Big Problems With Big Z

Before we get started: Ye be warned, this topic is exceedingly specific and probably of no interest to anyone unfamiliar with the acronym WARP. This article makes a whole bunch of assumptions about your, the reader's, knowledge regarding the 2007 baseball season and the recent woes of a certain moundsman for the Chicago Cubs. All 8 of you who are still interested, read on.

By now you've heard the news, Roger Clemens signed with the Yankees, Michael Vick is the Don King of dog fighting, the Spurs are dirty, Barry Bonds is trying to break some kind of record, and Brett Favre is angry. Oh yeah, and Carlos Zambrano is pitching really poorly. All these stories get plenty of pub, probably too much, but the last one intrigues me more than all of the others and I think is worthy of a closer look. Whereas those other topics have been exhausted in the extreme, and are not really about sports per se but much less interesting stuff, I promise to keep these ramblings (and ramblings they may be) on topic. Most importantly, I hope to offer you a new perspective on the Zambrano saga.

We'll open the floor with some questions. Is Carlos Zambrano's slow start just that - a slow start - or something far more serious and long-term? If the latter is the case, then how does a seemingly healthy pitcher so quickly go from among (fantasy) baseball's perennial elite to an average hurler or worse? We know that Dusty Baker's complete lack of discretion in regards to his pitching staff accelerated the ruination of 2 budding careers in Kerry Wood and Mark Prior, so is it such a stretch that Zambrano's 860IP under Baker might at some point come back to haunt his now just 25 year old right arm? And finally, as a brief postscript, might there be light at the end of this tunnel?

Let's start with that 1st question: Is Zambrano just off to a slow start? Maybe. The first and most common explanation for Big Z's early season problems is that he's still reeling from the aborted contract negotiations that he was pushing for in March. Recall that Zambrano will be a free-agent at season's end and that he spent the early part of Spring Training demanding the Cubs give him some kind of financial commitment going forward. The Cubs, however, were, at the time, frying bigger fish. In March, just as Zambrano was making all kinds of threats about holding out, and demanding trade talks, and other whiny, pro athlete stuff, the Tribune Co. announced that they would be selling the franchise by the end of 2007. Zambrano's pleas were suddenly overshadowed in the media and any leverage that he had was pulled right out from under him. Poor Carlos. Anyway, so the story goes, Carlos is still bitter about the whole episode and is letting it affect his game (this, at least, is the fodder of laughable newspaper rag and Jay Mariotti-type hacks). By this stunted logic, Zambrano is either a) trying too hard to prove he's worth his own asking price, over-throwing the ball or letting his emotions rule him or something (as if Carlos hasn't spent his entire career being an emotional time-bomb), or b) just going through the motions until the Cubs trade him, a-la Vince Carter at the tail end of his Raptors tenure. I think reasoning along these lines is lame because it completely ignores what is actually happening on the field and is too easy and obvious to be the whole story and in general not really worth the time of a proper rebuttal. Actually, the big fuss Zambrano made about his contract during Spring Training is relevant to this article, but not for psychological reasons. We'll come back to the issue later on.

If Carlos Zambrano's poor pitching is a topic you're familiar with, you may have also heard the refrain that Carlos is and has always been a slow-starter. Sports writers who take this line generally implore naysayers to 'just relax for now and if things don't improve by the middle of June then we can start to worry.' All it takes is a cursory glance at some career data to make the case. For instance, in April/May since 2003 (his first season as a full-timer) Big Z is 15-12 (44-20, otherwise) with a slightly inflated ERA, while recording 7.7K/9IP, a few tenths under his average during other months. But let's take a closer look. As ESPN's David Young points out, when you ignore Z's April 2006 (a really weird year for pitchers everywhere because of the WBC) and also properly weigh his team-dependent stats (ERA, W-L, BAA, most notably), Z's April/May's look almost identical to the numbers he puts up during the rest of the season. Even if you subscribe to the "just another slow-start theory", the first 2 months of 2007 have been off the charts bad for Carlos. There are other factors at play here besides cold weather and rusty limbs.

Now let's examine the possibility that Zambrano's early 2007 is not just a passing slump, but rather an expected downturn that may very well continue through the rest of this season and perhaps beyond. Pretty much every serious observer who's seen Carlos throw this year has made note of his wayward delivery and obviously flawed mechanics. At hardballtimes.com, Carlos Gomez (no, not the Mets up and coming speedster, but the retired major-league pitcher of zero fame), offers some pretty compelling video footage that compares Zambrano's 2005 delivery with his motion in 2007. Most notable is Big Z's arm slot, which is significantly lower now (nearly 10 degrees so) than in the past. This is huge. Among other things, the lowered release point causes his pitching arm to come way across his body after the release, making him really vulnerable to flying-open with his hips. This basically means that he doesn't "finish" a lot of his pitches. About 3 or 4 times per game this drop-down, fly-open motion is so exaggerated that it looks almost cartoonish. The effects of this awkward delivery are multifold.

