.

Of course, he's shelved his change-up after giving up a bomb to Micah Hoffpauir on a poorly-located change-up. I mean, it's not like he once possessed a very, very good change-up in his prior pitching career or anything.

Wait a minute, he did. From the bio section on his player page at the Tigers website, this is buried at the bottom of the 2005 bio:

Named the second-best prospect in the Tigers organization and 10th-best prospect in the Eastern League following the season by Baseball America...Rated as possessing the best changeup in the Tigers organization following the season by Baseball America.

Bold emphasis mine. Huh. So here we've got a guy, as a starter, that used his change-up enough to get it highly rated as a great pitch -- good enough to be the best in the entire organization and he's now shelved it, 4 years later? Why? So he can top triple digits on the gun and continue to walk guys?

Joel Zumaya's walking 13.22% of all batters that stroll to the plate against him this year. If he qualified for this list of relief pitchers, sorted by highest BB% (walks/total batters faced), he'd sit in at 10th worst in baseball.

But, with that great heater he has to be striking guys out, right? Not really. 20.66%. That sounds like a lot. You know, one-in-every-five hitters that come to the plate. Well, for a starter that would be solid or even a bit more than solid. But for a reliever throwing in short burst it's just run-of-the-mill. Look for yourself. That 20.66% strikeout percentage would put Joel Zumaya right between Phil Coke and Chad Durbin.

Uhhh, you mean Chad Durbin, pimp-extraordinare? Yeah. That guy. That puts Joel Zumaya's strikeout percentage 45th in all of baseball relievers. And that doesn't put him in great company -- just ordinary guys. You know, Chad Durbin doesn't throw hard -- just 89.9 MPH this year. How about Phil Coke? Well the lefty for the New York Yankees tops out at just 91.8 MPH this year. Yet, they're right there with Zumaya in strikeout percentage.

People love to complain about Fernando Rodney, but Joel Zumaya is the most frustrating reliever on the Tigers staff. And he's been the most frustrating one ever since he's been able to stay healthy since 2007.

If the definitely of being insane is repeating the same act over and over and expecting a different result, then I guess we've just defined Joel Zumaya.