Ken Cloude, career BB/9: 3.4 (ie, power-pitcher-level)
Ken Cloude, lowest BB/9: 1.9, partial season, Age 27, 9th year of pro ball
Ken Cloude, 2nd-lowest BB/9: 3.2
Brian Sweeney, career BB/9: 2.6
Brian Sweeney, age in 2002: 28, 7th pro year
Greg Wooten’s last year: 2002, 7th pro year
Greg Wooten’s career K/9: 5.8
Kevin Hodges, last year: 2001, 11th pro year
Kevin Hodges, career K/9: 5.1
Kevin Hodges, career BB/9: 3.1
Andy Carraway, career BB/9: 1.7 (half of Cloude's, several standard devs away)
Andy Carraway, years as a pro: 3
You’re comparing the last years of AAAA players with many more years of experience who are getting by strictly on guile to a kid who has done this since he stepped onto a pro mound. Hitting and pitching are not analogous as far as age/level goes, but experience does matter.
If you wanna do that, then Taijuan Walker is roughly analogous to Rich Dorman.
Being a crafty career minor leaguer usually means you don’t have a weapon, this is true. He might be Mark DiFelice or he might be Doug Fister.
But Carraway is not one of the proven career minor leaguers that you used as comparisons.
His hits (when not at HD) are low, his Ks are high enough to survive a supposed drop when transitioning to the bigs, and his command is absolute. What we don’t know about him: whether he has the control of the zone the effective, as Fister does, and whether he has a weapon to use in the zone like Vargas does.
There are a couple of guys every year who come through AA with Carraway’s statline and most of them never amount to anything. I could say that about all pitchers, though. Chris Tillman is back for his FOURTH go-round in AAA. His 9 K/9 and amazing arm haven’t helped him make his mark in the bigs. 9k/9 is not a standard of success, it’s a hopeful sign. Same with Carraway’s control. Until we see it against highest-level competition all the tools are just guess-based. It’s easier to predict success for 9K/9, because in theory it speaks to a dominant weapon. Carraway’s path to success will be more subtle if he finds it, and isn’t as easy to predict.
I still see Carraway as a swingman. He could be more, or he could be less. He’s a couple of years off, regardless – plenty of time to see if he can refine his weapon.
~G
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Sandy sez,
How common is a 1.6 walk rate, (without a deadly HR rate, of course)?
My perception of how minor league pitcher *stats* are judged is ... plenty of guys run 7-8 K/9 rates and get a shrug. But, if a pitcher fans 9 per game, he's suddenly a hot prospect, (often even if accompanied by high HR or walk rates).
A "good" walk rate is 3.2. We aren't talking a 25% increase. We're talking a 50% increase. But, even by raw numbers, you move from 7 to 9 Ks and you seriously change perception. You move from 3.6 to 1.6 walks ... and the reaction to the STAT is often a yawn.
Honestly, I think Morrow and Fister are a wonderful off-set pair to consider. Morrow continues to run monster K-rates ... but also continues to struggle to pull the pieces together and keep them there. Fister, with vastly inferior "stuff", comes up and seems to have solved the game overnight.
But ultimately, I don't know the ratio of "failed" sub-2 walk guys versus "failed" 9+ K guys ... that actually got a fair shot in the majors. And this is where I really wonder. I believe teh scouts as a group have always had a bias toward the "stuff". A guy like Ryan or Morrow is going to get YEARS to try and put it all together. Guys like Fister or Saarloos ... if they stumble early, it's a quick trip to the pen ... or back to the minors.
And of course ... without a solid K-rate in the minors, most of these guys will never even get a September call-up. Watching Maddux show up Smoltz for a decade created a significant bias in me toward the cerebral guys with pin-point control over the guys with superior "stuff" that struggle with the concept that pitching is much, much more than just throwing.
A fair question. Does the society of the Union of Soviet Socialist Baseball Republics merely discriminate against Latvian starters with 1+ walk rates and 6-7 strikeout rates? We'll offer some data, and the way we look at it. Could be wrong.
