His intelligence, I think, has little to do with this. There were all the stories about Bobby Jenks and how he could throw 100 mph but couldn’t even write his own name on paper. Did he suddenly get smart to become a dominating reliever?

Now, I’m not disputing his ability or inability to self-correct — I don’t know if that’s the case or not. My take on that is while it would be nice that he could correct these problems on his own, but there is a pitching coach and hundreds of hours of film that should be helping him through that and counting on Bondo to do that by himself, to me, is dumb.

Also, his location has developed. His K:BB Ratios have improved every single year until this year (I don’t count last year because I think he pitched about 4-6 weeks on a bum elbow from July into August) which is why his immense struggles are so hard to figure out as they can’t be attributed to just bad luck or something else of that ilk because his K:BB Ratios are brutally bad.

Oh and: Is Granderson really improving on his weaknesses? He’s still striking out over 20% of his PA’s and walking in less than 10% and that’s just undesirable — especially from the leadoff spot (where he shouldn’t be, but that’s 100% another topic).

The primary question with Bondo is why does he suck 1/4 of the time and why is he mediocre the other 5/8 of the time? I suggest he does not have the ability to self-correct. I personally think this is because he is an idiot.

Look, I could be wrong, he could be a very bright fella. But his inconsistency is certainly not due to a lack of coordination, which is a kind of IQ in and of itself, because Bonderman was a phenomenal AAU basketball player in Washington state.

Why isn’t Bonderman becoming a great pitcher? Why hasn’t his location developed? Why has it taken so long to expand his mix? I think the answer is that he does not have the awareness to control these factors in a meaningful way.

Compare Bonderman to Granderson. Granderson develops every month, alsways aware of and working on his weaknesses. Granderson has the IQ and habits of improvement that Bonderman lacks.

His foot strike is drifting, that’s what the pattern looks like to me. However, that would be so easily corrected, so immediately seen, that this couldn’t be the case, right? Kinda like “Hey, Bondo, maybe you need a third pitch” repeated every year for five years — inescapably easy in theory.

I have come to the conclusion that Bondo is just not a bright man. When his mechanics happen to fall into-place, just on random starts, maybe every 9th start, he’s a tantalizingly good pitcher and that excites the Leyland\Dromboski axis so much they are willing to throw lots of money at the possibility that Bondo will figure things out and have repeatable good starts, but it’s still random because he has no flippin’ idea why his stuff works when it works.

So was it just complete luck and randomness that for the first 18 starts of the year in 2007 Jeremy Bonderman was one of the 5 best pitchers in the American League?

I suggest Occam’s Razor on this one for Bonderman and Verlander: they do not possess the consistent command to pitch effectively inside due to a mechanical issue.

Indeed and those mechanical issues could very well be caused by an injuries either past or present.

http://ordosopinion.blogspot.c.....igers.html

I suggest Occam’s Razor on this one for Bonderman and Verlander: they do not possess the consistent command to pitch effectively inside due to a mechanical issue. Over time this should be corrected; until then prepare for inflated walk totals and high ERAs.

What I don’t know is whether he does this stuff all the time, and I just notice it when he’s struggling.

Can you pull up a gameday from one of his better outings last year and check?

I have come to the conclusion that Bondo is just not a bright man. When his mechanics happen to fall into-place, just on random starts, maybe every 9th start, he’s a tantalizingly good pitcher and that excites the Leyland\Dromboski axis so much they are willing to throw lots of money at the possibility that Bondo will figure things out and have repeatable good starts, but it’s still random because he has no flippin’ idea why his stuff works when it works.

It’s also something that I’ve speculated about Bonderman when he’s struggled the past couple seasons is that he throws his fastball toward the third base side of the plate and the slider toward the first base side with a lot of regularity. What I don’t know is whether he does this stuff all the time, and I just notice it when he’s struggling.