Archive for Tim Hudson

The Colorado Rockies starting rotation has been awful at preventing runs this season. Their collective 6.31 ERA and 5.15 FIP are easily National League worsts, and their walk and home run rates rank at or near the bottom as well. Pitching in Coors Field plays a big part in their performance — as their much improved 4.32 SIERA and 4.44 xFIP indicate — but overall, starting pitching has been a major weakness for the disappointing 25-41 Rockies.

That doesn’t say very much for Jeremy Guthrie, who has pitched so poorly in a poor rotation that he is being moved to the bullpen. The season has been nightmarish for the usually steady 33-year old starter. His strikeout rate has dropped from around 14% to 10%. His walk rate has risen from 6.5% to 8%. His home run rate has ballooned by an entire home run per nine innings. He has managed just 59 innings over 11 starts, with an ugly 7.02 ERA, 6.72 FIP and 5.09 SIERA.

The season isn’t yet halfway over so this could all just be an extended slump bound to regress. It could also be a combination of general aging and pitching in a tougher park. However, as it currently stands, Guthrie moved to the easier league, and out of baseball’s toughest division, and has declined in literally every area. Believe it or not, this is fairly rare throughout major league history.

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I think it was Earl Wilson who said baseball is a nervous breakdown, divided into nine innings, or something to that effect. I imagine the Atlanta Braves are starting to relate to that sentiment.

On May 20, the Braves beat the Tampa Bay Rays 5-3 in rather classic Braves style — with a win, a hold and a save from Tommy Hanson, Jonny Venters and Craig Kimbrel. They were 25-15 and stood atop the National League East by a game-and-a-half and appeared to be a serious playoff contender — if not the likely NL East champs. Since then, they’ve gone 9-16, they’re 4.5 games back of the Washington Nationals and they’re fighting to stay in contention for a wild card spot.

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News broke late last week that Johan Santana was experiencing fatigue in his surgically repaired left shoulder. Though there isn’t any new damage to the area, the news was unsettling, especially since he had just began throwing rehab assignments in the minor leagues. On July 28, his first taste of live action since September 2 of last season, Santana pitched three scoreless innings for St. Lucie, allowing two hits while striking out three. Nothing could be gleaned from the outing other than the fact that he had progressed in his rehab enough to actually pitch in a game.

Not much is known about what will happen to him from here on out. Few athletes have ever had the same surgery — Mark Prior, Chien-Ming Wang and NFL quarterback Chad Pennington round out the list of those with surgeries to fix torn anterior capsules — and the fatigue may or may not lead to further treatment. Right now, Santana will rest for a week before being reevaluated. If the fatigue subsides, he will probably continue his rehab, unless the team decides to shut him down. That decision would only hold water if the Mets felt the risk of further aggravation was high.

Though the Mets aren’t going to make the playoffs this season, meaning the return of Santana isn’t the difference between winning or losing the division or wild card, getting him back on a major league mound would have been a big boon for the organization. As the highest-paid player and best pitcher on the team, even making two or three starts in September would have re-acclimated him to higher leverage situations, when the arm tends to undertake more stress. In addition to getting him back on the mound for their own evaluations, Santana’s performance this season may have had trade ramifications.

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Frank Wren’s modus operandi to the 2010 offseason: Replace younger, healthier players with older, more injury prone players. He’s not a doctor, but he plays one in real life. Actually, I’m not here to pick on Wren. You can make arguments for all of his acquisitions this offseason. But seriously, this is getting weird.

Last week Wren traded Javier Vazquez and essentially replaced him with Tim Hudson. Hudson threw a grand total of 42 innings last season for the Braves, and it was enough to convince him to re-sign him to a 3-year/$28 million deal. That pretty much sealed Vazquez’s fate as a Brave, as no one was interested in picking up Derek Lowe’s ugly contract. Vazquez has thrown over 200 innings the past four seasons, averaging 5.3 WAR per season during that span. Hudson has been a 5+ WAR pitcher four different times over his career, and the success rate of Tommy John surgery is pretty good. This might work out just fine, and at least the Braves got a decent return for Vazquez.

