Seattle Sports Insider

Tale of da Tape (year 1's for Hultzen types)

Posted by

11/9/11

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

Q. Okay, so the hitters will be new to Hultzen. They will be to Paxton also, right? As they were to Pineda?

A. Sure, but Hultzen's game is brain and Pineda's was brawn. Paxton is more in the brawn department, also.

Time for a light bulb, gents. In any sport, you have rookies who bring their games to the enemy, and you have rookies who bob-and-weave.

There is much less intuition involved in Pineda's game. The catcher puts his mitt down and Pineda throws the ball as hard as he can, as accurately as he can. If he does get too much of the plate, well, 98 mph has a way of buffering the pitching headache that can result.

.... time for a change-speed? Pineda whips the arm forward at 98, the ball pops a parachute at 86, right down the middle, the bat's out in front. It's far simpler, and far less entwined with the hitter's particular hot and cold zones. Give me Michael Pineda's (or James Paxton's) pitches and I'll get outs, right now.

Hultzen is in the Erik Bedard category: the difference between dominance and an early shower is sometimes four inches....

Q. This is your opinion, or this is a fact? ::Herman Munster to Marisa Tomei::

A. It's a fact. Well, pretty much. The brainier the rookie, the more the learning curve plays in. It stands to reason.

There are two LHP's to whom SSI comps Hultzen, those being Johan Santana and Cole Hamels. These two pitchers throw with the wrong arms, have plus fastballs, have nice command within the zone, and rely on straight changeups.

Did Johan Santana have a difficult transition into the majors? Sure he did. His ERA was 6.79 as a rookie and 4.74 the year after. (To be fair, Santana had some control issues early.)

Of course, once Santana got his command and his intuition together -- once the light came on -- he became the best pitcher, other than Pedro, of the last 20 years.

Q. BTW, why does everybody say that Hultzen is a #2-3 starter at best?

A. This one's out of bounds for sure. Two strokes, tee up again. Fastball velocity does not equal slot in the rotation, Gomer.

... it's a simple FKey7 to create a synonym pair out of "97 mph" and "#1 starter." Though why Michael Pineda wouldn't score these accolades, you go figure...

Is Cliff Lee a 97 mph pitcher? Is Roy Halladay? Are Dan Haren and Jered Weaver proud possessors of nuclear fastballs?

Dr. D mischievously suggests that --- > it is easiest to visualize a minors 97 mph pitcher winning the Cy Young.

It's easy to visualize Taijuan Walker throwing like Doc Gooden. That's all: it's easy to visualize. But if he were an Angels fan, Dr. D would be scared spitless of Danny Hultzen becoming the next Johan Santana.

Q. Okay, Cole Hamels, did he knee-drop from the top turnbuckle as a rookie?

A. He was certainly good, but compared to his Y2+ seasons, he wasn't anything like what he'd become.

Hamels fanned over 9 men a game as a rookie, but he also walked more men than he would later, and he had gopheritis (1.3 homers in a pitcher-bats league). His BB's and his HR's were both up. BB's and HR's are supposed to see-saw against each other, one up, the other down.

This is precisely the intuition that we're preaching: the 2006 Hamels was super talented, but just did not know when to keep his fingers out of the tiger's mouth. How could he?

That said, if Danny Hultzen gives the Mariners a 2006 Cole Hamels, I'll refrain from rallying a mob to storm Royal Brougham.

Q. Anybody else?

A. Mark Mulder was a three-pitch FB-CU-CH lefty like Hultzen, who ran a 5.44 ERA as a rook, was blasted for 22 homers in 150 innings, despite playing in a big park...

Year two, Mulder had a sense of danger and a feel for the right time to get ahead in the count, and won 21 games with a 3.45 ERA.

Fangraphs has a cool little article up ...

Comments

but...

...my question to you, Doc, is...those pitchers you mentioned...did they have sterling control in the minors? I think Hultzen needs his sense of danger a hair less just because he HAS that sterling command and therefore likes using it. But maybe it was the same way with Mulder and such and then the homers made them nervous enough to start nibbling? I don't have time to check out Mulder or Santana or Hamels' minor league stuff.

A perfectly valid ax-terix amigo

If Danny Hultzen has command that is comparable to Jamie Moyer's, then all bets are off.
There is no danger in throwing pitches like the one Spec linked us on Game Day, bisecting the outside corner. :- )
.........
As you're more aware than anybody ... we're always throwing dice here, talking about 50th-percentile outcomes, 10th-, 90th-, etc.
If Hultzen hits that 95-percent scenario, and locates like Fister, then of course he dominates right away ...
How many SP's locate like Fister and Moyer? maybe six or eight in the majors?

What about Miguel Olivo?

Here's a pro Hultzen factor for the tale of the tape:
Its not as if Hultzen faces the prospect of being thrown into M's games with nothing more than a vague mandate of "get the guy out". He has one of the best pitch callers in the game to guide him.
I'd say that Olivo was the unsung hero of the pitching staff last year, but he wasn't really unsung. All of the Mariners fans, including this site, knew it, and noticed that the M's didn't play as well when Olivo wasn't directing the show.
Plus, its not just Olivo. There is the book. The Mariner's organizational knowledge of its enemies, and what they don't like to swing at. A student like Hultzen would be better at reading and applying the book, whether its scouting reports, video diagrams, simulations, and the like, than would a high school kid, or a student athlete who was really just an athlete.
Plus, the Mariners seem to have a general mandate with pitchers. The organization likes guys who throw in the bottom of the strike zone, paint corners, and who don't walk anyone. The low pitch sets up the ground ball. Felix, who chooses which of these pitchers he'll be, prefers to pursue the groundball, rather than the strikeout, as his everyday weapon of choice. The M's are geared for this type of pitcher. If a ball goes into the infield, then Ryan and Ackley will take care of the rest.
My wife and I went to a Fister game in July of last year, the one where the M's lost to the Padres 0-1 and I asked her what she thought. She said "I don't know, they didn't score any runs, and the only guy that did anything was Brendan Ryan". That night, there was mostly groundball outs, which dissapeared into Ryan's glove, and the game was over in about two hours.
Now, in posts past, SSI has faulted Felix, and League, for pursuing the groundball as a goal to be attained, rather than a poor second choice to the strikeout, but, it has this going for it:
Efficiency. Groundballs set up the double play, and allow a young arm, who is on a short leash with the pitch count, to pitch deeper into games.
In my review of the Hultzen AFL game, I noticed that he throws the ball wherever he wants, and has nasty breaking stuff, and where he wants to throw is in the bottom outside corner of the zone.
Now, I don't know if Hultzen has the patented heavy two seam action that Felix has, but he is still going to get lots of outs with this lowball schtick. He is going to be doing this with the best defense he has ever had behind him, and with Olivo and organizational knowledge in front of him.
While a Hultzenesque murder of the American League might not make Nancy Grace, it is still murder.