Is Joakim Soria Tipping His Pitches?

An interesting column from ESPN Fantasy Baseball analyst AJ Mass on Monday afternoon mentioned Royals closer Joakim Soria as a player who fans should not be overly confident about in regards to regaining once-dominant form. The piece can be read here: http://sports.espn.go.com/fantasy/baseball/flb/story?id=6578990 Acknowledging Soria in it, Mass states that [he] has fallen in love with the cutter, and, as a result, he not only has lost a little velocity on his regular fastball but also has altered his delivery on his other pitches, possibly enough to tip off hitters as to what pitch is headed homeward. Very interesting. While it would practically impossible for fans to pick up on slight adjustments to mechanics, it’s not out of the ordinary to believe it could be occurring with certain hitters. Mass backs up his claim by acknowledging that opposing batters are swinging at only 17.6 percent of pitches outside the strike zone (that number was roughly 30 percent the past two seas...