100 Words: Barry Zito

by RJ Anderson on Mar 18, 2008 3:08 PM EDT in Positional Reviews

Here's a question that needs to be answered: what is wrong with Zito? So far his spring stats read: 12.2 IP, 21 H, 10 BB, 0 K. Using Fangraphs I looked up his velocity numbers, and to some surprise - or perhaps not - found that his fastball speed has dropped three straight years, from 87.3 MPH in 05, to 85.8 in 06 to 84.5 last year, and he's averaging over 3,500 pitches, which as GOTOS has shown us, is almost always a death blow to pitchers. Not to speculate too much, but does Zito have an arm problem?

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burnt out

He's had a very heavy workload and Beane let him go in a timely manner much like Mulder. I remember when he broke Eric Munson's thumb while Munson was catching for him in college. With his current fastball, I'm not sure he could break a pane of glass.

by Jason Collette on Mar 18, 2008 3:52 PM EDT reply actions

Yea

I think Zito has had a heavy workload, too. But I think his bad spring stats do not reflect the performance of his strength. I think he should have done bettter than this. He is always my favorite player, talented. And getting something of him has been my dream for a long time. My dream came true last week, I got a nice photograph of him:
http://dealstudio.com/searchdeals.php?deal_id=91625&ru=279 , and sometimes I even want to meet him so badly and interview him about his spring training, myself! Haha!

by wathihgkym on Mar 19, 2008 10:28 PM EDT reply actions