We All (Want To) Live In A (Green & Gold) Submarine

Hasn't it been a joy watching Brad Ziegler pitch this year?  His results have been amazing, of course, but besides the baby, the labor pains have been quite intriguing.  The distinctive jackknife-style motion of submariners is not as common as one might think.  The A's have had quite a few examples over the last decade or so, in Chad Bradford, Mike Venafro, and Mr. Ziegler himself.  Yet, there are many teams who haven't had even one knuckle-scraper in that same time frame.

Two out of those three Oakland examples have had a significant degree of success at getting major league hitters to beat the ball into the ground.  Ziegler, God willing, might just stick around the big leagues for a decade or so.  Many submariners have.  In fact,  it is more the rule than the exception for big-league quality submariners to have longer, healthier careers than their overhand brethren.

Admittedly, my source for the above statement is Bill James' entry on Mark Eichhorn, a submarining Blue Jay reliever, from his 1988 Abstract.  In this extended musing, he pointed out the careers of some highly successful underhanders, from Carl Mays to Eldon Auker to Ted Abernathy to Kent Tekulve and Dan Quisenberry and Eichhorn himself in the 80's.  He also conjectured that an underarm motion is not a gimmick, but a viable alternative pitching mechanic that supports a variety of motions and pitches, with less stress on the arm than overhand mechanics, and with the added benefit of much better control than overhanders.

James' most important point was that for the most part, successful submarine pitchers started as marginal overhand talents that either converted themselves, or were converted, for the sake of merely staying afloat in the competitive seas of professional baseball.  These are men whose careers would have been over if not for submarine salvation.

Of course, only players with exceptional makeup are going to be willing to put in the hard work and accept the ego blows that starting over from scratch tends to entail, but since psych profiles are an accepted part of scouting for the professional game, clubs tend to draft a lot of players with good makeup anyway.  

My humble proposal at the end of all this evidence is that the Athletics organization make it a point to pull aside pitchers with good makeup that aren't good enough or staying healthy enough to advance in the organization, and send them to Ron Romanick Knuckle-Scraper Boot Camp.  Send them on to the Fall League or the Dominican afterwards and see if they sink or swim.  It might not be possible to develop a Ziggy every year, but if for the cost of a minor league instructor or two to work under Romanick, a couple of washouts a decade turn into serviceable major league relievers, the program will more than pay for itself.