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Sound pitching mechanics aren’t automatic, and even superstars andHall of Famers go through rough patches when they need to spendtime in the film room to get things back on track. In the weeks sinceOpening Day and his subsequent recovery from a cracked cuticle onhis throwing thumb, Rockies starter Ubaldo Jimenez and PitchingCoach Bob Apodaca have spent time in the video coaching room,breaking down his delivery to help him get back to the dominance heachieved in 2010.

Apodaca, a former reliever for the New York Mets in the mid-’70s, hasbeen the Rockies Pitching Coach since 2002. With an abundance ofhomegrown pitchers on the Rockies Major League roster over the

years, Apodaca has been developing top pitchers, including AaronCook, current Kansas City Royal Jeff Francis, budding star JhoulysChacin and Jimenez, all from the moment they got their first taste ofthe Majors. “Dac” is known for his ability to teach and effectivelycommunicate with his guys.

“I go to each one of the pitchers trying to find [out] the state of thestate,” explains Apodaca. “Where are they right now? How good dothey feel about themselves? I want them to talk. I try not to be thatbook with all the answers in the back. I want them to have that openbook test where they have to find the answers and ask the right ques-tions.”

By Julian Valentin

Video Still 3Apodaca: “Now you see the leg lift. It is close to the other leg; picture aflamingo with long legs that can stand on one leg forever. Ubaldo’s [left] legis very close to his right leg and his head is still over his center of gravity (atthe belly-button). While all that’s going on, his hands continue his motion.They’ve gone over his head and now they’re on their way down.”

A pitcher generates a lot of his power and momentum from the leglift. Generally speaking, the higher the better, but each picher’s tim-ing dictates the height of the leg lift. The leg kick and arm lift occurat the same time and it’s critical that they’re in sync, maintaining asmooth motion. Pitchers each have unique tendencies and differentways of winding up, but every motion should end at the same place,regardless of the wind-up.

Video Still 4Apodaca: “His foot is still underneath his knee and he’s made a 90-degreeturn from when he started. His shoulders and hips are lining up [perpen-dicular] to home plate. Now, he’s going to begin his stride; his leg has reachedthe top of his leg kick here.

“Very soon, his hand should be getting out of his glove. This is the approxi-mate time that his arm needs to get the ball out of the glove to do its throw-ing arc, its path, in order to get to the right place [to release the ball].”

Regardless of the pitch being thrown, all of these mechanical com-ponents remain the same, Apodaca explains. These mechanics areconstant.

“It’s like a golf swing. If you want to hit a draw, close the face of theclub. If you want to hit a fade, you open it. But you still put on thesame swing.”

Pitchers, in these early phases, adjust their grip and hand positioninside their glove to throw different pitches, but they mirror a fastballdelivery with every complementary pitch.

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Based on Apodaca’s coaching philosophy, video sessions with thepitchers are conversations, not presentations. But video coaching re-quires more than just the battery of pitcher and pitching coach; it’sa group effort, and it starts with the video itself.

The Rockies, like every Major League team, have a full staff devotedto capturing every pitch of every game. Led by Video CoordinatorBrian Jones, the video staff works diligently behind the scenes to en-sure that Manager Jim Tracy and the coaching staff have all of thetools they need when they sit down with a player. You won’t see cam-eras if you’re not looking for them, but Coors Field is full of them.

“We film everything, every pitch of every game,” reveals Jones. “Forhome games, we take three angles, which are the main TV feed, aside-angle shot and then an overhead shot (for hitters). Then we cansync different videos together to see how a guy was doing it when hewas doing well compared to when he struggled.

“It’s all digitized in the computer and we can pull up any situationfrom any game. We can tag it with any type of data: who’s pitching,who’s hitting, what pitch it is, where the ball’s pitched, where it’s hit,who catches it, who fields it, strike counts. Anything. It’s all markedwith a data tag, every pitch, so you can query it and the coaches canpull up exactly what they need.”

So, equipped with hand-selected clips fromJones’ video library, what are the things Apo-daca focuses on? What, exactly, are the keyelements that make up the anatomy of apitch, and what are the things Apodaca looksfor mechanically on the mound?

Using photo stills pulled from video of Jimenez’s mid-April rehab as-signment in Arizona, Apodaca shed some light on general pitchingmechanics.

Video Stills 1 and 2Apodaca: “Here he’s just starting his delivery. He’s getting his arms to goover his head and at the same time, his foot is turning to get in front of therubber, so he’s positioning himself for the leg lift.”

When talking mechanics, Apodaca constantly returns to the themesof timing and rhythm. Balance is the other key ingredient and he ex-plains that most mechanical issues stem from poor timing and lackof balance.

(The Mechanics of Pitching, continued)

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Video Stills 5 and 6Apodaca: “Now he’s out of his glove and beginning his stride, but you canstill see that his weight is on his back leg with a slight flex in his right knee.He’s striding—heel, ankle, knee—and even though he’s striding, his weight isstill back.”

Again, timing is key, in terms of when pitchers remove the ball fromtheir glove, and fractions of a second make a big difference. Theback foot should be right up against the rubber, using it for leverageto generate additional power. Mistakes at the end of the delivery typ-ically happen due to a “domino effect” to compensate for faults earlyon. As such, when Apodaca watches video, he typically works back-wards to identify where things first went wrong mechanically.

Video Still 7Apodaca: “Here, his head is basically over [his] center of gravity and he’s al-most ready to land. With Ubaldo, you can see how long his arm action is;his is much longer than most people. His timing has to be even better becauseof the length of that arm path...he needs to get [the ball] down, back, up be-cause when that foot hits [the ground], now he’s going to begin his throwingaction.

