The Rockies were probably expecting Luis Vizcaino to pitch around 70 innings for them over the course of each of the next two seasons when they signed him to the 7.5 million dollar contract. At his current pace, he'd give up 840 runs a year in those 70 IP. So what's the deal with the Viz?
What's going wrong:
- Luis' velocity which in the past was in the low 90's, has been in the mid-80's. Any MLB hitter would welcome the chance of facing the latter over the former with open arms.
- He's flattening out his breaking pitches and basically grooving them when they're in the zone.
- Because his pitches are so juicy to hitters, he doesn't want to throw strikes. Really, I can't blame him.
Okay, that was simple enough, let's go through the possible reasons why it's going wrong:
- It's mechanical. A mere flesh wound, easily correctable by moving his arm slot as Hurdle and Apodaca suggest.
- It's physical. His body instinctively knows something the trainers and doctors can't see and his mechanical issues stem from a subconscious defense against further injury.
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via www.freedigitalphotos.net --
It's dead. The arm is toast and there's no going back to what he once was, the mechanical fix won't restore his velocity which will leave us swallowing the 7.5 million and thanking the heavens we drafted Casey Weathers and moved Pedro Strop to the mound.
Right now, the Rockies are adamant that they made a good investment in Vizcaino, and that this won't wind up like that idea to invest in Bear Stearns a little while ago. That's fair enough, as a fan, I would like to believe this too, but I'm bracing myself for the worst here.