I/O:  Bill Krueger says that Felix should throw his curve ball more.  Also, the blog-o-sphere opines that Felix' curve ball looks better and better all the time.

CRUNCH:  This is a broken light bulb on my stadium scoreboard.  I've always thought that Felix should , theoretically, be able to rack up 10+ K's a game just throwing fastballs and curves.  Randy Johnson and Nolan Ryan, among many others, did exactly this.  Josh Beckett, Dwight Gooden, the young Kerry Wood, etc etc etc.

We've seen lesser pitchers make entire careers out of curve balls like Felix' even if they didn't have fastballs that hitters respected.  Bert Blyleven, Aaron Sele, Mike Mussina, etc.

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It is a truism that two-pitch guys have an easier time getting a feel for their pitches -- both for spin and location.

So why isn't there a cumulative effect here?  Felix has a game-breaking yellow hammer that he can use to destroy left hand hitters. 

If Bert Blyleven is a star with a great overhand curve and a 90 fastball, isn't Josh Beckett a superstar with that curve and a 95 fastball?  Well, yes, he was, as long as those two pitches were in top form.

But then if you took Josh Beckett and you gave him Pedro Martinez' changeup, then wouldn't you have, well... .Pedro Martinez?  You see the (unsound) logic here?  Why don't the benefits stack for Felix?

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When I watch Felix pitch, visually his curve looks sinister to me, and his changeup looks only "good" to me.  But look at these pitch values on Fangraphs.  Felix' change has been far and away his most productive pitch, and sure enough, he throws it a lot.

Which has me whipsawing back to the old two-pitch question:  what if Felix threw his changeup, say, 35-40% of the time, as Rich Harden now does?   Would Felix get the batters more "in between" that way, and strike them out more?

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=== "Bloated" 2.38 ERA Dept. ===

I don't really understand why Felix' ERA isn't zero-plus.  With four separate plus-plus pitches, his health, and his command, it seems like the sum of the parts should exceed everybody's, including Pedro's, including Maddux', including everybody's. 

Yes, we know that Felix' xFIP's etc are higher than his actuals.  Are you going to bet that Felix, in Safeco, won't be able to sustain an 8% homer rate?  I'm not.

On the drawing board, Felix calculates to be the best pitcher since the small-ball 1960's.  Who knows?  Maybe he will be, in the 010's.

Don't know why Felix isn't even better than he is.  But it's fun to have a 2.38 ERA ace and to believe that, if anything, he's actually better than he's shown.  His 170 ERA+s, it says here, have been soft.

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Part 2

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