Here is Mike Fast's Hardball Times article from 2008, right after Cust's debut 148 OPS+ season.

Sure, it's three years later, but the 2008 Cust's hitting style was a lot closer to the 2010 Cust's hitting than it is to, say --- > Ichiro's hitting style.  You're talking about a hitter who was die-cast by the time we got him in 2008, so the material is relevant a few years on.

Also, the current Fangraphs.com data supports Fast's observations extremely well.  For instance, Fast titled the article "Jack Cust Eats Fastballs For Lunch" and we invite you to review what the Fangraphs.com pitch values showed (and still show) about that.

Also, if Jack Cust were an author, Mike Fast would absolutely be his pen name.  What a name pair, eh?

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=== Quad-A Hitting ===

Fast talks about the prototype "Quadruple-A" hitter -- the guy who wears out AAA pitching, but who is suddenly exposed as a pretender by ML pitchers.

Bill James, by the way, rejects this entire notion 100.00% ... reasoning that the bottom 1/3 of major league baseball overlaps with AAA anyway.

I'm not as sure; I think there's a lot to the notion that ML baseball has a lot more polish and precision, and that some batters have "games" not well-suited to this.

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Anyway, Fast discovered that Cust indeed doesn't hit curves well, and he still doesn't:  Cust is a career -0.5 runs per 100 curves, and a career -1.25 runs vs. sliders.

As Fast, and I, note:  you can be a bad curve hitter but a good ML hitter.  It's a lot better to have problems with breaking pitches, as Cust does, than with good fastballs, as Ryan Langerhans does.

ML pitchers sometimes hang breaking pitches.  And they can't throw them all the time.  Cust is an object lesson:  you don't have to be great at hitting curves, to be a productive hitter.  It's as simple as that.

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=== Why Not More Offspeed? ===

Fast notes that Cust's run values against fastballs are off the charts, and wonders why pitchers don't simply throw him all offspeed:

Standing out like a sore thumb is the 16.2 runs above average on balls in play against the fastball from right-handed pitchers. Right handers threw him fewer fastballs than they did to a typical left-handed hitter, 47 percent versus 59 percent to the typical hitter. However, one wonders why they threw him as many as they did when they were so much more successful with off-speed pitches.

(1) Because the fastball is the coin of the realm.  It's wussy to win with your offspeed.  Seriously.

(2) And because a pitcher can't take the strain of so many offspeed.  Aaron Sele was once asked why he didn't throw more curves:  "My arm would fall off," he laughed, as though the question were feebleminded.

(3) And because if any pitcher knew the breaking pitch was coming, he would either (a) take the pitch, or (b) if the pitch were up and hanging, he'd hit it out of the park.

(4) Cust, or Bloomquist, or anybody, would bat .400 if there were a rule against pitches over 85 mph.

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Seriously.  Sometimes, fans ask this.  Why not just throw him 100% curves, like to Pedro Cerrano?

It's not that simple.  You can't tell any batter what's coming, or he will hit it.  And it's not like you can execute your pitch to within three inches.

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