1
...I thought I heard that he had a pretty good change-up and good deception. And his GB/FB is lower this year than it has been in past seasons, but he's still a good solid 1.3-ish GB/FB whereas Jaku was a 0.8 GB/FB
The Doug Fister Template
Q. What's the template? Does he come from the Chris Jakubauskas Family of Top-100 Ever's?
A. 0+ walks are the dominating factor here. Anybody you compare the 2009 Fister to, has to walk ... um ... nobody.
Whether that's because of command, or because of giving in, his comps are the guys who go 0-1, 1-1, 1-2, ball in play or strike three.
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Based on the report that he has a solid fastball, a fanatical commitment to strike one, a fair K rate in the PCL, a pedestrian G/F percentage, and not much offspeed ...
IN VERY LOOSE TERMS, that's what James called the Catfish Hunter template. Low walks, high HR's, very consistent performances month-to-month and year-to-year.
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Carlos Silva was not in this template because his K's were too low and his GB's too high. Notice that in the minors, Silva only fanned 5 guys a game.
Bob Tewksbury, the cultural icon for zero walks, only fanned 4+ in the minors.
Catfish Hunter didn't run no blinkin' 7:1 control ratios in the minor leagues.
Fergie Jenkins, when young, was a K guy who didn't have particularly low BB totals. He's only in the template because of low BB's and higher HR's.
Radke, in the minors, did run a K/BB/HR profile somewhat similar to Doug Fister's. He didn't drop off to 87-88 till later, about the year 2000 or something like that.
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You start to wonder, what 92 mph righties walked 1.0 guys in the minors while striking a lot of guys out. I'm guessing that when you find them, you're going to find some cool names in there.
For now, the young Brad Radke is a template friend -- he came up with a 90 fastball, outstanding command, and an emerging changeup. (Radke was always a BABVA roto mainstay, and is a relative of one of my best friends, so we're partial here.)
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Q. How does he get his strikeouts?
A. Could be a million ways. How should we know? :- ) First guess, FB's just outside the zone, and called strikes, and up the ladder. But, whatever.
HUGE question, whether he has a good change-speed game.
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Q. First key to the game?
A. Watch for:
His location on 2-0 and 3-1 counts. Figure out whether he's a command virtuoso or just a guy who says, "here it is, hit it."
Jamie Burke says it's the former. Jamie Burke is a bloomin' authority on the subject, kids.
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Q. Other keys to the game?
A. And whether he can get guys out swinging out in front on offspeed. If he did that TOO, then wow.
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(1) If he had mediocre offspeed and no plus-plus command -- which is our default assumption, since he's in the minors -- that would be the (current) Jaku situation.
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(2) If he has mediocre offspeed but pinpoint control, that's the young Catfish Hunter , Bill Gullickson, Dennis Martinez, Oil Can Boyd, Doug (not Kyle!) Drabek, Esteban Loiaza, Kevin Tapani *template.*
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(3) If he has good offspeed and pinpoint control, that's the Brad Radke (Jered Weaver, Javier Vazquez) template. This would result in a bunch of minor league numbers that put stars in your eyes, but then again, Fister's 2009 numbers do that.
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I have an inkling for the Kevin Tapani comp -- just as a 99c value menu order.
Eyes slideways,
Dr D
Comments
2
Radke sounds like the best "upside" comp for Fister.
The downside comp is probably someone like Kirk Saarloos. (His career minors numbers at the Cube are screwed up currently due to some major gaffe loading the 2009 data). But, at age 23, in AA, he had an 8.9 to 2.3 (and a sick 0.1 HR). He moved to AAA that year and posted an impossible 10.7 to 1.1 K/BB with a 0.6 HR rate. The rest of his career has been sliced and diced between AAA and spot-starting in the bigs (with nominal success). Against MLB hitters, his stellar minors numbers morphed into 4.4K, 3.3BB, 1.1HR.
The thing I like most about low-walk guys is that I believe these are the guys most naturally capable of repeating a motion. If you can repeat motions, then that opens the door to learning new pitches quickly ... so even if initial success isn't immediate, I think low-K guys are more naturally capable of ADJUSTING their games to prevent hitters from zeroing in on their weaknesses.
The high-K, high-walk guys, Nomo, Kerry Wood ... I think these guys have great difficulty when their trains jump the track. The low-walk, low-K guys are "perceived" to be barely hanging on, where the least drop in K-rate can end their run, (Wash is an example). I think the high-K, high-walk guys are actually in a similarly precarious position, because they have lower adaptive skills, even though their "stuff" may be higher value.
I haven't done any formal study, but I get the sense that the low-walk guys who succeed for awhile, then go thru a bad spell, seem more resilient. They add a new pitch (flipper), or something else that gets them back to where they were, (but rarely beyond). While, the stuff kings seem to have a much harder time recovering from dips in performance.
3
Saarloos has a herky-jerky delivery and dominates AAA hitters with deception and a funky side-arm release point. Fister is not a gimmick pitcher...he's just an unsectacular pitcher with great command (by all reports anyway - we'll see if Burke knows what he's talking about shortly).
4
That's great 'advance scout' :- ) news.
Burke has had a good seat for Fister's games.
5
Is an EXCELLENT illustration of the fact that a sky-high K/BB in the minors doesn't NECESSARILY mean that you're talking about Bret Saberhagen in the bushes.
Lots of guys run amazing K/BB's in the minors, and it doesn't mean they're going to star in the bigs. As that point goes, thanky kindly.