Lonnie Mathis with the internet exclusive, our Johnnie-On-The-Spot who was sitting in the stands shooting the breeze .... when the M's rolled James Paxton out for a bullpen session.

Here is Lon's Mariner Central thread and his writeup is almost as good as his video.

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Aiki -- you could say, Japanese, because there is so much overlap between NPB and aikido -- sports analysis focuses on the dynamic rather than the geometric, on the spiral rather than on the circle.  

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Rather than ask, "is there a hitter's box in the chest at impact," aiki asks "are the pecs deriving their power from torsion off the front hip."

Rather than ask, "is the pitcher standing tall on the backstroke," aiki asks "is the pitcher floating his weight at the top, and is he settling down smoothly out of it, or is he bouncing in an uncontrolled fashion."

Rather than ask, "where is the ball, at the moment the front foot plants," aiki asks "is the center of gravity accelerating in a smooth fashion, and is that CG accel the physical force loading the baseball."

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=== Dr's Diagnosis Dept. ===

I like Paxton's motion even better than I did Tim Lincecum's.  Will specify the reasons why.

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Lonnie includes a slo-mo at about the 1:02 mark in his video.  Suggest you watch that five or six times and compare your notes to ours...

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Also suggest that you compare Paxton's delivery to our description of Tim Lincecum's, because 70% - 80% of the dynamics are identical.

Somebody remarked, "Nobody we've seen down here has a windup anything like Paxton's," which is correct, because Paxton's delivery is different and superior.  To that of the typical major league pitcher's motion.

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