Free Kevin Slowey

There are a lot of bad starting pitching in baseball, I mean usually the back end of the rotation is a revolving door of starters due to injuries and also simply in effectiveness. After reading this, I began to think how the Twins rotation should be situated, since they have 3 or 4 pitchers (depending if you count Pavano) that essentially are the same. These pitchers are Kevin Slowey, Nick Blackburn, and Scott Baker. We will leave Pavano out of this because he is slated to be the Twins #2 starter and was never in the battle for the last 2 spots in the rotation.


Going into this season for the first time in quite some time the Twins weakness is there pitching as a whole. They have become an offensive team over the last couple of years. The bullpen is in shambles after the loss of Matt Guerrier and Jon Rauch. But with Joe Nathan back in the mix after missing last year after Tommy John surgery the Twins bullpen should be at least average. But the rotation is the thing that scares me most.


So the question is, did the Twins make the right decision by picking Blackburn and Baker? I believe they made the right call with Baker, but not with Blackburn. I even threw out Blackburn's 2010 season where he had elbow problems. But other then the 2008 Tie Breaker game he hasn't been to impressive.


So I've crunched the numbers. Scott Baker is the best pitcher of the bunch, based on the numbers. So it is down to Kevin Slowey vs. Nick Blackburn.



Kevin Slowey vs. Nick Blackburn


A quick glance at their numbers can be deceiving. All the stats from here on out are over the last 3 years.  Slowey is 35-20 with a 4.36 ERA, while Blackburn is 32-34 with a 4.44 ERA. Pretty similar right? But those are just surface numbers, but when you dig deeper and look at FIP (fielding independent pitching) and xFIP (expected FIP). The Hardball Times explains FIP as such, "Fielding Independent Pitching, a measure of all those things for which a pitcher is specifically responsible. The formula is (HR*13+(BB+HBP-IBB)*3-K*2)/IP, plus a league-specific factor (usually around 3.2) to round out the number to an equivalent ERA number. FIP helps you understand how well a pitcher pitched, regardless of how well his fielders fielded" so FIP is basically pitching that includes only walks (BB, HBP), home runs, and strike out, and excludes anything hit in play. So when you look at FIP, Slowey has a pretty significant advantage 4.01 to Blackburn's 4.58, and that half a run (.57) is huge over the course of a season. Also the xFIP are not that close either (closer, but still not close enough to make an argument) Slowey sits at 4.11 and Blackburn at 4.46, the .35 run advantage that Slowey own is significant. Dig even deeper and look at their respective K/9 rates the gap widens, Slowey sits at a respectable 6.95 and Blackburn at a below average 4.21 (Blackburn is a ground ball pitch, more on this later), that is roughly 3 strikeouts better per nine (2.74). Both have extremely good walk rates, with Slowey being slightly better 1.5-1.94 (lower being better in this case). But where Slowey really sets himself apart from Blackburn is his sterling 4.62 K/BB rate, which over the last 3 years (with at least 400 IP) is fourth overall in baseball, the only guys that can best it are people you probably heard of, Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, and Dan Haren. Blackburn sits at a respectable 2.18, which sits 49th overall, out of 87 pitchers who had 400 IP over the last 3 years. 


Okay, so after you digest, understand that we are talking about to pitchers that are extremely similar (based on pitch repertoire and pitch speeds look here and here), but also get out in completely ways, Slowey with strikeouts and fly balls mostly and Blackburn with mostly ground balls. So Slowey is an extreme fly ball pitcher, with a FB% of 48.3 with a HR/9 rate of 1.25, so he does give up quite a few home runs. But Blackburn gives up 1.17 HR/9 which is extremely high for the extreme ground ball pitcher that he is (GB% of 46.9%) and has a HR/FB% of 10.7%, compared to Slowey's 9.3%. So Slowey gives up a higher percentage of fly balls, but has lower percentage of them go out of the yard, his HR/9 rate is still high, but not much higher than Balckburn's. With Blackburn producing a ton of ground balls and not striking out a ton of hitter he has to rely on his fielders more, which can be alright, since the Twins usually always are strong on defense, especially infield defense, but it also can lead to errors and ground balls sneaking out of the infield for hits.

This is why I believe Kevin Slowey should be the 5th starter, he has superior numbers with basically the same pitch repertoire (minus Blackburn's sinker). The number suggest it at least.

I guess I am also not saying Blackburn should be out of the rotation, it depends on how Duensing fares in a starting role. But if it was down to Kevin Slowey and Nick Blackburn, I would go with Slowey every time, but thats just me. Maybe gardy knows something I don't know.