POTD Shawn Kelley

=== Hist-O-Gram ===

After we saw Kelley on April 3, 2009*, here was our postgame on the lad. The first impression being:

Remarkable command of such a hot fastball
Mechanics, body language suggest he can sustain it
Nice bite to the breaking pitch, seemed to telegraph it
M's 2nd- or 3rd-best reliever immediately

Picking from a long list of candidates, my worst call of 2009 was that the bullpen looked shaky. Either they were a lot better than I thought they were in March, or Don Wakamatsu's genius knows absolutely no bounds.

Anyway, throughout the 2009 season, I thought the M's had exactly 2.5 legit ML relievers: Lowe, Kelley, and Aardsma being the 0.5. Wakamatsu starred as the Princess & Frog cajun chef, making a buffet out of collard greens and ham hocks.

Maybe Capt Jack didn't disagree too much. He gave up Morrow to bolster the bullpen.

=== Baseball HQ on Kelley ===

You can order Shandler's book here. On Kelley, we were delighted to see Shandler synch'ing up with SSI once more. The exec sum, paraphrased:

Kelley an elite RP in camouflage
"Fantastic" command (K/BB = 8.0/1.8 = 4.6)
Despite being a RHP, he "handcuffs" lefthand batters
Misleading ERA due to unlucky strand percentage
Risk is HR rate, because extreme flyball pitcher
... but "pinpoint" control makes it a manageable risk
"UP: 20 Saves"

By "elite," Shandler means Papelbon and Broxton. Just so you know. Cliff Lee is borderline elite; Roy Halladay is elite, in Shandler-speak.

In roto terms, Shandler sees Aardsma getting knocked out of the closer role, and he sees Kelley being the man to step in. In time to log 20 or so saves.

Of course, he wrote this before Brandon League came to the M's. Shandler also sees League as an elite reliever.

=== Achilles' Heel? ===

You might ask, why so down on Aardsma's fly balls if Kelley does the same thing. Well, Shawn Kelley will give up home runs, but I like his chances to manage the taters, because:

Kelley has a good second pitch, whereas Aardsma does not
Kelley locates the ball on the black, whereas Aardsma does not
Kelley gets lots of fishing, whereas Aardsma's strikes come only on challenge pitches

Kelley isn't yet a star. He's got one more hurdle -- to do it under the Bright Lights and not be done in by gopheritis.

I give 3:1, odds on, that Kelley will do this, and emerge as one of the AL's fine setup men.

=== Dave Allen on Kelley ===

In this excellent article at USSM, visiting dignitary Dave Allen explains a lot of what Shawn Kelley does that is so cool.

The guts of it are down in the very last graphic. Kelley has two pitches that should get hit by LH batters -- a 4-seam fastball and a slider. Kelley actually does very well against LH, and the main reason is Kelley's location.

Kelley gets a sky-high "fishing" rate from LH's, and the reason is that he is consistently throwing that hairy fastball juuuusssst outside the strike zone. Catfish Hunter, baby.

.........

There is another pitcher who has (1) superb command of a 94 fastball like Kelley does, and who uses (2) an 84 slider to complement. That being Jon Papelbon.

Papelbon has a little better arm than Kelley, has an extra foot on his FB and more bite to his breaking pitch. But it's no reach to think of Shawn Kelley as a poor man's Jon Papelbon. And not too poor, at that.

=== Dr's R/X Dept. ===

Lesson learned here? Papelbon is in the top 10 in baseball for % of fastballs thrown. Papelbon throws 82-9-9 fastballs, sliders, and forks.

Kelley throws 69% heaters and 31% sliders. Using only 2 pitches instead of 3, Kelley still throws that #2 pitch far more than he actually needs to.

Here's one pitcher who benefits from that "coin of the realm" attitude.

If you are out there 1 inning, and you can throw 94 mph into a teacup, you shouldn't be dorking around with an okay slider. Just rip them up with 94 on the black.

Hit the edge of the plate, and then go off the plate. It's been workin' for a hundred years, and in a hundred more, it'll still be workin'.

=== Dr's Prognosis ===

Whether Kelley continues to go 69-31 on the pitch split, or moves to 80-20, 85-15, either way he is the real deal.

By the way, Kelley's type of pitcher is one of my favorite types of closers. I love strike one from the closer. Eckersley was a guy who just started you off with 0-1, right on the black. Tough to swing at a pitcher's pitch to start off the AB.

