{"id":7519,"date":"2013-08-30T10:58:39","date_gmt":"2013-08-30T14:58:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com.\/?p=7519"},"modified":"2013-08-30T10:58:39","modified_gmt":"2013-08-30T14:58:39","slug":"great-video-of-lucas-giolito-from-gcl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=7519","title":{"rendered":"Great video of Lucas Giolito from GCL"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Giolito's<\/a>

Giolito’s comeback from TJ surgery has been great. Photo Eric Dearborn via win-for-teddy blog<\/p><\/div>\n

Courtesy of MinorLeagueBall.com’s\u00a0John Sickels<\/strong> (who I’ve asked if he’s doing a player-by-player recap of this year’s draftees like he did last year, which I borrowed from for a good blog post last off-season<\/a>, but have not heard back), here’s a posting with links<\/a> to the blog BaseballInstinct, which has some good video of\u00a0Lucas Giolito<\/strong> throwing during his time in the GCL earlier this month.<\/p>\n

The videos are set to rather loud music, so hit mute if you’re at work or are annoyed by electronic\/techno music.<\/p>\n

The videos show POV from behind the catcher and then some from the side, have some MPH readings, have some slo-mo of Giolito’s mechanics for various pitches and at release points.<\/p>\n

Observations\/thoughts:<\/p>\n

– He looks like a bigger kid than the photo above shows. \u00a0He has a good pitcher build, big legs, big strong body. \u00a0He’s listed as 6’6″ 230 so I’m not sure why I thought he was a little wiry kid.<\/p>\n

– His motion looks like a cross between\u00a0Cole Kimball<\/strong>\u00a0with perhaps a little\u00a0Roy Oswalt<\/strong>. \u00a0When he lands, his shoulder tilt and arm position are almost identical to Kimball’s, while his arm flail in regular speed seems like a throwback to Oswalt.<\/p>\n

– 92-93 reportedly on the gun in these videos; it was from earlier this month, early in his recovery from Tommy John surgery. \u00a0But, this is a far cry from the reported upper 90s\/100 he showed in high school (speeds per PerfectGame scouting reports<\/a>). \u00a0I’m hoping this was just from a very early game in his rehab and he was holding back.<\/p>\n

– Is it just me, or is his curve ball incredibly telegraphed? \u00a0His arm position seems way, way higher for his curve than it did for his fastball. \u00a0That and his hand position seems to be very simple to pick up. \u00a0We talked earlier this season about tipping pitches<\/a> and I’m guessing this is something they’ll work on with Giolito. \u00a0If an amateur like me can see a difference that distinct, then a professional certainly can too.<\/p>\n

– Likewise, later in the video his trailing leg finish is incredibly inconsistent. \u00a0Sometimes it comes across his body, sometimes he kicks the ground, sometimes it just trails behind. \u00a0It seems like he may need some mechanical fine tuning. \u00a0Does this make a difference in the pitch? \u00a0It’s too late to be a pitch tipping mechanism and could be because he was throwing from the stretch\/trying to slide step a bit.<\/p>\n

– He gets an incredibly long push-off the rubber (see the side-action video later in the link). \u00a0By the time he releases the ball, his foot is at least 12-15 inches in front of the rubber and his arm\/release point has to be at least 7+ feet in front of the rubber. \u00a0Study the video; he’s 6’6″ and he’s clearly further off the rubber than he is tall. \u00a0We talk about how really tall pitchers (think\u00a0Jon Rauch<\/strong>,\u00a0Chris Young<\/strong> and\u00a0Randy Johnson<\/strong>) get an advantage because they’re releasing the ball closer to home, so the pitch looks faster than it is. \u00a0Giolito’s mechanics combined with his height give this same appearance. \u00a0If you combine this long push-off and the reported velocity he can achieve … wow, that’s a heck of a combination. \u00a0There’s no wonder that he was in the mix for 1-1 last year.<\/p>\n

Any other thoughts? \u00a0I know there are readers out there who discount this kid as a prospect. \u00a0But I’ll say this; 10 shutout innings so far after being promoted to Short-A, which is basically a college league. \u00a0He’s only 19 and is recovering from injury. \u00a0 If he starts next season in low-A before his 20th birthday and gets promoted up at some point, he’ll be well on his way to being one of the top prospects in baseball.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Courtesy of MinorLeagueBall.com’s\u00a0John Sickels (who I’ve asked if he’s doing a player-by-player recap of this year’s draftees like he did last year, which I borrowed from for a good blog post last off-season, but have not heard back), here’s a posting with links to the blog BaseballInstinct, which has some good video of\u00a0Lucas Giolito throwing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[349,100,590,865,852,374,297,853],"class_list":["post-7519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-minorspitching","tag-chris-young","tag-cole-kimball","tag-john-sickels","tag-jon-rauch","tag-lucas-giolito","tag-randy-johnson","tag-roy-oswalt","tag-tommy-john"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7519"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7573,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7519\/revisions\/7573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}