Pitching Mechanics Analysis
CC Sabathia

9/5/2008
Updated 12/10/2008

Below is a video clip that shows CC Sabathia's pitching mechanics. In this clip CC Sabathia appears to be throwing an 86 MPH change-up (or cutter). Regardless of exactly what the pitch was, it was clearly an off-speed pitch because the batter is way out front of it.

CC Sabathia

There are a number of things to notice about CC Sabathia's pitching mechanics.
     First, notice how, like David Wells and Greg Maddux, in Frame 44 CC Sabathia "plunges" his Pitching Arm Side (PAS) hand behind his PAS hip after he breaks his hands. This helps to improve his deception by hiding the ball and his arm swing from the batter.
     Second, CC Sabathia comes out of this plunged position a little differently than Greg Maddux. Rather than leading with his PAS hand, he leads more with his PAS elbow like Tim Lincecum and Joba Chamberlain and in Frame 59 gets to a position that looks like a borderline Inverted L. However, and like Joba Chamberlain, at this point CC Sabathia's elbow doesn't seem to be bent 90 degrees, which is good.
      Although it's hard to say for sure, due to the angle of the video clip, it doesn't look like CC Sabathia's borderline Inverted L arm action has a significant negative impact on his timing. For example, in Frame 65 it looks like CC Sabathia's PAS forearm is in the proper vertical position at the moment his shoulders start to rotate.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line is that while CC Sabathia is probably slightly higher-risk than other lefties like Cliff Lee, his pitching mechanics are generally pretty good. That means that if a team were to sign him to a 3-year deal, there would be a reasonable chance that they would get their money's worth. Beyond that timeframe, the risk goes up, but probably not as much as in the case of a pitcher like AJ Burnett who has more clearly problematic pitching mechanics.