A Quick Look: Ryan Perry

As promised in my post on Joel, I went and took a quick look at Ryan Perry and how he pitches.

Unlike Mr. Zumaya's scapular issues, Ryan really doesn't appear to even load them.  Right there you can assess that Perry is doing what I like, properly executing the kinetic chain of pitching.  Mostly I just like to say "kinetic chain," but to me a properly executed pitch is a beautiful thing.  Ryan Perry (apparently) does it right.

Pictures, video, and more analysis after the jump.

First off here's the video.

Just a few notes about this video and thus my analysis following:  It's old.  It's from 2007 so who knows what changes have come about in his mechanics since than.  Obviously I could find out but this is the best video youtube will provide.

First off I'm going to look at the front-side angle from this video where we can easily see a couple of things.

via i12.photobucket.com

I took it and divided into 4 frames to note just a couple of things about his delivery (after looking at this I must point out that frames 2 and 3 should be flip-flopped).

1. Frame one shows us a problem.  It's a possible timing issue.  General rule of pitching mechanics:  Break the hands before moving forward, not after.  Reasons for doing so is that you are forced to rush your throwing arm if your GS (glove-side) foot plant before you expect it to.  This isn't much of an injury risk.  Small potential but is more of a quirk of his own pitching style and not really worth changing.
2. Frame 2 (which is actually Frame 3 in the picture, sorry) shows us something very very very very very right.  Notice how the lower half of his body (hips and legs) are pointed toward home plate while his upper half is still facing us.  This is a very important part of any properly executed pitch.  This is probably where a lot of Perry's velocity comes from.  Also notice in this frame the nicely bent knee that Perry plants on.  Lets also notice the very long stride that Perry has with his pitch.  This improves control, increases deceptiveness slightly, and helps velocity wise.
   
3. Frame 3 (actually Frame 2) another dumb little quirk in this frame.  Notice where glove is.  This is more about getting into proper fielding position (and keeping liners off his face) but the glove should be around his armpit, not down by his hip.  Again, just a dumb quirk and has more than likely been fixed by this point for his own safety.
4. Frame 4 (actually Frame 1.  I kid, this one is right) really shows off that weird glove position but also shows us again that Perry is allowing the kinetic energy he is generating to transfer properly.  Notice that the GS leg is straight again.  This means he is allowing his body to follow through with the pitch.  Good transfers of energy mean lower chances of injury.

via i12.photobucket.com

This frame I'm throwing in here just to try and show proper hip rotation.  Here we can see both hips while we can only see the GS shoulder.  Plus we can see that weird glove position.  (man that just looks goofy)

Comparing to Joel:  That article I linked to earlier dealt exclusively with scapular loading.  So to tie this post with that one, Perry does it right.  Low elbow on the throwing arm indicates he doing it right.  He's doing it right because he does most of the other stuff correct as well.

So my final verdict:  Based upon this video, these screenshots, and by what I believe to be true about pitching.  Ryan Perry doesn't put himself at the same level of risk that Joel Zumaya does.

for anybody that is interested in isolating shots, slowing video down, and just general image/video editing of the nature shown here, VLC Media Player and the GIMP were used to edit the video.  Great tools for this sort of analysis and more importantly...free.