Yu Darvish

JH;

I watched him pitch in the Spring HS tournament in Osaka, Japan when he was 17 years old.

The Japanese pro scouts were very strong on his abilities. It was "predictable".

His height and long arms are his assets and the "flat" mounds.

Bob

Just going by the video but it looks to me like he's able to stay very closed, very late.

CADad- That's one thing I've noticed as well. He also has an uncanny ability to stay very linear towards home plate, which I think is unusual for a person with his size and his mechanics.

His arm action scares me a bit to be honest. The timing mechanism that he (and many other Japanese pitchers) use by pausing at the top of the balance point could potentially create a slight arm drag. His wrist tuck (similar to Bruce Sutter) and ensuing angle of his front side/glove, IMO, could result in excess torque on the elbow. At the time his landing foot touches the ground, his arm slot is eerily similar to that of Mark Prior and Kerry Wood.

Just some observation...that could very well be way off base. He is obviously incredibly talented nonetheless.

It looks like he is the classic swing the leg around as opposed to purely linear. I think he manages to take that and still finish linear.

He's right on the margin as far as arm position at foot strike just like Strasburg and a lot of other hard throwers. It isn't all the way over into dangerous but it is about as high risk as you can get and still be in the "acceptable" zone. Despite what the people who helped define what the acceptable zone was claimed post-injury that's where Strasburg was. In other words, Darvish has a pretty high risk delivery that works for him and if he's got the genes that allow him to get away with it he'll be fine. If not, ???

CADad-

I see it in CJ Wilson too, and he already had one TJ Surgery in his career