Joakim Soria: Special Delivery

It's been about one week since Joakim Soria lost his job as the Royals closer, although the Royals haven't had a single save opportunity for anyone in the last seven days or so. During that time, Ned Yost has found two opportunities for Soria to pitch in the series against the Twins, and Soria has largely been successful: Only an Alcides Escobar error Saturday night has kept him from perfection over his last three innings.

While Soria hasn't struck out any hitters in that time, Yost is likely to hand the ball back to him in the 9th inning sooner rather than later if that trend continues. But do a handful of appearances prove that the old Soria is back? Hardly, but that's been the problem for all of 2011.

Judging by his public comments, Yost has been living in a fantasy world with Soria all year, pretending that everything is fine. That wouldn't be the first time the Royals have ignored warning signs from Soria, as the team waited and waited to put him on the disabled list with a shoulder ailment back in 2008. Unfortunately, it appears they have learned nothing from that experience. Check out this comment from Yost in a June 1 Kansas City Star article:

“Mac (pitching coach Bob McClure) has gone back and looked at every one of his saves in the big leagues since 2007,” Yost said. “There’s not a lot of difference there. There are no glaring weaknesses. We don’t find that he’s tipping pitches anywhere. His arm is healthy. It’s just a matter of getting back on track.”

Maybe he is healthy. Yost and the Royals certainly would know more about that than I do. But I have to strongly contend the statement that there isn't "a lot of difference" between Soria in 2007-2010 and 2011. Quite frankly, I don't know what McClure is looking at if he can't see a significant mechanical difference in his closer now.

I say that because I have spent some time looking at Soria's archived video highlights on MLB.com, and see a new hitch in Soria's delivery. Here are two videos which I think clearly show a difference. I selected both videos as examples of consistencies I saw throughout the years. (I apologize for the first video apparently not being embeddable. There are still some kinks to be worked out on that fabulous new code from MLB.com.)

2009 vs. Seattle



2011 vs. Minnesota



The difference, I believe, is in his arm action. Let's take a look at a couple of still images from those videos. While these stills below are inconclusive, they still show a glaring difference in Soria's mechanics. I went over each video carefully to get as close as possible to freeze-framing at the same point in his delivery.

The image below is of Soria from 2009, when he posted a career high in his strikeout rate:



In this frame, we see Soria with a loose arm action in which he fully extends his arm behind him before unloading a pitch to Ichiro Suzuki. This motion characterized Soria in the first few years of his career.

The next image is Soria in Thursday's appearance against the Twins in 2011:



Here, we see a couple of things. First, Soria is shortening the extension he gets when loading his arm back, and creating a 90-degree angle with his elbow. There's also a bit of an inverted W going on as a result, which can be bad news for just about any pitcher. Also, is it appears he's more upright on the mound and not getting as much drive from his legs off the rubber.

I don't know whether this change is injury-related or not, but while Soria swears up and down that his arm feels good, I can't help but recall something Rany Jazayerli mentioned about former Royals closer Jeff Montgomery last week on 810 WHB. Montgomery at one point had a shoulder injury, Jazayerli said, but didn't feel any pain from it because he naturally changed his delivery to avoid any discomfort.

Maybe that's what has happened to Joakim Soria. Maybe not. Either way, the Royals need to find out because his delivery has changed over the years for whatever reason. Bob McClure needs to go over those tapes again.