I distinctly remember Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Josh Collmenter's first appearance at last year's Arizona Fall League. Or more specifically, the reaction to it. I had seen Collmenter and his unique delivery before, but many scouts assigned to the AFL had not seen many of the players there previously.
Collmenter heads out to warm up for his first inning of work, and a more vocal scout next to me says rather loudly, "What the hell is that?"
It's a sentence I'm sure many big league hitters have been saying about Collmenter's over-the-top delivery since he made his major league debut in April. The best way to explain it is just to have you look at it, which you can from three different angles in the video that accompanies this blog entry.
That delivery is most of the story about the 25-year-old right-hander. Earlier this season, Buster Olney quoted an anonymous scout who said, "What works for him is that the hitters have a difficult time picking up the ball against him. There's nobody else like him in the majors, throwing that angle, so it's something they're not used to. It's a difficult adjustment, because he hides the ball well."
