Linkage: Mauricio Robles, 1

Here's Conor Dowley at ProBallNW with the kind of post that made the internet great. ::golfclap:: 

Mauricio Robles' debut at AAA, complete with two complete AB's on video and about ten column inches' worth of interesting opines to mosh off. 

And after the Robles goodness, there is meat-and-potatoes on Smoak and Ackley, too.

POTD for another time, but Robles at a glance off the video:

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The Round Rock Express hitters didn’t stand a chance against Robles early.  The first batter of the game got a bloop single over the glove of shortstop Luis Dominguez, but after that it was all Robles.  His command was a little loose, especially on the fastball, but most everything was down, and the hitters had no idea what to do with it.  The fastball had a slight tailing action to Robles’ glove side (meaning away from left-handed batters and into righties) that was keeping batters from making solid contact.

I usually have a really rough time tracking location, much less movement, from that camera angle, but in this case there is such a clear path to the action that you can slo-mo and get an idea of the location, at least.

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Uncle Bill taught us that the f-i-r-s-t thing you look for, on a young LHP hotshot, is his balance.  Aiki-Shihan would agree.  It is all about the CG.

You can see as Robles tucks his leg up into his chest, that he could "pause at the top" and comfortably maintain balance for two or three seconds if he wanted to.  He's graceful, balanced, easy and powerful, and we're not just talking cliches.  Lefties need to be graceful if they're going to command.

As a shorter man, he moves his weight easily and powerfully, dropping his weight easily into his thighs, getting a smooth and explosive acceleration.  (Ichiro gets asked how he plays so well at his size, and replies seriously that he can't understand how baseball is played by big men who have a hard time moving their bodies around.)

SSI is very enthused by this first shot of Robles' motion, as it pertains to driveline mechanics, anyway.

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Being small is good for the body movement, but bad for the endurance and for the release point -- remember the 1960's mound was high.  Conor sez,

Robles absolutely coasted through the first four frames, striking out six Express batters while only giving up one hit and one walk.  Things absolutely fell to pieces in the fifth, however.  His command was noticeably shakier right out of the gate, and his velocity was down about 3 MPH on all of his pitches.  In fact, his command quickly went from “noticeably shakier” to “completely gone”.  Robles would give up a hit and two walks to load the bases, then walked in a runner.  Then came the inevitable: a fastball stayed up to left fielder Colin DeLome, and he crushed it to right for a grand slam.

As a general rule, you're not worried at all about the occasional sour notes when a 21-year-old sax player is showing you the flashes you want to see.

If you're paying $100M to a major league free agent 30-something pitcher, then yeah, you want to know:  how bad was the worst year in his last three?  How bad was his worst month last year?

But with 21-year-olds, they're groping for their release points, they're groping for the right idea in the right count, they're figuring out a lot of things.  You don't go by the failures; you go by the potential.

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Does Robles' 4-inning wall, on this evening, relate to worries that he's not strong enough to start?  Well, we haven't been watching whether he has shown some instances of going 7 innings strong.  If he has, I'd be writing off the 80th-pitch walls as just one of those things when you've got a young pitcher toward the end of a minor-league season.

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Part 2

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