Yes, I Am Going There Again
Posted by ubelmann on Thursday, March 20th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
Spring Training Strikeout leaders, Twins:
18 -- Kevin Slowey
12 -- Joe "Contract Push" Nathan
8 -- The Neshek Button
8 -- Brian Bass
7 -- Phillip Humber
7 -- Dennys Reyes
The Buffet Table (# of innings eaten):
15.2 -- Kevin Slowey
13.0 -- Livan Hernandez
12.0 -- Phillip Humber
11.0 -- Glen Perkins
10.1 -- Brian Bass
Before spring training even started, Kevin Slowey was poised to be the best starter in this year's rotation. He's done nothing in spring training to change that.
(As is the custom for spring training statistics, I have chosen my endpoints to make my case look as good as possible.)
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Ubelkudos!
man, the Nation is cropping up all OVER the tubes.
Man, you beat me to the link to my own article. I am slow today.
I was hunting around for spring strike-out totals for denard span (hoping to add some snark to your post) and ran into it. Nice placement, even if it DID look strangely familiar.
Yeah, there was a little mix-up earlier this week while I was writing it--I guess "private" posts aren't as private as I thought they would be.
Ah. I was wondering what happened to it.
Congrats anyway. Nicely done.
Thanks.
I was wondering about where that excellent piece went... it is very good, even if it seemed to be written for a different audience than this crew, which obviously it was. The Private tag is actually pretty cool. It not only kept non-Citizens from reading the thing, but it also kept the comments out of the recent comment list. Neat trick.
Here's hoping that this will lead you to more opportunities (but don't leave us for greener pastures just yet!).
Don't worry, I have no intentions of leaving the WGOM.
And if you're looking for hitters to pick on due to large strikeout totals in spring training--Garrett Jones (9) and Brendan Harris (8) are the team leaders so far. (Which means, of course, that not only has Brendan Harris thus far failed to field or hit well, but he's not even putting the ball into play all that often. Except for the not hitting part, that makes his ST performance the exact opposite sort of thing that Gardy tends to like.)
Local boy makes good. Nice writeup, ubelmann. I don't like what it says (the truth, etc.), but well written.
Good work, me boy. You make us all proud.
I wonder if Reusse and Top Jimmy will still drone on about how terrible Slowey is.
It seems like every day we congratulate someone around here. Good job, ubelmann.
Good job, Herr ubelmench. Not thinking it's wise to take your numbers racket so public, but here's hoping the masses adore you and the authorities have better things to do.
What happened to the OMG! avatar???
?? It's still there.
For a bit, you had reverted to the PBS logo.
ha! PBS? That was the Emerson, Lake, and Powell album cover.
I sit corrected.
I thought it was some sort of PBS logo too.
Lest anyone think that Slowey's letting his performance go to his head or anything, Gardy is there to calm your fears.
Holy cr@p, he's going to have to talk LNP into giving him a copy of the incriminating photo or something.
I think Gardy's intimidated by Slowey's intelligence. Rightly so.
Before spring training even started, Kevin Slowey was poised to be the best starter in this year's rotation.
I have my money on Light Rail to fill that position this year.
I could see a case for Baker being better than Slowey this year. Slowey has the better projections, but I could see him having a year like Radke's first full season, though I'm hoping more for Radke's second full season. (In terms of overall performance, anyway, not in terms of how they achieve that performance.) If I'm being really even-handed about it, I would say that my main point is that Slowey is closer to being the best pitcher on this staff than he is to being the 5th-best pitcher on this staff. And though management seems not to have thought about this angle, perhaps if he was guaranteed a spot in the rotation, he'd start working more on off-speed pitches like they want him to do.
And there is the operative point. The kid could be working on his pitches instead of worrying about the score. But, it's clear that he should worry about the score if he wants to make the club. Sub-optimization.
I see a trend here, one that I saw last year before being shot down because of sample size:
Slowey
1st seven 2007 starts before being sent to AAA, 19 Ks, 37 IP
Last six starts after callup last year, 28 SO, 29.2 IP
Spring training 2008, 18 SO, 15.2 IP
I think those concerns over Slowey not having an "out" pitch are unfounded. He's starting to look like the pitcher who had 342 K's in 353.2 career minor league IP, with a 1.93 ERA.