Adam Cimber Is Freaky. He Needs to Be a Padre.

By Jason Avant-

The exercise bikes at my local Y are the fancy kind. They have built-in TVs, which makes the act of pretending to ride a real bike much more bearable; you can plug your headphones in and listen, or just read the captions, which I do when watching sports. I was pedaling away; on the screen in front of me, the Padres were playing Kansas City. A gangly young man was on the mound for San Diego. Adam Cimber. I wonder how that's pronounced. Simber? Kimber? Khymber, like the famous pass? Baseball names are usually weird. I bet it's Khymber. Or maybe Kim-BEAR. 

Then Adam Cimber did his thing. If you watch baseball on TV, you will of course hear the announcers describe particularly difficult-to-hit pitches as "nasty". To call Adam Cimber's whole deal - windup to pitch to post-pitch attempt to keep himself from flying off of the mound - "nasty" is charitable. It's more than nasty. It's gross. It's disgusting. Here, this is him in 2011 playing for something called the Green Bay Bullfrogs.

Sidearm! Pitchers who throw the ball using the same motion that you used to chuck dirt clods at stop signs, houses, and your friends when you were twelve are always cool. Sidearmers are not terribly uncommon, from what I understand, but what sets Adam Cimber apart from any that I've seen are his feet. I don't understand what he does with them. Take a look at this Cimber Tribute Video.

That's not right. In fact, I said as much to Adam Cimber on Twitter:

Me watching @A_Cimber throwing some truly nasty sidearm stuff against KC today #PadresST pic.twitter.com/Ft2WFYlEW6

— Jason Avant (@PetCobra) March 3, 2018

He appreciated it.

Appreciate it!

— Adam Cimber (@A_Cimber) March 4, 2018

As of this writing, I'm not sure if Adam Cimber is part of the Padres' 2018 roster. He's gotten four strikeouts this spring, which seems pretty good. At least two of my NL Worst colleagues will be writing stuff about how the hopes and dreams of their hometowns are riding on the shoulders of their respective teams, how they've had their hearts broken so many times by the Rockies and the Giants and the D-backs, how The Management should sign some players that will help win ball games. Meh. I don't know if Cimber is the guy for that, nor do I care. He's a freak (in the best way) and he's entertaining. Get him in a Padres uni.

UPDATE: I don't want to jinx the man but things are looking good for him.