Former Blue Jay Robert Coello suddenly an ace with baffling pitch

[JugglingPitches]

http://www.thestar.com/sports/bluejays/2013/05/31/former_blue_jay_suddenly_an_ace_with_baffling_pitch.html

 

By:Mark ZwolinskiSports reporter, Published on Fri May 31 2013

 

 

If you know what this pitch is, you may want to contact major-league hitters, baseball physicists and everyone else trying to figure it out.

 

 

Former Blue Jay Robert Coello has baseball confounded at the moment. The Jays had no room in the organization for this 28-year-old right-hander and outrighted him last October.

 

 

Now, he’s striking out batters for the Los Angeles Angels at a phenomenal rate.

 

 

Coello has developed a hybrid of a forkball, but the pitch is something of a mystery, beyond explanation.

 

 

“When you have the right feel and finish, you kind of have an idea (of where the pitch is going),” Coello told Yahoo Sports. “There are other times when I just don’t know.”

 

 

It’s easy, now, to ask why the Jays gave up on Coello, but there’s no doubt, with the declining state of their pitching staff, that they could have used him.

 

 

The native of Bayonne, N.J., has appeared in eight games for the Angels, logged 10 1/3 innings, given up six hits and only one run. He has struck out 18, with a 0.87 earned-run average and a WHIP of 0.68.

 

 

Coello’s Jays career came and went within a year. He signed a minor-league contract Dec. 9, 2011 and pitched for Triple-A Las Vegas, all while trying to perfect the pitch. He went 4-1 with Vegas in his first 19 games and earned a spot on the Jays’ 40-man roster.

 

 

In six appearances in Toronto last season, there was nothing to suggest the level of strikeout efficiency he’s showing now. Coello gave up 12 earned runs in 12 innings during that six-game stint.

 

 

He went on the disabled list with an ulnar-nerve injury and in October was outrighted off the roster. Coello elected to go with free agency and signed a minor-league contract with the Angels in late January.

 

 

Now, out of nowhere, comes this hybrid forkball that no one can quite figure out.

 

 

Several baseball writers have tried to do so, and even with the help of a baseball scientist and algorithms, there is nothing anyone can do to quite pin it down.

 

 

Basically, the ball does not spin or even rotate the slightest as it leaves Coello’s hand. It continues that way, just plain flat, all the way to the catcher’s glove, if the catcher even catches it.

 

 

It’s like a knuckleball, except that a knuckleball, ideally, rotates one and a half to two revolutions before it reaches the plate.

 

 

The reaction the pitch gets is “WTF,” so that’s what everyone, including Coello, has taken to call it — the “WTF pitch.”

 

[admin]

Yeah we posted about this in the around baseball post. He's basically throwing what Dickey should be lol.

[crrr]

What's more amazing is he actually has a negative fip!

[crrr]

What's more amazing, he actually has a negative FIP! So, he actually creates runs by pitching so well - pretty amazing stuff

[JugglingPitches]

My bad, sorry for the duplicate thread...didn't see that.

[JaysFanToronto]

Video of the knuckle-fork. lol

 

[Dr. Dinger]

Lol @ ace

[Captain Adama]

Wow I never knew the ace distinction was given to a guy who has logged 11 f***ing innings. Jesus Christ, this is why I never read the Star.

[bzapple]

Holy f*** the Star actually printed that. When I saw the title I thought the OP was just trolling.