Whoops – You Aren’t Good, Are You?

Over the winter, the Angels decided to acquire Jon Garland to bolster their rotation. In Chicago, Garland’s seasonal performances were something of a model of consistency; 200 IP with a 4.50 or so ERA. The Angels wanted that kind of stability, so they gave up their shortstop, Orlando Cabrera, to get Garland.

Unfortunately for them, they may not have noticed that Garland had taken a step back last year, seeing his stuff lose enough that he began to straddle the line between pitch-to-contact and batting-practice-thrower. As a guy with an average GB%, he just didn’t miss enough bats to sustain any real success, even though the results made him appear potentially useful.

Amazingly enough, Garland’s taken the art of not missing bats to a whole other level so far in 2008. After striking out one batter in six innings last night, Garland has now struck out a whopping four hitters. In 30 innings pitched. That’s an unreal 1.2 K/9 rate. 1.2 strikeouts per nine innings for a major league starting pitcher. Check out the graph:

Carlos Silva has basically set the standard for the minimum possible strikeout rate for a major league pitcher this decade. Garland is making Silva look like Nolan Ryan right now. He is compensating for the ridiculously low strikeout rate by getting more ground balls, but there’s just no precedence for anyone being able to pitch in the majors with a strikeout rate this low for very long. It’s not really working for Garland, either – his 5.04 ERA isn’t much better than his 5.67 FIP.

Garland can’t possibly keep putting the ball in play at this rate, but it looks pretty clear that Garland isn’t going to be the rotation stabilizer that the Angels thought they were getting.