Tim Hudson has had a long and successful career. The 36-year-old right-hander owns a 187-100 recrod and a 3.41 ERA in 389 big-league appearances. Now in his eighth season with the Atlanta Braves — after six years in Oakland — he has accumulated 50.5 WAR. Primarily a sinkerball pitcher, Hudson has been a consistent front-line starter despite a pedestrian 6.11 K/9.

Hudson talked about his repertoire, and how it has evolved over the years, when the Braves visited Boston earlier this month.

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Tim Hudson: “When I first signed, I was sinker, slider, split — mostly sinker, split. I didn’t really throw much of a breaking ball; it was kind of a show-me type of pitch. That was pretty much all I had up until I got to Triple-A. Then I started working more on a changeup and a little bit of a bigger breaking ball.

“When I got to the big leagues, I was still mostly sinker-split, with an occasional slider. After about a year or so, I started relying more on a bigger breaking ball that I could throw more often when I was behind in counts. I also started throwing an occasional changeup, which was a different look than my split.

“My breaking ball went from being more of a cutter to more of a slider — just a bigger break. I needed something with a little more depth, something with a little more swing-and-miss potential. I needed something that would move away from a right-handed hitter a little more. The [pitch] I had been throwing had a smaller break, because it didn’t have slider rotation.

“A cutter is just an offset fastball that looks like a fastball and spins like a fastball, but at the very end cuts like a small slider. Read the rest of this entry »

A week ago, John Sickels wrote an interesting blog post, more of a musing than an analysis:

A) At the amateur level (high school, college, etc.), baseball is primarily a game for the children of wealth and the upper middle class. Do you think that is true or false?

B) If you accept that A is true, is that good for the sport and what, if anything, should be done about it?

I accept his proposition. I played Little League baseball for five years or so, and I was a growing boy — I remember how many pairs of cleats and clean white jerseys and pants and metal bats and gloves I went through, to say nothing of the summer camps, the days at the batting cages, and the dues for the league themselves, much of which probably went to the trophy I invariably got for showing up every year. This despite the fact that I was, as many of my readers no doubt will have guessed, no good at all.

Because I wasn’t any good at all, my parents saved on things like travel (because I certainly wasn’t traveling), personal instruction, or the “metal contraption” that Trevor Bauer’s dad built for him.

But I had no idea how much they were spending. Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t mean to beat a dead horse. I know I just wrote about Josh Hamilton’s approach at the plate on Tuesday. We’re not breaking any new ground here, but last night was such a striking example of Hamilton’s current problems, and the four images I’m about to show you make the point so obvious that they need to be recorded for posterity.

Josh Hamilton struck out four times last night. He reached base once, when he was beaned by the first pitch of an at-bat. I’m not going to show you that at-bat, because, well, he got beaned, so I’m pretty sure you know where the pitch was. Here are the MLB Gameday graphics for his other four at-bats.

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Episode 206
David Laurila, curator of FanGraphs’ Q&A Series, talks with Atlanta Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez and shortstop Andrelton Simmons.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 21 min. play time.)

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Christian Bethancourt, C, Atlanta Braves
Current Level: AA
2012 Top 15 Prospects Ranking: 7th
Current Value: Down

This past off-season I spoke with a front office person who had very glowing things to say about Bethancourt – especially on defense. The backstop is continuing to impress observers with his play in the field in 2012 but his offense has been MIA at the double-A level. Bethancourt is hitting a modest .257 and both his on-base percentage and slugging percentage are below .300. His OPS sits at .557. With just three extra base hits on the year (all doubles), the Panama native hasn’t shown any improvements in the power department as the year has progressed with just one of those extra baggers coming since the end of April. Still just 20 years old, Bethancourt has a lot of time to turn things around and Atlanta will almost certainly pick up veteran catcher Brian McCann’s 2013 option ($12 million).

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Pitchers get hurt all the time, but I think we can all agree that CC Sabathia was on the short list of guys who we would expect to make every start in a given season. He’s been a workhorse of the first order for the last decade, but yesterday a twinge in his left groin sent him to the disabled list for the third time in his career and first time since 2006. The Yankees insist that their ace will only miss two starts and return immediately after the All-Star break.

Sabathia’s injury hurts New York but two starts isn’t the end of the world. Unfortunately for them, he wasn’t the only starter they lost on Wednesday. Andy Pettitte (1.4 WAR in nine comeback starts) was struck by a batted ball and suffered a fractured left ankle in yesterday’s game, sending him to the sidelines for a minimum of six weeks and more realistically 8-10 weeks. In the span of about four hours, the Yankees lost their two best starting pitchers.

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The Dodgers dipped into the international market for the first time under new ownership Thursday morning, reportedly agreeing to a seven-year, $42 million deal with Cuban outfielder Yasiel Puig. The 21-year-old Puig broke out in the Cuban Serie Nacional (the nation’s top league) during the 2009-10 season, hitting .330/.430/.581 with 17 home runs in 327 at-bats.

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While watching the Mets pound on the Cubs yesterday, I noticed that David Wright still has a walk rate (BB%) higher than his strikeout rate (K%). If Wright managed to continue this trend through the end of the season it would be the first time in his career he achieved such a feat.

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Trevor Bauer makes his Major League Debut tonight. Carson already wrote about it, and the coverage of his impending promotion has included months of conversation, including a movement to #FreeTrevorBauer. Bauer’s big league debut has been heavily anticipated and is now going to be heavily watched.

However, there’s another guy getting called up from the minors to join the rotation of an NL West team tonight too, and he’s doing it with little to no fanfare. Carson didn’t even mention his start under “other notable games”, and no one has ever used the hashtag #FreeAndrewCashner. So, while the Trevor Bauer Hype Train rolls on, don’t miss out on Andrew Cashner’s first real big league start of 2012, because he very well may be the best pitching prospect to take the mound tonight.

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