POTD Trevor Bauer - K/BB ratio personified
If you haven't read this article linked by Taro, check it out.
Taro starting to sway us ... at the #3 pick :- ) ... no, just kidding.
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=== SAT's Dept. ===
In the 1970's and 1980's, James used to make this one of his top 5, 6 criteria for a young pitching prospect. He thought high IQ, or at least high baseball IQ, was an important factor in projecting success.
Take two pitchers with exactly the same stuff, one with a 100 IQ and another with a 140 IQ, and there are countless advantages that the smart guy (Jamie Moyer, Erik Bedard, Greg Maddux, etc) has.
There is pitchability - just the ability to out-think hitters and deploy effective pitch sequences.
There is learning curve - the ability to "take" hard-knocks lessons and adjust to them before the arm burns out.
There is the tendency for higher-IQ people to enjoy precision over power.
From a failsafe standpoint, a smart guy hurts his arm, he comes up with alternative approaches quicker.
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etc. etc. .... anyway, agree or don't, James (and I) believe that intelligence is a big advantage on offense. For the same reasons that you don't want a dumb guy playing quarterback, or point guard.
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Offense? Yeah. Quarterbacking a football team, playing point guard on a basketball team, pitching on a baseball team -- those guys hold the ball and attack. In baseball the pitcher attacks the catcher's mitt and the strike zone.
Defense -- cornerback on a football team, perimeter defender in the NBA, or Ichiro swatting "passes" away from the strike zone -- defense values reaction and physical talent over brains.
In baseball, the pitcher is on offense and the hitter reacts/defends. He's like a cornerback breaking up a pass.
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The offense has time to think. A quarterback has spent days thinking about what he's going to do during the next four seconds. A pitcher also has twenty or thirty seconds to think about, and visualize, what he's going to do during the next four seconds.
A quarterback, and a pitcher, can deploy and utilize his intelligence.
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=== K/BB Personified ===
Maybe this guy is the ultimate Oakland A's pitching draftee -- K/BB ratio personified.
By this we don't mean, "A guy who has a very high strikeouts/walk number." We're talking about the reasons a team wants a pitcher who runs a high K/BB.
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K rate itself, reflects stuff. A guy with higher velocity, and more bite on his curve, has more strikeouts.*
You see 9 strikeouts per 9 innings, you know that hitters have a hard time seeing the ball.
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But K/BB ratio reflects how well a guy pitches given the stuff that he has.
Doug Fister, with a 5.0/1.5 ratio, deploys his stuff better than some guy with a 5.0/3.0 ratio. Jered Weaver deploys his stuff better than does (the burned-out) Daisuke Matsuaka. Two guys with the same K rate and same stuff -- whether it's 5k with 89 mph, or 8k with 94 mph -- it's the guy with the good K/BB ratio who is using his stuff better.
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Guys with good K/BB ratio have better mechanics, as a group. They are pitchers rather than throwers, and therefore better bets to stay healthy.
Trevor Bauer, if we are to believe his insane K/BB outcomes and his interviews, is the state-of-the-art on K/BB ratio.
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=== Stuff ===
It ain't like this guy is Brad Radke, either. He's a foot or two short of Tim Linecum in college -- and Tim Lincecum is now four feet short of Tim Lincecum in college.
He's got my fave second pitch for a power RHP, that being the straight change. Think Freddy and Pedro.
All the scouts say his slider is ML plus right now, and he's got a 12-6 change curve ... He supposedly has a Cuban / Luis Tiant ability to come up with even more creative stuff.
He's got 140 strikeouts in 90 innings at UCLA; Lincecum had 200 in 125 innings at the UW, so the K rate is exactly the same and Bauer has a lot fewer walks.
You might even be inclined to think: K advantage = Bauer, since Lincecum could afford to simply step halfway to home plate and power the ball by the hitters.
