Chris Hayes is funny

May 8, 2009 1:49 PM

Chris "Disco" Hayes is a relief pitcher at the AA level in the Kansas City Royals organization. As a submarine pitcher, his unorthodox delivery is easy to spot. He's developed quite the following-as much for his blogging as his pitching. It all started when he was selected as a blogger in the Arizona Fall League, and blogged an 'interview' with Uber-Prospect Matt Wieters.
posted by HighTechUnderpants (18 comments total)

Dude is hilarious! Love it.
posted by jbickers at 1:53 PM on May 8

He's no Quiz.
posted by cog_nate at 1:59 PM on May 8 [1 favorite has favorites]

Whoa this is a pretty strong response. I wonder if a lot of players feel this way about steroid use?
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:03 PM on May 8

Whoa this is a pretty strong response.

Well, apparently, any kid that looked up to Manny already had a problem before the steroid thing, from what I've read in the last couple days.

As to the submarine pitch-- how rare is that? I've watched baseball off and on since the 1970s and have never come across that before. What a trip.
posted by Devils Rancher at 2:07 PM on May 8

From, jbickers' link:

Did you know you are my favorite player?
Jacob J., Haverhill, NH

I had never heard of you until you emailed me. But I did know that IF you existed, I would have been your favorite player.

Excellent.
posted by mhum at 2:16 PM on May 8

Try as I might, I just can't seem to follow any of the player blogs, but this is awesome. Thanks for sharing.

And Devils Rancher: They're not super-rare (check the Wikipedia link for a list), but most of the guys aren't terribly high-profile. Chad Bradford's probably got the coolest delivery of all active ones. (He's injured at the moment, of course.) When he was with the Sox and was called in to mop up games that were long since over, Remy and Orsillo used to have the camera guys do extreme closeups of his pitching hand as he'd release. A couple of inches, at most, from the ground. Unbelievable.
posted by SpiffyRob at 2:24 PM on May 8

Wow, this guy plays one town over. I have never heard about him until now. Maybe I need to go see some baseball. And his nickname is Disco how awesome is that.
posted by los pijamas del gato at 2:25 PM on May 8

Devils Rancher - Here's a list of some of the more famous submarine pitchers.
posted by inoculatedcities at 2:36 PM on May 8

Wow, this is pretty fascinating. I'd never heard of submarine pitching. On the Wikipedia page they mention Shunsuke Watanabe, whose style is definitely pretty unconventional.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 2:38 PM on May 8

Kent Tekulve was my favorite pitcher when I was a kid. Thanks for this!
posted by not_on_display at 3:02 PM on May 8

I love baseball. I'm kinda not in love with MLB so much any more, but I love the game. I watched a little league pitching duel last Saturday (9-10 year-olds) that was intense. Finally, the losing team walked one, he stole second, then third, then made a mad dash for home on a wild pitch, beating the throw by milliseconds. It was as stunning of a photo finish as you'd see in the pros, and well, a bleacher-full of parents who are all emotionally invested in their kid's game can cheer as well as any rabid White Sox fan. Love it. The catcher who dropped the wild pitch cried, and his coach hugged him. *snif*
posted by Devils Rancher at 3:21 PM on May 8

Submarine pitch?! They should call it the popped-up foul pitch.

As such, it takes a game that is kinda long, slow, and repetitive for most people and makes it longer, slower, and more repetitive... in an interesting way, of course.

It's like basically a way of dependably being 3-and-2 until either the batter gets walked, the ball gets by the batter, or the pitcher throws his back out.
posted by markkraft at 3:22 PM on May 8

markkraft-Actually, Submarine pitchers are often extreme groundball pitchers. They get outs by screwing up opposing hitters timing, causing them make soft contact resulting in lots of groundouts. You can see this on Hayes's stats page-the GO/AO stat refers to the ratio of groundball outs to flyball outs. Hayes's 3.90 ratio is extremely high. In his last relief appearance, he pitched 6 innings (!) and only threw 56 pitches. Many starters will throw 80-100+ pitches in 6 innings of work.
posted by HighTechUnderpants at 4:30 PM on May 8

Chad Bradford's probably got the coolest delivery of all active ones. (He's injured at the moment, of course.)

For more details on how Chad Bradford developed his pitching style, take a look at Michael Lewis's Moneyball, an excerpt of which is available at Google (with lots of pages omitted, unfortunately). Basically a high school coach got him to throw at a 2 o'clock angle, and then his arm angle would move downward whenever he went up a league, until his hand was barely off the ground when he delivered at the major league level.

Moneyball is an excellent read overall BTW, with a lot of players mentioned in the book still active today.
posted by A dead Quaker at 5:17 PM on May 8

Very funny, especially if you're an O's fan in the grip of long-term Wietersmania like me. Hayes is a worthy successor to "Disco" Dan Ford.
posted by escabeche at 5:36 PM on May 8

The joke in the nickname, of course, is that he throws in the mid-70s.
posted by Simon! at 7:38 PM on May 8 [3 favorites has favorites]

Yeah, that entry is a lot funnier if you follow prospects at all.
posted by HighTechUnderpants at 11:41 AM on May 9

Moneyball is an excellent read overall BTW, with a lot of players mentioned in the book still active today.

They made a book out of the Brad Pitt movie? Cool.
posted by rokusan at 6:20 PM on May 9