Living with low velocity
Fangraphs is always adding to it’s stat-y goodness, now including pitch type leaderboards. Just out of curiosity, I wanted so see what big league right-handed starters in the MLB have P.J. Walters like velocity.
Average fastball velocity:
Livan Hernandez 83.6
Greg Maddux 84.7
Paul Byrd 85.6
Matt Morris 87.4
Josh Fogg 87.7
Greg Maddux is on another dimension, so just forget you saw his name there.
ZiPS projections for each:
Livan-193 innings, 5.55 ERA
Maddux- 200 innings, 3.92 ERA
Byrd- 171 innings, 5.00 ERA
Morris-188 innings, 4.98 ERA
Fogg- 152 innings, 5.27 ERA
This is a standard collection of back of rotation inning munchers, outside of the future Hall of Famer. That is no slight to Walters, a back end starter that makes the league minimum is a very useful player. Livan is set to make $5m this season, Byrd $7.5, Morris $9.5 and Fogg came to the Reds at a bargain basement rate of $1M. Morris and Byrd contracts came prior to this past winter’s market correction of overpaying for these kind of guys. Of these pitchers, Byrd and Fogg resemble Walters a little more in that they both heavily rely on their changeup; Fogg 22% of the time and Byrd 18%. Both of their changeups have some noticeable horizontal movement. Byrd himself even has called his changeup a screwball. Byrd may be the P.J.’s best comparison, him being ultra-stingy with walks, another trait he is known for.
The point is, while P.J. had some amazing numbers last season, he’s still a C prospect in my book.
Filed under: P.J. Walters
erik
azruavatar
fewgoodcards
roarke49
theredbaaron
There’s a bit of apples-and-oranges at work here. All these other guys, even Maddux, had significantly more velocity when they first came up, and as they aged, had to trade it for pitching smart. Many, of course, never make the trade, they just disappear from sight.
It sounds like the upside is to discover that Walters has a 40-year-old brain in a 23-year-old body. It’s not out of the question; after all, he’s been succeeding so far. I’d still rather see him find an extra 2 or 3 mph lying around in his mechanics. I’ve never seen him in person; are his mechanics “mature”? And is he COMPLETELY reproducible with them, no matter what he’s throwing, so that he doesn’t tip pitches at all? If the answer to the first question is “no” and the second one is “yes,” there may still be possibilities here.
He did fairly well against the big club today. It appears the Springfield manager is just trying to get a lot of his pitchers experience againt the MLB players. I would like to have seen if the MLB hitters would have done any better the 3rd time through.
While there are some significant differences, Walters reminds me a lot of Brad Thompson. Thompson, like Walters, had fabulous minor league numbers built around very good K:BB ratios.
A C prospect? I understand everything your saying, but the guy has dominated since, umm forever.
In high school PJ drove almost two hours to and from school every day because his hometown coach was an idiot. He then made good grades, had a .66 ERA, and completely dominated teams. Not just bad high school teams but he dominated Hialeah who was the number one team in the country at that point.
He then went to pitch at South where he was given books (3% scholarship) and was expected to redshirt his freshman year. By midseason he was carrying the pitching load throwing 9 inning games and still dominating. Im sure you know most of his college achievements which include his 9 inning shutout against Auburn and his 11 inning win over FSU. Heres some info from from warchant.com on the second win:
“Walters was phenomenal for the Jaguars. After pitching eight innings Friday in a conference game, the junior came back and threw all 11 innings striking out 11 and issuing just one walk. He threw 147 pitches and allowed just the two runs.
“(Walters) was better the seventh through the 11th than he was at the start of the game,” said Ryne Malone when asked about the Jaguar ace. “That was something I have never seen before. He is a great pitcher. You have to tip your hat to him and give him all the credit in the world.”
After college he was then drafted behind two of his fellow pitchers from South and went in the 11th round. He was given a break because the cardinals wanted to rest his arm, and then in his first year back he put up the numbers you guys saw last year moving up through the minor leagues in a hurry.
Looking back at that quote from Warchant, something most of you guys have never seen is him throw 90+ consistently in the late innings of a game. I know what your thinking, but im dead serious, he picks up velocity as the game goes on. In the 11inning game that night he threw 90+ from the 7th inning on. He might as well have been unhittable by the 11th inning. Did you guys think his college coach just let him throw 9 innings all the time because he looked tired?
So, the point is, that at every level he has been doubted and had to go out of his way to prove himself. This is the same stuff as last year and the year before and the year before that…
Also wanted to post this where you picked it right last year… to bad you wont look as smart this time next year when we look back at that C prospect statement.
http://futureredbirds.com/2007/01/27/sleeper-pj-walters/
I respect your opinions on Walters. I like him, and I’m rooting for him. He handled the big league lineup very well in the exhibition game versus St. Louis. However, I stand by my comments but I’d be happy to be wrong.
Thanks for dropping by, but if you want to keep commenting here, lose the snark. Thanks.
Y:
I can understand your loyalty for a guy that you like (and maybe you know him personally?). You have to understand, though, that everyone that writes here hopes that all of the Cardinals prospects succeed. At the same time, we try to be objective and honestly write about the abilities and limitations that we see in each player. Trust me, we will be the first ones to acknowlege if we’ve missed on our analysis - and like Erik said, we will be very happy if we are wrong about any negative analysis.