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It's a major point that Bauer doesn't throw as hard, or deceptively, as Lincecum did. But Lincecum didn't need to throw 98, as it turns out. Bauer piles up counter-advantages higher and higher until they brush the ceiling.
Lincecum's impossibly long fastball made his stardom a no-brainer.
Does Bauer have a "calling card" weapon that practically guarantees his success? I believe he does: it's the Felix arsenal, the 94 mph fastball amplified by three different reliable strikeout pitches to go with it.
It ain't like Bauer's fastball is middling, either. He's 92-96, he shortens the path like Lincecum, and Bauer solemnly swears he'll throw 97-100.
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SSI would not sell Bauer as the 10-Year-1/1 that Lincecum was. But almost, man.
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=== Mechanics ===
Very similar to Lincecum's, obviously, which see.
Though Bauer has the locked front knee that I don't like, in his case that's a quibble.
The broad point is that his CG travels wayyyyyyy forward, as smoothly as if he were an ice skater with Vaseline on his skates, and his arm clears with about four miles to spare on any side.
The sheer oil-slick smoothness with which Bauer's CG travels forward, funnelling its energy into an arm that also decels as if gliding on ice, is pure poetry.
Tim Lincecum kept his front knee flexed so that his CG was feather-light into the finish. Bauer's CG travels forward more heavily, but it's the difference between a wisp of smoke coming at you, vs. a light train on rails that it isn't even making contact with.
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=== Top 3 Emerges ===
Bauer isn't a flavor of the month for us. There are various reasons that SSI -- not being well-informed -- wouldn't consider other pheenoms with the #2 overall:
- D. Hultzen, LHP - 90 mph fastball makes stardom a longshot
- B. Starling OF, F. Lindor SS - unless they're ARod, you don't take HS players over Rendon
- D. Bundy RHP - 100 mph fastball but 3+ years to bigs (injury & David Clyde risk)
- S. Gray RHP - max effort rep, M's would switch him to closing
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Neither should Gerrit Cole be dropped out of the top 3.
It was an overreaction to make him the clear 1 earlier, and it's an overreaction to drop him out of the top 3 now. Big fastball with celebrated straight change, big guy, dazzling results have been there for a while now ... he's pretty clearly ahead of the pack.
Looks like a clear top 3 emerging. The M's will have a franchise commodity for sure.
Taro called this Bauer guy a long time ago. When was your first mention of him as a possible M at #2 there, champ?
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Five years ago, nobody would have had the guts to draft him. But now every other story calls him Tim Lincecum v2.0. Since Lincecum, scouts and directors are no longer risking their jobs by backing Trevor Bauer. They have a bumper-sticker legal defense.
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=== Career Arc ===
John Olerud never spent a single day in the minors, and did not need to.
It's interesting to think about this particular kid going straight to the majors. Would it be much different from a (super-intelligent) NPB pitcher going to the majors?
What do coaches know about baseball that Trevor Bauer does not know? Well, they know Paul Konerko's hot and cold zones, which they can give to Bauer on a thumb drive.
He's a platypus. He's the kid who holed up in his room and hacked PlayStation. You don't sit him down in your class and talk at him, just because you're ten years older than he is.
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I'd be intrigued by the idea of Bauer helping the Mariners this year. Intrigued by, LrkrBoi29.
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=== Best Bet ===
Was never near as much a Cole fan as the scouts were, when they were selling him as better than Rendon. So Cole has a big fastball? Yeah, him and Sidney Ponson and a lot of guys.
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First look at Trevor Bauer, though, this dude is myyyyyy kinda pitcher. Maybe, as Michael Pineda is the salve that healed the Randy Johnson wound, Bauer would be the mindwipe that finally exorcised the Tim Lincecum demons around here.
Pittsburgh takes Rendon, I'll probably be hoping for Bauer over Cole. But either one gives a real nice shot at a drive-through fast food TOR starter.
M's wind up with Trevor Bauer rather than Rendon, I won't shed tear one.
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Nice job Taro,
Dr D
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