No, last year it was 6.5% in High Desert (which is how he defeated the park) - it's 10 for his CAREER. :) Nobody smokes a hit on Robles. His HR/F is under 5%, and his IF/F is 21% (!).
Guys hit infield popups, cans-of-corn to the OF and weak tappers to short against him, but they can't drive the ball.
Robles is a lefty in the low-90s, which is like a righty in the mid-90s, and his curve makes announcers fall out of their seats and batters fall out of the box. And he is in no way a finished product.
He'll be 21 in AA this year, having owned High Desert and the Cal League as well as any pitcher can.
His parks from here out only get more friendly for his pitching style. Pineda, Robles, Hill and Cortes give us 4 really good shots at making hay at that #3 pitching slot, pushing #2 over the next couple of years. None of them are gonna top Felix obviously, but we've still got some guys over the next couple of years who could be interesting arms to add to the big club with lots of potential. We have a lack of depth behind them because we traded Lorin/Pribanic/Aumont/Adcock/etc, but we'll get another restock in the draft, plus guys like Cleto have barely pitched at all. We'll see how we do patching that hole - letting Blandford start is a good thing, and the Ms have said they'll do that.
BTW, just to throw it out there:
http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2009/09/best_pitch_in_b.php
Felix Hernandez has the 6th nastiest FB in the league 2007-2009, Morrow has the 12th...but League, the guy we traded Morrow for would have the 4th, per the comments section, if he didn't have a weird motion that makes him hard to categorize.
A rotation that starts with The King and Cliff Lee and some upside arms, a pen that has League and Kelley and Lowe and Aardsma, and a bunch of prospects either in AA now or hitting it this year (Robles, Pineda, Cortes, Fields, Hill, Orta, Paredes, et al)...There are a decided number of interesting arms on and around the Mariners right now.
And we still have cash to add a Wash or a half-season of Bedard.
Very interesting.
~G
Add new comment
1