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Q. Do most 6.5 strikeout, 1.5 walk type minor leaguers turn out to be Doug Fister?
A. Well, the pattern recognition seemed to tell us that this type of minor league result usually comes from a tomata can. Surfing the almanacs over the years, it seemed like this was Ken Cloude, Garrett Olson, Bob Wolcott territory. But, pattern recog can steer you wrong. Let's re-check.
Okay, here are the 2002 Tacoma Rainiers. Looking at the BB column, right off the bat we see a PERFECT template member at the top of the chart. Brian Sweeney ran 1.7 walks, 7.1 strikeouts, and a normal HR rate for the 2002 Rainiers.
Ken Cloude also had 1+ walks, though his K rate was lower that year, it was good for his career, 7.5 in the minors. Cloude is a member.
No other Rainier fits the stat profile in 2002.
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Just above the batting table on that Cube page, see the PREV button? Just click that and you get the 2001 Rainiers.
Top of the table: Greg Wooten, 1.7 walks, 6.2 strikeouts.
Nobody else really fits this idea of super-low, 1+ walks, based on finesse rather than power. Tomko's at 1+, but he fans almost a batter per inning, and he's a legit ML pitcher (not a prospect on his way up!) who is outsmarting the kiddies.
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Click the PREV button again and here come the 2000 Rainiers at you. Now we get Kevin Hodges running 1.9 walks with 6.7 strikeouts. Dr. D is starting to feel like his pattern recog held up on this one...
Keep flipping through previous years... Brian Sweeney, Tim Harrikala (remember him?), yep there is Bob Wolcott at 1.7 walks and 7.1 K's back in 1997.
He wasn't a homegrown Mariner, but John Halam-a-rama is pretty much in this template.
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Q. How about if you come at it pitchers first, stats filter second?
A. Yeah, go check the homegrown M's pitchers who have had an impact in the majors ... let's say Freddy Garcia, Gil Meche, Felix, Pineda, Jo-El, Erik Hanson, Mark Langston ... have any of these guys walked 1.6 batters and fanned 6?
Hint: No.
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Q. What if you "studied" it systematically?
A. If you took the last (say) 200 minor league pitchers in AA/AAA who had 1-2 walks and 6-7 strikeouts, without gopheritis... you'd get a few Brad Radkes, of course.
But of course Radke's changeup was a weapon licensed in 27 states. My argument is against minor league "polish" pitchers with no putaway pitch. It's not easy to "study" that from stats databases.
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Q. Supposing that Dr. D's pattern recognition did turn out to be right ... what's going on here?
A. With Greg Wooten, Bob Wolcott, Brian Sweeney, Kevin Hodges, and their ilk ... you are talking about pitchers who do not have the weapon to finish off a MOTO major league hitter.
ML hitters just do a little better job fighting off tough pitches, so there go many of Wolcott's strikeouts. And they do a better job of punishing any little mistake, so there goes Wolcott's HR rate, from 0.8 to 1.4.
We're not talking about an ERA going from 3.50 to 7.00. We're talking about it going from 3.50 to 5.00 in the bigs. But that's enough to keep the kid from sticking.
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Q. So how does such a pitcher do SO well in the upper minors? Like Earl said, there isn't THAT big a difference between Seattle and Tacoma?
A. John Halama and Ken Cloude could throw AAA strikes with impunity. So, no walks.
Usually the guy has a nice change-speed game. He mixes three pitches, all for strikes, and he just never has to tease at all. No walks. Or Ken Cloude did have good command of his fastball - ahead in the count constantly. But if Albert Pujols has the scouting report, and he knows it is 92 at the knees, you're in trouble.
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Q. Doug Fister did okay.
A. Hey hey hey! We are not saying that a 6.5 strikeout, 1.5 walk template and you are DOOMED. No no no.
We're saying that it SUGGESTS that you are an "extra professional" pro pitcher who lacks a putaway weapon (or your K's would show up). But some of these guys do have that weapon! and still run the 6.5 K's.