The first and most conspicuous effect of this new arm angle is Zambrano's poor command. When Carlos opens his hips his left shoulder swings out toward first-base. While most pitchers use that off-shoulder to direct their momentum to the plate, literally pointing the shoulder at the catcher's glove, Carlos has to rely more on his pitching shoulder for accuracy while simultaneously fighting against the torque of his hips (as an approximate simulation try throwing with your feet spread horizontal while facing your target versus the way you were taught to throw). The video footage is pretty unequivocal in this regard, so how about the numbers? Admittedly, Z's "command" numbers are fairly innocuous. His walk totals are high, but we'll get to that in a minute. Z's pitch-counts, a huge indicator of command, have been normal. He's averaging about 17.5P/In at 3.9P/BF, right around his career percentages. Plus he's been around the strike zone. Carlos has thrown 1.5 strikes for every ball, an indifferent ratio. However there is one inconsistency among Z's numbers that jump out at me. Despite throwing over 60% of his total pitches for strikes, Carlos has managed first pitch strikes on just a hair over 40% of batter's faced (that's a 13% drop since 2005). And let's just agree that it need not be stated just how crucial is the difference between an 0-1 count and 1-0 count – okay, good. A lot of pitchers with great command hover around the 5strk/4b mark on purpose, taking advantage of early strikes to tempt batters to go out of the zone in deeper counts, but Carlos' failure to reach a higher number of 0-1 counts is a sure sign of inconsistency, even if overall ratios appear stable.

Now to get back to Zambrano's walk rate. Yes, Carlos has given up an inordinate amount of free-passes this year, a little over 1BB/2IP actually, but this shouldn't be a surprise. In terms of walking batters, Z has been significantly down-trending since late 2005. In 2006 Carlos walked 115 batters (a career high), nearly 30 more than he walked in 2005, in 9 less innings of work. Again, this spike in BB rate is especially disconcerting in light of his healthy strk/b ratio. To me this indicates that pitches that used to be swinging or called strikes are no longer missing opposing bats. It could also very well mean that Big Z is having less success getting batters to chase pitches that are out of the strike zone. Neither of these explanations bode well for Carlos. Is the new delivery the cause of Carlos' control issues, or has he invented this new delivery as an antidote to problems that existed beforehand? Again, we'll revisit this question.

Another major consequence of Zambrano's flailing delivery is what it's done to his sinker. Like most power-pitchers, Zambrano uses a combination of a hard slider and a "heavy" sinker to supplement his fastball. When it's tight, the slider is a devastating strikeout pitch and is occasionally used as an off-speed bid to right-handers. It's a great pitch. But over the long-haul it's been Z's sinker that's been the butter to his fastball's bread. When Z's mechanics are intact, particularly the arm slot (again, see the hardballtimes.com article), the sinker has later and steeper drop, more velocity, and no matter where it starts out seems to make a beeline for a righty's shoe-tops, biting inward just as the pitch exits the lawn. Squaring this pitch on the barrel is nearly impossible. Even when Big Z was walking a lot batters in 2006, he could count on the sinker for just as many groundballs (the great equalizer to high BB rates) and plenty of shattered wood to boot. As it is now, the lower release point puts a more pronounced backspin on the sinker. Backspin, as you may or may not be aware, increases draft and thereby mitigates gravity's pull on a moving object. In other words, Zambrano's sinker isn't sinking as much as it used to. This, the numbers definitely agree with. In 2005 Zambrano's GB/FB ratio was 1.64. In 2006 that number dropped to 1.23. So far in 2007, if you toss out an anomalous start on Apr. 23, that number is a very problematic 1.07. (Make sure to notice that this downtrend too is something that has roots in '06.)

But it's not just the sinker that looks different in 2007. Zambrano's 4-seamer, which the youngster has spent his career defying batters to hit, has also been revamped by the new low slinging delivery. Velocity is down from 94-96 mph range to 92-94. Like with the sinker, the increased spin on the fastball produces more backspin and a more pronounced late-lift (in reality, scientists will tell you, an optical illusion that really equates to less drop – whatever), and also way more horizontal break into right-handers. Zambrano's fastball (the remix) is not a strikeout pitch like its predecessor. As Gomez suggests in his article, perhaps this new fastball is a sign of maturity, that Zambrano is purposely allowing more balls to be put in play, sacrificing K's for pitch-count. But probably not, especially considering that the pitch's increased movement makes it harder to locate and accounts for more balls. And there's the answer to the question posed a few paragraphs back. This new delivery is not a correction to help Z with his control, quite the contrary. The new fastball, though a little slower, with that snakebite finish is as hard a pitch to command as any. This may also explain his difficulty finding the strike-zone on first pitches.

