Aug
31
Buster Olney thinks patience is a good fit for young pitchers
ByIf you are going to spend only 5 minutes online today, spend it reading Buster Olney’s indispensable ESPN blog. We all get caught up in stuff and radar readings and the hype surrounding young pitchers, but the cold hard truth is that baseball is 90% mental, and the other half is physical, as Yogi said. Check it out.
Update (12:03pm): Sorry folks, didn’t realize this was Insider only.
Too bad I’m not an insider. Would have liked to read that.
I am an insider and it didnt work
The article is based on Edwin Jackson’s improvement this year, but
Jackson’s FIP is 4.95 and his xFIP is 5.22, as compared to 4.98 and 5.02 last year, so he’s not really pitching that much better, Tampa Bay’s defense has just gotten a lot better and he’s been able to strand 79.6% of runners this year, compared with 65.7% last year. Also, the success is not due to him making batters hit the ball softer, because the LD% of opposing batters this year s 18.8%, or exactly the same as 2005 and 2% above his 2006 level (16.8%). He IS walking less people, but do NOT look for this “success” to continue indefinitely, but as long as Tampa’s defense stays strong, he should be around a league average pitcher. Any slippage and he’ll be back to the Edwin Jackson of old.