“For a man his size, he has a short stride. I’d love to see him go about an-other half of his foot length longer stride.”

The other thing to note here is Jimenez’s hand position; the ball isfacing the ground. Young pitchers tend to bring their hand up atthis point, pointing the ball directly behind them in a wasted mo-tion. Keeping the ball facing down here will save a step later, creat-ing a smoother transition into the release point.

Video Still 8Apodaca: “His foot has hit [the ground]. From this angle you can’t reallytell, but is there an arch in his back? From this angle, it looks like there isa little arch in his back. It looks like his head is tilted a little bit to the left.Unlike a hitter who lands, then begins rotation to hit, a pitcher has to holdon just a little bit longer.”

Maintaining good posture throughout a pitch is critical, even moreso in this phase of a pitch. Pitchers should be upright, with theirhead straight on the target. Also at this point, the pitcher shouldbegin to turn his glove so the pocket is facing his torso, ending in anupright position, as Jimenez begins here.

Video Still 9Apodaca: “He lands and he’s supposed to be getting some drive off this backleg to home plate. That’s causing a little impedance to home plate. As soonas that foot hits [the ground], pitchers don’t begin rotation yet. It’s impor-tant that he lands on a full foot because the amount of g-force that is applied

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“It’s all digitized in the computer and we can pull up any situation from any game. Wecan tag it with any type of data: who’s pitching, who’s hitting, what pitch it is, where theball’s pitched, where it’s hit, who catches it, who fields it, strike counts. Anything.”

- Rockies Video Coodinator Brian Jones on the video coaching capabilities at the coaches’ and players’ fingertips

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on that [foot]. He can’t land on the side of the foot, he can’t land on his toeor heel. It has to be full-foot to support all of this energy that’s being trans-ferred from the ground up, from his feet to his arm. All of that energy fromhis back leg is a lot of energy.

“Stay on the target longer [by continuing to look at the catcher’s mitt] so thatcenter of gravity is moving closer and closer to home plate. Then his rotationand his head should be well out over his left knee.”

In this phase, it is critical that pitchers generate strong torque in theirrotational movement as they square their shoulders to face the plateagain. This turn should be as smooth and explosive as possible.

Video Still 10Apodaca: “Now the ball is leaving his hand. The ball should leave yourhand just about where your ear is. The longer he can hold that rotation, thefarther his upper body can get out over his front leg, and the farther his headis going to get closer to home plate. With technique, you can cut the distancedown between the point of release and home plate.

“For a guy who rotates early, he loses power first of all, but a hitter can see[his] chest, arm and [the] ball. Plus, he’s throwing at a further distance [awayfrom the plate].

This is also the phase where the all-important arm angle comes intoplay. Different pitchers have different arm angles, most coming nat-urally. While pitchers and coaches can work to tweak certain aspectsof the arm angle, it’s generally not advised to do an overhaul of thearm angle at any level. Rather, pitchers and coaches should find away to work with the pitcher’s natural angle.

Here also, Apodaca adds that the pitcher’s back leg will begin to liftoff the rubber from the momentum being transferred. The end po-sition of the back leg also varies from pitcher to pitcher: some comearound, some square up quickly and others, like Rockies left-handerJorge De La Rosa, elevate that back leg high after delivery.

This is also the time where grip becomes most important, perhapswhere Jimenez has had his biggest issues this season. Apodaca ex-plains that Jimenez’s cuticle problem greatly affected his control andvelocity because he wasn’t able to grip the ball with the amount ofpressure needed to properly pitch a baseball. Jimenez began to com-pensate, doing things different mechanically and it manifested itselfinto the other phases of his delivery. While a cuticle on the thumbmay seem like an insignificant detail, every piece is critically impor-tant.

“The delivery is like the gears in a transmission,” Apodaca explains.“If it’s not all in tune, if it’s not all aligned, if it’s not all on time,then the engine and the car is not going to run efficiently with the

power that the engine can give. Same thing with a throwing athlete.Everything has to be synchronized and there are a lot of movingparts.”

Video Still 11Apodaca: “Now you can see all of his action, the impedance, going to homeplate. You can see his long follow-through with his arm. It’s all good [withthis pitch], but could he have done it a little better? Absolutely.

“In order for his head to stay still, his ‘shock absorbers’ (front leg and foot) needto be nice and soft to cushion that.”

Video Stills 12 and 13Apodaca: “And here’s his finish. His head is still on his target and that’swhat I want. I want him to see the ball going into the catcher’s glove withboth eyes. The heaviest part of a human being’s upper body is the head, sowherever your head goes, you have a better chance of your upper body stayingon your target longer.”

Through open discussions and film study, the Rockies ace is gradu-ally returning to his top form. But it will take patience and it’s im-portant to keep the bigger picture in mind.

“When Ubaldo got hurt and came back, all you heard about was lackof velocity,” says Apodaca. “But for me, I don’t want him to thinkvelocity. [Velocity] will be a byproduct of doing other things well.He will throw the ball hard, but if his sole intention is to throw theball hard, he’s going to struggle out there because we need precision.I want him to think about the process of his delivery.

“He’s too dominant of a pitcher. His character and will is going towin that battle [to return to his early 2010 form].”

Coaches and pitchers have benefitted greatly from the video compo-nent of the modern game, giving them that edge between starts to ad-dress any mechanical issues, or to just stay on top of what’s alreadyworking. v

(The Mechanics of Pitching, continued)

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