Volquez Enigmatic in 2010
Edinson Volquez is back in the rotation for the second time in 2010 after missing the entire first half of the season due to Tommy John surgery (with a PED suspension thrown in for good measure). Volquez’s results haven’t been much to write home about, as in nine starts prior to yesterday’s start against Arizona, Volquez held a 5.14 ERA and a 4.98 FIP. The Reds have to hope that Volquez can anchor their rotation in the playoffs, as there are definitely some question marks after Johnny Cueto and Bronson Arroyo.
The Reds really haven’t had any idea what to expect from Volquez this year, and his results so far really aren’t giving any concrete answers. Take a look at his game scores so far this year – his results can be pretty well described as all or nothing.
This includes his latest start – a 55 game score against the Arizona Diamondbacks in a losing effort. Volquez hasn’t recorded a game score between 34 and 55 all season, which only goes to enforce this idea of all or nothing.
The problem for Volquez has been a 6.0 BB/9. He survived with a 5.8 BB/9 in 2009, posting a 4.35 ERA despite a 5.01 FIP, but his BABIP (up to .338 from .231) has risen and is forcing him to pay for the free passes. Not only that, but his HR/FB rate is still at a high level, 16% after 14% last season.
On the encouraging side for the Reds, Volquez’s velocity is right where it’s been his whole career, and he’s striking out 9.9 batters per nine innings, which would be a career high over a full season. His ground ball rate – something that stabilizes relatively quickly in small samples – is also up above 50% for the first time in his career.
It’s hard to say which Volquez the Reds can expect for the stretch run and the playoffs. The velocity is there, but the ERA is elevated. The strikeouts are up, but so are the walks. There are more ground balls than ever, but the ball is still leaving the yard. We’ve seen on multiple occasions that he can still bring it – his 69 game score against Colorado in July and particularly his 84 against Pittsburgh last week were both solid performances, and outside of a few hits, he looked good against Arizona yesterday as well. Recent results are encouraging, but Volquez’s performance has to be considered anything but a sure thing going forward.
Jack Moore's work can be seen at VICE Sports and anywhere else you're willing to pay him to write. Buy his e-book.
Bottom line: he was never as good as people thought when he went 17-9
He was new to the NL for a good number of those dominating performances. Arroyo was also very successful in his first 2/3 of a season coming to the NL.
Once a team has seen you a few times, they scout and adjust.
To me the inconsistency, or lack of middle ground, screams “mental preparation” (or lack thereof). It could also be that he pitches very well against poor hitting lineups, and not so much against good hitting teams.
The “on” or “off” aspect of pitching, to me, is surprisingly commonplace. I noticed this when I was looking up game logs and recording data for quality starts and non-quality starts. Seems like pitchers, even the good ones, either give up [1] 2 runs or less or [2] 5 or more. It was rare that a SP gave up something like 4 runs in 7 IP or even 3 runs in 6 IP.
Aside from a steadily declining strikeout rate, Arroyo has been essentially the same pitcher every year since he arrived in the N.L. Also he did a decent amount of pitching for the Pirates before his trade to BOS, so it wasn’t a debut when he came to the Reds, but rather a reintroduction.
It’s hard to compare the two as Volquez retains much higher strikeout potential and is probably better at inducing ground balls while Arroyo is simply more experienced and has much greater pitchability. They really are entirely different pitchers in terms of stuff and style. Having watched many of Volquez’s starts in his 17-win season I can attest to there being some luck there, but anecdotally speaking he also had a remarkable ability to pitch himself out of jams. It remains to be seen whether that is sustainable once he returns. Volquez actually has a lot to learn, and was quite raw in 2008. There’s quite a bit of room for growth there.
A.) He went 17-6
B.) How do you figure? He was just a better pitcher in 2008 than he was in 2009 (obviously pitching with injury) and 2010 (obviously recovering from injury). Give him a full offseason to recover, and then we can begin to evaluate how good of a pitcher he was. You don’t post a 138 ERA+ over a full season if you aren’t a good pitcher. He obviously hasn’t been the same since then, but it’s not like there aren’t legit reasons. The guy had freakin Tommy John.
Yeah, it’s hard to judge without a full healthy offseason, spring training, etc…. Liriano, Carmona are a couple guys who come to mind who had a breakout year, followed by injuries/down years and are now rebounding…
Attributing his early success as being new to the NL is off… he was relatively new to the majors, just like every young pitcher. I don’t think his success had anything to do with a league change. It’s not like he had a run of mediocre years in the AL before switching over.
I didn’t say he wasn’t a good pitcher. I do think he’s not as good as his initial debut in the NL, but still a pretty good pitcher.
As I mentioned Arroyo had a very good NL debut season as well, and then normalized a bit.
Stating that someone isn’t as good as they were in their debut season (in the NL) isn’t the same thing as saying that they aren’t any good.
On a side note, I would love to have the time to go through all pitchers’ starts this year and categorize them as “quality start”, “mediocre” or “poor start”. From what I have seen for the 20 guys I have looked up, the vast majority of the starts are either QS or poor. I started that activity after the article stating that Joe Saunders basically lucked his way to a really good W-L record, but what I found is that he pitched outstanding in the starts he won, and really, really, really bad in his losses … so his W-L record and ERA did not match up.
I’m curious as to whether that is the case for the majority of SP’s.