I might actually prefer seeing Kelley take over for Aardsma, and League / Lowe put out the fires in the 7th and 8th. Three reasons:

League is better, and the fireman job is harder
League is a FA soon, and we can't afford 40 saves
I love elite command in my closer

...........

Lowe and Kelley were already legit, championship bullpen arms. Add Brandon League and the prognosis is excellent.

Could use that LOOGY, though...

Cheers,

Dr D

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I partially disagree re: Aardsma

I don' tthink it's entirely accurate that Aardsma couldn't locate his fastball with devastating success. A lot of his pitcher's counts happened because he was constantly blasting the outside corner of the plate with that fastball against lefties (who other managers loaded up on against him). He does not have Kelley's total command, no, but he's not nearly as wild as you thoght he'd be.

Once again

If you're going to throw 100 fastballs in a row, you're going to see better location than you would pitching normally.

Ichiro could throw strikes, if he were allowed to just throw four-seamers all the time. :- ) It's when you start having to change grips back-and-forth, inside the glove, that things get complicated.

I don't think that the all-fastballs routine is going to hold up. But if the hitters (and the warning-track sprites) let him get away with it, yeah, he could sustain 4 walks a game.

I really like Shawn

I really like Shawn Kelley.

His gopheritis started becoming a big problem after he came back from his oblique injury, but I have him down as the #2-3 reliever in our pen behind League. The Hr/9 may keep him from becoming an elite guy (mostly due to high FB%), but I absolutely like him as a closer type. You wan't guys that will go after hitters with a 2 run lead in the 9th.

League-Kelley-Lowe is a pretty solid top 3, and Aardsma is a decent 4 if we end up holding onto him.

I too like Kelley a bunch.

I too like Kelley a bunch. Not sure why the M's stuck him in the bullpen immediately while in the minors since he was a pretty decent starting pitcher in college although he did have some elbow issues. Maybe the M's should look to see if he could hold up to the load of a starting pitcher. Since he already has mastered his control, if he further develop an off speed offering, I'm sure he would perform just as well if not better than Snell.

As for Aardsma needing to throw an off speed pitch in there once in a while, I agree. But I believe the same can be said for Lowe. From my recollection too often players would sit fast ball and fight off pitch after pitch until they would get one they could handle. I'm not quite certain he would be any more effective than Aardsma when it comes to closing. Anyway players are frequently evaluated statically and not as evolving and honing their talents. This can be especially true of pitchers if they can discover an effective pitch. Case in point would be JJ Putz - he was not anything real special until the splitter came along. I would imagine that Aardsma is somewhat aware of his one pitch arsenal and could very well be working on developing a splitter or some other offering to help keep hitters off his fastball.

As for a LOOGY bring on Randy Johnson - I'm all for it.

Heya Tad

:daps:

That's an interesting point on Kelley. Hadn't noticed that he started at Austin Peay. With a 94 fastball on the black, and a developing slider, he would have a LOT of upside.

Scouts would respond with the usual reasons it can't be considered, I'm sure :- ) and granted, it's not too many RP's who transition successfully to SP after they're groomed RP throughout the pro's.

...........

Not sure whether Aardsma needs to throw more offspeed. The BBs might go way up again. SSI is merely opining that he might not be closer material, whatever route he takes... everybody's got an opinion, LOL...

............

The Big Unit scenario is farfetched, I know, but if he's doing the rehab anyway, hey.... he's banked his jack.... maybe he wouldn't mind a farewell tour in which he gets a standing O every home game the rest of his career...

Not to wear the subject out

Not to wear the subject out concerning Kelley potential starting ability, pls see this excerpt from Austin Peay's website

"...Kelley will most be remembered for his epic 10-inning appearance in the opening round of the 2007 NCAA Baseball Championship. Squaring off against Vanderbilt and starter David Price – the No. 1 pick in the 2007 draft – Kelley single-handedly kept Austin Peay in the game, allowing one run on five hits to the nation’s No. 1 squad. He struck out a season-high nine batters in those 10 innings and ran his streak of innings without a walk to 29 before leaving with the game tied 1-1..."

I also recall reading an article early 2009 on Kelley. He indicated that the M's placed him in the bullpen immediately upon reporting to the minors. He did hint in the article that he would like at shot at starting (I'm sure he is not complaining as long as he is remains on the 25 man roster)

Have a great New Year