Cindy took some burst shots of Carter Capps and casually remarked, when he throws sidearm he's 98 and when he throws overhand he's 95. You can't imagine my reaction to hearing my girlfriend say this sentence. :- )
Brooks Baseball has the release point graph rat cheer. Slap me silly and call me Sherrie, she was absolutely right about the release point: Capps' arm slot was all over the place. You can check for yourself whether the velocity correlated with the lower arm slot, but one thing is for sure. Unless Capps is deliberately doing a Luis Tiant here, the source of his control problems are precisely the arm slot. Coming soon to a web page near you. Cindy Clarke's Photo Baseball Blog.
....................................
These pics here are just embellishment; I didn't have any handy with the arm coming through the release area. Still.
Capps didn't walk anybody in the minors. Now he gets to the triple-deck stadium, the SportsCenter highlights, the celebrities in the batter's box, and he implodes... if it goes up or blows up, it's illegal in Auburn there Carter. He's not frazzing out as much as you I would be, of course. Some guys freeze more than others; Capps is one of the "more than others." No problemo. Get it out of the way now, and as soon as he finds his level, shut his innings down.
One thing Dr. D doesn't know about baseball -- can you imagine such a thing? -- is what you tell a pitcher whose arm slot is moving up and down by a FOOT. Do you tell him something about his backstroke? Do you tell him something about getting his fingers outside the ball? What do you tell him?
Sure, it's possible for pitchers to throw harder from the side arm slot. Randy Johnson's arm slot was simply right at 90 degrees. Interesting question whether Capps needs to think in terms of emulating Randy Johnson's arm slot.
........................................................
Capps (I guess) came in more sidearm -- check me (actually Cindy) on that -- after about ten pitches, and then effortlessly sustained 99-100 MPH. Unlike Stephen Pryor, Capps can throw 30+ pitches and the last one will be 100 MPH. Pryor and Capps, thunder and lightnin'.