Ryan Franklin would be an example of a pitcher in this basic template, who is having a respectable career. We're not writing all these guys off. We're saying, guilty until proven innocent. :- ) As in Russia, the defendant gets his chance to prove he didn't do it.
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Fister had ZERO plus walks, by the way. His command ratio was 7, not 4. And from a scouting standpoint he had specialness.
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Comments
The original looks at single seasons, minor league journeymen, who are the guys who tend to have little problem posting 4.0 CMD ratios based on craftsmansship.
For a kid to do it on the way up, that may well be an entirely different template. Good stuff G.
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Probably one of the things that would put Carraway in a different basket would be that he COULD go on to develop a forkball, or whatever, whereas a Sweeney or Wooten has pretty much shown that he's not going to.
If you were to go through and look for 7.0, 1.5 templates from young kids coming up ... it dawns that such a result *would* be quite rare.
That probably WAS a flaw in my pattern recog, that in thinking about 7.0, 1.5 pitchers, my mind was cluttered with journeymen.
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That's why we call it a think tank :- ) ... you can't stop G-Money, you can only hope to contain him...
San-man, could be your point has legs. Would be interested in a better look at kids doing these things their first times into a league.
I had actually found Sweeney myself. What is left out of the above (subtle) use of Sweeney as a supposed example to refute my point is what did he actually do in the majors?
Brian Sweeney: 73 games - 117 innings - 3.38 ERA. 54-K; 24-BB
The sample is too small. But, in the end, Sweeney did in the majors almost exactly what he did in AAA. Wooten never got a shot at the majors, (and his 4.27 ERA in AAA wasn't great ... but wasn't dreadful).
Cloude is the only guy who got 200 MLB innings ... but his overall minors profile has a 3.41 career minors walk rate.
For me ... I would look for CAREER minors walk rates near 2.00. They are extremely rare. But, few of these guys ever get a shot in the majors.
Halama had a 2.2 minors walk rate ... and a 1.9 for AAA. He was a passable #5 start in the majors for 6 years.
What I believe is that MLB (as a whole) believes more or less what you do ... that if you don't have an "out" pitch, you cannot survive in the majors. Therefore, the uber-control guys rarely get a shot ... and if they do, they get yanked at the first bump. At some point, this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If Pineda comes up and gets shelled in his first outing ... "well, that happens ... he'll learn." If the same thing happens to Carraway ... "see, I told you he was a loser."
And remember, I asked for a comparison. RRS was running double-digit K rates in the minors ... he washed out. Or what about Emiliano Fruto? Francisco Cruceta? Jesse Foppert?
My belief is that there is a balance between the value of the "out" pitch vs. the value of "control". But, when it comes to prospects, I believe the thumb is clearly on the side of the "out" pitch. So, MLB (on the whole) is promoting too many guys with "stuff" who never learn to pitch ... while promoting too few who have the super control. This means that attempting to accurately judge the "can be of value" control guys from the "not ready for prime time" crowd is skewed from the start.
In the end, I think baseball is more than happy to run out 10-K prospects who run 5+ ERAs because they "look good" ... while being generally dismissive of the control specialists who come in and run 4.5 ERAs, because "anybody can hit that slop."
I also think Z is on to this and has some math dudes somewhere that are basically saying, walk rate is about 2.5 times more impactful to bottom line run scoring than K-rate.
High Ks are interesting and seductive. Low walks are desirable. But hits get ignored as the third side of the pitching pyramid for some reason. You need two of the 3 to be successful, IMO.
It's okay to walk a lot of guys if nobody can hit you or put the ball in play at all.
It's okay to give up hits in the zone as long as you never walk anybody and can get some strikeouts to limit on-base damage (and potential power shots).
It's fine to not strike anybody out as long as you don't ever let anybody on base, either.
If Carraway was giving up 10 hits per 9 I would not find him interesting. If Robles was, he'd be sunk.