The Braves also replaced 30-year-old Rafael Soriano with 38-year-old Billy Wagner, who is also is coming off of Tommy John surgery. Soriano was a 2 WAR reliever in 2009 but has a checkered injury history of his own. Still, he showed us last season what he is capable of. Soriano surprisingly accepted arbitration, but the Braves had no trouble finding a taker for his services, swapping him to Tampa Bay for Jesse Chavez.

Now the Braves are replacing Adam LaRoche with Troy Glaus. Glaus is reported to have signed for a $2 million deal, with incentives. The deal is pending a physical, but the well-respected Dr. Lewis Yocum has already given the thumbs up on Glaus’ surgically repaired shoulder to interested parties. It’s worth noting that it was more than just Troy’s shoulder that limited him to just 14 games last season; he also experienced troubles with his back.

Glaus will play first base with the Braves, which should help health-wise. When he’s right, he is plenty productive. Over his career, his wRC+ is 123, and in his last healthy season Glaus posted a 131 wRC+ with the Cardinals in 2008. For the money, this is a nice upside play in an iffy 1B market for Wren and Co. On the flip-side, they’re obviously showing that they are not counting on a whole lot from Glaus.

I’m seeing a lot of roster-churning going on, but I’m not sure I’m seeing a lot of progress. If anything, it looks like they’ve taken a step back. Jason Heyward could go Cameron Maybin on the Braves, Matt Diaz may not be able to handle regular duty, and Glaus, Wagner and Hudson are all too familiar with the disabled list.

The Braves were in shouting distance of the wild card last year. If they want to send Bobby Cox out a winner, filling their needs with a bunch of injury-risks in hopes of improving seems like an “interesting” way to go about accomplishing that task. Considering some of the alternatives, it might have been the best, but definitely not the safest approach. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

Tim Hudson made his long awaited return from Tommy John surgery late Monday night. While he showed some rust, he performed OK over all — allowing two earned runs over 5.1 innings with 6 hits allowed and three walks, while striking out five.

Here’s his movement graph. Pitch F/x apparently forgot the scouting report on Huddy, so rather than then taking the time to manually reclassify his pitches, I just broke them down by velocity.

Still a very nice sinker, splitter, cutter and curve for Hudson. He averaged about 89 MPH with his fastball and hit up to 92, so the early returns are encouraging. Thank goodness for Dr. Jobe’s miraculous invention. But now what do the Braves do with their rotation? With Hudson’s return, the Braves now have six good starting pitchers in their rotation, an embarrassment of riches. Something has to give.

Javier Vazquez 181.1 IP – 3.18 ERA – 2.83 FIP – 48.4 RAR – 5.4 WAR
Jair Jurrjens 171 IP – 2.89 ERA – 3.75 FIP – 29.3 RAR – 3.1 WAR
Derek Lowe 164.1 IP – 4.38 ERA – 3.73 FIP – 28.6 RAR – 3 WAR
Thomas Hanson 89.2 IP – 3.15 ERA – 3.98 FIP – 13.1 RAR – 1.4 WAR
Kenshin Kawakami 142.2 IP – 3.97 ERA – 4.30 FIP – 16.3 RAR – 1.7 WAR

The odd man out is reportedly Kenshin Kawakami, who was signed as a free agent from Japan over the winter and has proven to be about what the Braves had hoped: a little better than league average. Teams would be blessed to have him as their 4th starter, he’s now the Braves’ 6th starter, making him the best swing-man in the biz.

So what do the Braves do with this wonderful problem that they have in the offseason? I know the saying goes that you never have too much pitching, but Hudson has a $12M option for next season. While that’s somewhat tempting given the fact that Huddy may now be as good as new, if the Braves decide to pick it up, that would mean they would be allocating $45M to four pitchers in their rotation. Lowe is guaranteed $15M next year. Vasquez, $11.5M. Kawakami, around $7M. With the presence of two terrific cost-controlled options of Thomas Hanson and Jair Jurrjens and the Braves in desperate need of some offense, Hudson is probably headed for free agency this year. Millions of dollars are on the line for Hudson, with just a few starts remaining.