So, if this new delivery has no substantive benefits – is harder to control, results in fewer K's, causes more fly-balls, creates less velocity, etc. - and is apparent to even a modestly seasoned observer, why hasn't Zambrano and pitching coach Larry Rothschild done anything to change it. Furthermore, why did Carlos ever adopt this new delivery in the first place? Here is where Carlos Gomez's experience as an actual pitcher takes over. To paraphrase the article he wrote about Jon Papelbon, "A drop in arm-slot is one of the clearest indicators of a pitcher who is struggling with arm/shoulder soreness." This intuitively makes sense. Just lift your arm. Stress on your shoulder is directly proportional to the height of your elbow in relation to the shoulder blade. The lower the elbow, the less stress on the shoulder. Gomez draws an analogy to working out at the gym, "If you've ever done a shoulder workout with weights you know how hard it is to lift your arms afterward. Muscle soreness affects movement in the same as tissue soreness." And there's a second glitch in Zambrano's mechanics that indicate he's "protecting his shoulder". Watch in his '07 delivery how he's kind of hunched over, placing more body weight over his throwing shoulder, then taking longer to release out of this "hunch", and finally finishing with a sling of his elbow while leaving his shoulder behind. In short, Zambrano is using as little of his shoulder as possible to make each pitch. If this isn't all-together clear, at least note that it's really likely Big Z is suffering from some kind of shoulder ailment. And uh-oh if that's the case. Tommy John surgery makes elbow injuries a much less serious diagnosis, but shoulder injuries can be career death. The shoulder is much more complicated than the singular hinge of the elbow. One shoulder injury usually entails damage to a whole slew of muscles and any of several tissue structures. I'm not suggesting that Zambrano get filed away with the likes of Prior and Wood just yet, but don't think it's not possible.

And oh yeah, those contract negotiations at the beginning of Spring...hmmm. Over the last several seasons you may at one point or another have been jaw-dropped by the amount of money being made by free-agent pitchers. Very mediocre or unproven staffers like Gil Meche, A.J. Burnett, Barry Zito, and Jeff Weaver have cashed in on a pitcher's market that makes the dot.com era look like the Great Depression. At 25 years old and already considered among baseball's elite (assuming he's healthy), as a free-agent Zambrano could command upwards of $100 million on a 5+ year deal. Isn't it a bit odd that Zambrano was so eager to renew a deal with the Cubs or force a trade before getting to look at those kinds of offers? Are we to believe that Zambrano is such a loyal of a guy that he'd forgo a 9-figure deal so he could continue to pitch in the Friendly Confines? I'm gonna go out on a limb, and say no. There's something else going on here. Just connect the dots. As late as mid-2006 Zambrano started dealing with some serious shoulder problems. Overuse during the Dusty Baker years, though perhaps by other causes as well, put his young arm in a precarious position that he's been unable to deal with so far. His K's started to plummet while BB's went the other direction. Zambrano still finished 2006 strong, and it was by nearly every measure his best full-season (career highs in K's and wins). But he knew, as well as people who were watching close enough, that certain peripheral indicators were nearing the red (GB/FB and K/BB, in particular). Also, Zambrano was a first-hand witness to was the tragic demise of his two counterparts in Wood and Prior. I don't think it's such a stretch that as Spring Training was getting underway, and Zambrano was realizing that his shoulder was still less than 100% after resting in the off-season, Big Z felt a cold bony hand tapping his shoulder, turned to see the black cloak of baseball death and did his best to cash out while he still could.

Okay, one final caveat to this whole morbid eschatology, a healthy Carlos Zambrano is more than just a good pitcher, he's an extraordinary athlete, and all real athletes, unlike guys who just specialize in doing a few things really well, are usually much more adept at making the necessary adjustments when mechanics break down or certain physical skills wane (note how in just the last few years, athletic types like Tim Hudson, Kenny Rogers, Tom Glavine, and Jason Marquis have successfully reinvented their pitching styles). It wouldn't shock me if Zambrano slowly gets more comfortable with his new delivery, learns to better locate that fastball, further develops his change, and realizes that this new sinker can't be thrown in the strike zone. I don't think the K's will get back to the 1/IP range, but his BB rate could easily start to trend back to 2005 levels (his FB/GB ratio will probably stay pretty high as long as that arm-slot stays low). In the end, barring a major shoulder injury, Big Z could end up a good major-league pitcher, if not a great one. Then again, even if his arm does fail him, Big Z might think about honing that savage swing of his. In just 73 AB's in 2006, the switch-hitting Zambrano wacked 6 homers, drove in 11 runs, and even stole a base. In a 500 AB season that projects out to 40 HR's! His career BA is only .213 but for a guy who gets in the cage maybe once a month that's not so bad. In the end we may lose a very good and promising pitcher, but we also may have found the second coming of Smokey Joe Wood.