The Mets May Have Found Something In Daniel Zamora

   Remember when Josh Smoker was looking like a promising reliever for the Mets? Ah, mediocre times, mediocre times indeed. When they decided to pull the plug on the Smoker experiment last winter, they traded him in what felt like an awfully quiet one. The return we got for him didn't seem too significant at the time, as we traded for a then 24 year old (and rarely covered) reliever named Daniel Zamora.

   What no one (myself included) realized was that Zamora was actually quite good in the lower levels of the minor leagues. This was nothing new for him, as the former 40th round pick (just goes to show that in Baseball, even incredibly late round picks have a chance to make an impact) was routinely striking hitters out and posting nice ERAs and even better FIPs. 

   Zamora stepped up his performance to another gear for Double A Binghamton, as he struck out 33% of batters he faced and walked only 6.3%. He has also looked promising in the big leagues so far, as he has induced chases and whiffs. He has made hitters chase at a 33.3% rate compared to the league average of 30.3% the past two seasons. He also has induced a crazy swinging strike percentage of 15.2%!

   This all looks like sustainable numbers when looking at his simple, yet effective arsenal. He is a slider specialist, as he has thrown it 83.3% of the time in his young MLB career. There is a very good reason for that, as he has 10 inches of horizontal movement on the pitch, which would rank as the 3rd most among lefty relievers, and if righties were also included, it would register as the 6th highest in general. The slider also gets 2.2 inches of drop, and clearly, it is a great looking pitch

   Not only does his slider have crazy movement, but it also has great spin at 2617 RPM. This ranks in the 85th percentile among all pitchers with at least 25 thrown this year. On top of that, it generates a 35.7% whiff per swing.

   His slider is a special pitch, but his fastball is no slouch either. Despite low velocity in the minors that sat in the high 80's, his major league fastball velocity has risen to an average of 89.2 mph. It is still well below the big league average, but it is still a notable and helpful uptick. When paired with a spin rate of 2237 RPM, it essentially looks like an average pitch.

   Despite his fastball looking average, it plays off the slider well because of how seldom hitters see the pitch. Basically, because the hitters don't see the fastball nearly as often as his slider, the fastball looks like it's coming in faster from their point of view.

   What also makes his fastball effective despite its seeming averageness is that it looks the same coming out of his low three quarters release point as his slider. Pretty much, its his pitch tunneling here that makes the fastball into a surprisingly effective pitch, as his wOBA against on it is a measly .230. About the pitch tunneling thing, his horizontal release point differential between the fastball and slider is .03 inches, well below the league average.

   Overall, its a great pitch to mix things up with and by looking at this swing against him on it, all the pitch really needs to do is this before getting the hitter to anticipate it and then whiff/make awful contact against the slider.


   At a glance, Zamora has some nice upside, and frankly, he has the capabilities of becoming one of the better left handed specialists in the league and when quantifying his funky release point, its easy to see him giving lefty hitters fits in the big leagues. I'm not sure how he'll fare against righties in extended action, but he's fared well so far by not allowing a hit against them in the short two total innings he's had against them. Overall, it seems like he'll at least be competent against righties, and if he does, then he can be a diamond in the rough for this Mets team.