One of the hardest pitchers in the MLB and also one of the youngest is pitcher Yordano Ventura for the Kansas City Royals. He has made a big impact in the Major Leagues with his incredible pitching velocity reaching triple digits. He has been a phenom ever sense he came into baseball from the Dominican Republic with the Royals.
The curiosity of most who watch him pitch is how is he throwing so hard with such little effort. He seems to be barely trying to throw hard and the ball comes screaming out of his hand at 100+mph sometimes. Many want to know is it his pitching mechanics, leg power, "arm strength," or his incredibly quickness that contribute to this amazing pitching velocity. The best way to answer this is all of the above but watch the video below to truly see it all working together.
In this video below, I will go over the pros and cons of his delivery and mainly point out what mechanics is driving his pitching velocity. It is also important to note that this is a incredible athlete when it comes to speed of movement. He is very fast and has the amazing ability to put his body speed into the baseball but he does have a key mechanical flaw with his arm path.

Yordano Venture Pitching Mechanics

Yordano Ventura was born in Samana, Dominican Republic on 6/3/1991. He bats and throws right handed. He stands at 6 feet tall and weighing in at 180 pounds. He made is Major League debut on 9/17/2013 at 22 years old. If you like this pitching analysis below then please subscribe!

Yordano Ventura Pitching Breakdown

In this section, I will highlight some of the pros and cons of Yordano Ventura's pitching delivery that I covered in the video above and a little more. He scores very high biomechanically in the 3X Evaluation System but he does show some negatives with his throwing arm path that need to be addressed. Lets first look at his positives.
I will lay out his positives working from the ground up. Because he is not a 3X leg driver he doesn't have a lot of lower leg positives in his pitching mechanics. His approach is more what I call a "knee slammer." To learn more about drive leg styles watch my video.
His first positive is his force moving into front foot strike and his ability to stabilize this force with his front leg. This with his late arm cocking gives him some good separation timing of hips to shoulders. To also help leverage this separation of hips to shoulders he establishes and maintains a good contralateral tilt of his trunk at front foot strike to pitch release. Contralateral tilt means towards the glove side. To finish his delivery his arm path is ideal for a high velocity fastball but does walk the line a bit. His horizontal abduction and shoulder abduction from arm cocking to maximum external rotation is at a peak level which really allows all of his leg power and accelerations of this leg power through his separation move into his arm and then the ball.
The only negative which is more than likely why he has already been experiencing shoulder problems is his horizontal abduction of his throwing arm at front foot strike. His arm is excessively positioned far behind his head to front foot strike. I truly believe if he would reduce this load on the throwing arm at front foot strike and make up for the loss of energy using his back leg drive as a more 3X drive then I believe this will keep him healthier. Pitchers that throw this hard must make these kind of adjustments because mechanical flaws like this is what could end a career.