Thanks to Geoff Baker for the videos. (Sorry, we're transitioning the text editors, so no formatting or links for a coupla days). Michael Pineda, an SSI fave since his K/BB went bonkers last year, is no secret any more. BaseballHQ's minors crew has Pineda as the only highly-esteemed pitching prospect in the M's system; if I recall correctly, Baseball America also has Pineda easily the M's top-ranked pitcher. This shouldn't deceive M's fans that scouts are Johnny-come-lately on Pineda; you can find raves going back 2+ years that sell Pineda as a future Opening Day starter in the majors. "Can hit a housefly at 1,000 yards," as one scout put it, quite a while ago. .............. The only question that Pineda has, is the health, and surely that corkscrew, short-arm delivery is enough to make ya squeamish. But, as Gordon at LL thankfully reminds once a week, there aren't any of us really capable of projecting health based on what a pitcher's motion physically looks like. Dr. D's opinion is that the short-arm delivery does require all kinds of tendon and muscle power, since it does not use centrifugality and leverage. Sure enough, Pineda had elbow pain in 2009. That's not conclusive. Pineda is very young. All you can do is wait and see. .............. The first pitch on the video, Halman fans on a Beltre sucker pitch, but you don't get to see much. The second pitch is a called strike, on which Pineda misses his target 6-8 inches inside (but still in the zone). Every pitch after that, the catcher sits leisurely in a rocking chair and doesn't move his mitt -- including on Pineda's tight-spin, late-break slider. Well, on the last two-bounce groundout, the catcher moved his mitt a bit outside. For six or eight pitches, Pineda looked like Greg Maddux. I'm just saying I loved the video. If you were the Mariners, why in the world would you start Michael Pineda anywhere other than AAA? You know he's going to throw quality strikes all year long. What's the holdup about AAA? ... and watch out for the kid in ST *this* year... ============= Mauricio Robles, who is G-Moneyball's adopt-a-player, got some pub at The Bakery as well, with a good 8 or 10 pitches on video. Robles reminds of Arthur Rhodes, with similar gang-banger body language, mitt forward in front of his face, over-deliberate knee kick that hides the ball very well, and then a preying-mantis acceleration into the stroke. The 94-97 fastball, and crackling breaking ball, didn't dissuade either... Nice to see Robles show up and get reported at high 90's, as opposed to the 91-92 we heard last year. I didn't quite get the disconnect between the straight change that everybody talked about, and the yakker shown on the video. Maybe G-Money can straighten me out... It's interesting that the players gave Robles credit for a plus change -- BaseballHQ calls the changeup Robles' best pitch. Why would a lefty pitcher, 94-97 with a plus change, get so little love? HQ's explanation for baseball's lack of enthusiasm about Robles is "Lacks projection due to frame and needs to add polish to command." And they have Robles as debut'ing in (Sept?) 2012 -- two more years in the minors before even being considered... Hm. Lacks projection due to frame. Hmmmmm. Well, I wonder if Roy Oswalt got that... ..................... The hard-throwing LHP in the majors recently, packing a changeup as his best pitch, has been James Shields. Shields has walked 1+ men per game with that combo. It's an easy repertoire for a lefty to execute on a game-in, game-out basis. Enjoy, Dr D