Jamie Moyer: American Gangster

I would like to dedicate this post to a personal hero of mine; a man who began his career in Major League Baseball in 1986, and at 49 years of age is still going strong.  I grew up loving Baseball more than anything.  It was not until mid high-school that I began to grow an affinity for all the major competitive sports at the professional level (NBA, NFL etc.) but before then it was all Baseball all the time.  I associate Moyer with the Seattle Mariners during their heyday, pitching alongside a batting order that included a young Alex Rodriguez and Ken Griffey Jr. in the late '90s.  Later he would play with the great Ichiro Suzuki.  In 2008 he helped the Philadelphia Phillies win the World Series and received his first championship ring, which was well deserved.  Jamie Moyer's consistency and longevity are his greatest virtues.  To be more Baseball-specific, Moyer is a pitcher characterized by precise control; an ability to locate his pitches and change speeds with movement to fool hitters over the years in both leagues, while hardly ever throwing a pitch over 90 mph.  In fact in the latter part of his career his fastball rarely exceeded 85 mph.  This is the truly remarkable aspect of Moyer's baseball career above all else.
  
As an adolescent, old enough to be somewhat realistic about the world, pitching in the big league's seemed unfathomable to me, primarily because there is an underlying assumption that you have to be able to throw a 90+ mph fastball to make it, and such a daunting physical threshold can be quite discouraging.  Throwing that hard cannot be attained by simply lifting weights, it is in fact a largely natural gift accompanied by some training and sound mechanics.  But Mr. Moyer breaks that mold, and showed that precision control; command of the strike zone, when mastered can make up for deficiencies in velocity even at the highest level.  There have been a few other great pitchers who have used such a pitching style, Greg Maddux comes to mind, but even he could reach 87-89 mph.  Moyer's average fastball during the 2010 season was 81.6 mph.  That is the about the average speed of a curve ball or change-up for most pitchers.  Speaking of breaking balls, that is another strength of Moyer's, the ability to change speeds effectively and throw a devastating change up.  In fact, he would subscribe to the notion that you should always be changing speeds, even if it is between two fastballs, this keeps the hitter slightly off balance at all times.  To quickly break down what a change-up is for those who don't know, it is a pitch thrown with exactly the same arm speed, arm slot, wind-up and delivery of a pitcher's fastball, so to the hitter it looks identical coming out of the pitcher's hand.  The difference lies in the grip of the ball, instead of gripping the ball right on the fingertips (3 fingers: index, middle, and thumb) the ball is gripped more deeply towards the palm of your hand, and usually involves 4 fingers (index, middle, ring and thumb).  What results is deception; the illusion of a fastball but actually a pitch that is 5-10 mph slower and often has sinking action as well, which gets the hitter out on their front foot and off balance, often leading to a swing and a miss or a weak ground ball.  Jamie Moyer made an art of throwing the change-up.

    ^ 4 seam fastball







Traditional 3 finger change-up >

There are plenty of pitchers in the majors who got there based on sheer velocity and get crushed even while throwing 95-98mph fastballs. They could learn a thing or two from Jamie Moyer.  You would think at 49 years old he would be the oldest player to ever play at the Major League level.  However, the history of baseball is so long and rich, he is only in the top 10 in that category.  Yet it is all the more impressive in modern times since level of athlete and competition is so robust.  Moyer has started his season with the Rockies (the 8th major league team he has played for) with two losses, but his E.R.A. (earned run average; average amount of runs given up per 9 innings, that didn't result from a defensive error) is just over 4 which is not too shabby and is right around his career average.  I wish Jamie Moyer the best and hope he continues to pitch at the major league level for years to come.  He will undoubtedly be voted into the hall of fame whenever he does decide to call it a career.  Hats off Jamie, you are a living legend.