The reason I hold out hope for both is that they give up significantly fewer than 9 H/ 9. Robles gives up 7.4 even after an injury prone and hittable year, which is crazy low. It's how he keeps his WHIP to 1.35 even with his 5 BB/ 9 (!). And it gives him time to work on solving the walks issue either from the rotation, or more likely the pen.
Carraway has a High Desert blip on his hits rate, but most every pitcher does. It's a funny dichotomy: a pitcher who does well at High Desert says something good about his future, but a pitcher who does poorly doesn't actually have it reflect much on him at all. Carraway's HR rate tripled, hits jumped by 3.5 per 9...and the rest of his line stayed exactly the same. He didn't change his approach, which speaks to either stubbornness or teachability. I like to think it was both, knowing a little bit about the kid.
Carraway gave up 7 H/ 9 in leagues where no one can hit quality offspeed stuff, and merely 8 H/ 9 in a league where they can. Looking forward to seeing where he's at this year, but Cloude gave up more in the upper minors (as he lost his Ks in AAA), as did Sweeney (10 in AAA), as did Halama.
Sweeney kept his K and walks rates at nice levels by pouring slop into the zone. Guys would either hit it or K and so he never walked anybody.
I don't like control pitchers with high hits. I don't see any future there.
But control pitchers who can strike out a decent number of hitters without giving up hits?
Them I like a little more. Besides personal makeup and likeability, that's why I believe he has more of a chance at a major league career than some other "control" pitchers.
~G
I agree with you G. I think H/9 in the minors has potential to be predictive. But, then again, I focused on H/9 as the reason Fister was destined to flame out in the majors. I agree that it's a valid item to study - but Fister suggests it is certainly not an absolute.
For what it's worth, he was ahead of Erasmo and behind only Campos, Paxton and Walker.
I just think of Carraway in a John Lieber sort of way. Lieber's fastball was pretty laughable...until you stepped in the box against him.
Still, Lieber had a legit mega-weapon in his slider and he REALLY knew how to pitch. It's not like Carraway has a pitch like that.
Yet. He reworked his slider in college to great effect and his curveball/slider combo create different breaking arcs while staying in the zone. He's a tinkerer and a refiner, and guys like that are always a threat to jump a plateau (or maintain their plateau at higher levels).
He's got some time yet to prove the worth of his skillset and sharpen the tools in his toolbox even further. Keeping his hits low and his control up should buy him that time, even if it's just time to turn into Bronson Arroyo (my mid-projection for a successful Carraway future). No shame in having that career AT ALL, and it's completely possible. Arroyo too would be considered to have a pretty monstrous slider, though - you listening Andy? Keep improving your slider to kill righties with and you can pitch a long time in this league.
Interestingly, John Sickels has Carraway on his watch list. I agree that he's worth watching. Control pitchers that land in AA with nary a hiccup should make you perk up a bit. It does happen, but failure of that type is far more likely than success, which means success should be noted.
And I can't wait to see Pitch F/X on Carraway like we did for Erasmo this year so we can all see what and where he's throwing. Until then it's all my guess vs. yours - just the way it is for most mid-tier prospects.
~G
You get tired of "discussing" open-and-shut cases like Paxton, Ackley, Vasquez and even Carlos Peguero is an open-and-shut case, as far as what we all think he needs to do.
It's in the "unsolvable" cases that the richest analysis will enter in.
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Having heard you guys out on Andrew Carraway, I do see that his on-field results have been considerably more special than I thought at first take.
I'm still left with wondering how he intends to finish off major league MOTO hitters, and *gingerly* file him as a Ken Cloude type until that's answered. But put him a "watch" list? No doubts there.
Carraway is, of course, on the M's own watch list. Starting pitcher at Jackson is a premium org slot.
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Thanks for the reality check amigos. That's a major reason we do SSI, to hear the "hold on there Mr. Jemanji" and get the maintenance dude in to replace darkened light bulbs.