I acquired a young pitcher recently and I'm not sure what to make of him. He has excellent control and splits, but a **** poor set of pitches for a front-end starter. In a couple of seasons, I see him sitting somewhere like this:

Dur Sta Ctr LHB RHB Vel GB/FB P1 P2 P3 P4

27 77 88 71 82 42 76 80 55 42 45



Now, obviously the guy's going to get people out and issue very few walks. But what kind of Slg% will he allow and will he ever strike anyone out with that set of pitches combined with low velocity? His career MiLB numbers are encouraging: 578 IP, 499K, 56 HR allowed. I'm getting mixed reactions to this player.

One additional fact worth noting: I play in Iowa City (-2, -2, -2, -2, -2). It's the kind of park that forces you to string together baserunners to score. Might a park like this play to his strengths and hide his weakness?

What do you guys think?

Get a good PC catcher

As a rule of thumb, a pitcher's park will be more forgiving to the odd wart.

Your guy should be really solid pitching half his games in a place like Iowa City.

Check out the career numbers on this guy:



http://whatifsports.com/HBD/Pages/Popups/PlayerProfile.aspx?pid=1556852

Quote: Originally Posted By RoyalOkie on 11/12/2009Get a good PC catche

Isn't that a forum myth? I thought it was stated in a development chat that a good PC catcher doesn't mean that they will call the best pitch most of the time...a good PC player simply acts as a multiplier to a pitchers performance.

Quote: Originally Posted By wilhitec on 11/12/2009

Quote: Originally Posted By RoyalOkie on 11/12/2009
Get a good PC catcher

Isn't that a forum myth? I thought it was stated in a development chat that a good PC catcher doesn't mean that they will call the best pitch most of the time...a good PC player simply acts as a multiplier to a pitchers performance

PC is a modifier for OAV.

jones's numbers are solid, but his second and third pitches are much better than those of jello's guy.

i'd be interested in following his career path. that's not helpful, i know, but i don't know that i've seen a guy with such a bad second pitch succeed, or a guy with such good control and splits not succeed.

I've had very good success with pitchers with even worse pitches/lower splits that your guy jell. Here are 2 prime examples from my current roster (playing in San Antonio).

Del Bautista - Carrer 72-47 1.29 WHIP 3.96 ERA

CJ Bradford - Career - 74-46 1.23 WHIP 3.70 ERA

Both guys have highish career slugging % allowed numbers (.415 and .400) but some of that can be attributed to the HR prowess of HBD. They are about the norm for K rates that I see across the league.

Quote: Originally Posted By schedule1 on 11/12/2009jones's numbers are solid, but his second and third pitches are much better than those of jello's guy.

i'd be interested in following his career path. that's not helpful, i know, but i don't know that i've seen a guy with such a bad second pitch succeed, or a guy with such good control and splits not succeed

But jello's guy has better splits, I think he could be comparable. Though I also think Jones is an aberration - to put up those kinds of numbers with those ratings - I would consider him the exception to the rule.

This post could not be converted. To view the original post's thread, click here.

I think jello's guy is MUCH better than Jones-- he's almost a flat-out stud, top SP2 or borderline SP1. I think this because I believe splits are WAY more important than pitches (caveat-- I believe this more extremely than anyone I know).

To my eye Jones is overachieving just a little; he's a league average pitcher pitching to a 3.95 ERA when a league average pitcher in the NL in Vegas should pitch to about a 4.10. Jello's guy is almost a run per nine better than Jones under equal circumstances; that will be hidden a little bit by the fact that he's AL, but I'd expect an ERA of about 3.50 if he gets to the ratings jello posted.

i have no problem with those projected pitches. pitch the young man.