Big Leaguer Breakdown: Yovani Gallardo

One of the Major League's newest aces is Yovani Gallardo of the Milwaukee Brewers. In what was essentially his second big league season, Yovani emerged as the ace of the Brewers' staff, posting a 13-12 record and a 3.70 ERA with over 200 K's is just 185 ips. Hailed as one of the key components for the future of Milwaukee baseball, Gallardo is this weeks' Big Leaguer Breakdown.

Check out this video of his warm-up to study how he delivers the baseball.

Yovani's delivery is characterized by a high leg kick and an explosive drive to the plate. You can notice from the beginning of the video that he starts almost out of a stretch position and simply steps to the side before swing the front leg around upward into the leg lift. I am not a huge fan of this technique because it is essentially wasted movement, however many big leaguers prefer this movement because it minimizes effort and difference out of the wind-up as compared to the stretch. For this reason, I see why guys like Cliff Lee and Gallardo utilize this starting positon.

If we stop the video at the 5 second mark, we see the leg lift is up beyond parallel and the hand position follows suit. You should also notice a slight upper half is slightly rotated inward, but the hips and lower half are still on line. I am a fan of this technique as long as the upper half is able to finish back over the midline of the body. The concern would be if the upper half over rotates along with the hips, preventing a repeatable release point.

A few clicks further on the video shows Yovani utlizing an extremely wide and high hand break and arm swing. His front arm extends high above his head and forward, the shoulders are tilted down and back and the throwing arm is extended in the opposite direction and down toward the ground. Also important to notice is how the front foot extends out and forward (similar in direction as the front glove side) but the weight is still loaded on the back leg. This posture is something very important to me when I teach my young pitchers how to stay loaded on the back side before turning the hips. It is a tricky concept to think about extending forward with the front arm and front leg without the rest of the body weight going forward. You can also see from this position (pictured below), that the shoulders are about to level back and finish back over the front side.

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At exactly the 6 second mark, we see the hips begin to rotate and the scapula contract before firing the baseball. Many pitching coaches are big proponents of "firing" the shoulder blade muscles after the elbows get to shoulder height. Gallardo, in this video, does a great job of allowing the hip turn to "fire" his upper half and explode to the target. He does pull a bit violently with the glove after the 6 second mark, but does a good job of finishing over the front leg and planting the foot firmly without straightening out the plant leg. You see outstanding upper half core flexibility as he extends over that front side on release.

So study this video and others of Yovani as much as you can to see a more "violent" delivery that translates into very explosive pitches.

Make sure to post any questions you may have with his delivery.

Until Next Time!!!