When the Giants Come to Town, It's Bye-Bye Baby

04.20.2007
Look at Lowry

The life of most major leaguers is one of constant adjustment. Rookie sensations do not stay sensational for long as the opposition starts to pick apart their weaknesses and exploit them. Perhaps the most talented never need to adjust -- how long has Mariano Rivera been the world's best closer with basically one pitch? -- but for mere mortals, it's change or die.

Which brings me to Noah Lowry. He was a rookie sensation, and through his first 53 big-league games, he was well above a league-average pitcher. Not lights-out, but let's call him a solid B student. That's not easy to do for a soft-tossing lefty with complicated mechanics. Not only was his ERA above league average, but he struck out a lot of batters. Through 2005 he whiffed 249 in 303 innings, or 7.3 Ks per 9 innings. Not Pedro Martinez-like, but very strong. And anyone who saw games like this one could spot his calling card instantly: a "Bugs Bunny" change-up that made batters look cartoonish as they swung and missed.

Last year, Lowry hurt himself in his first start. He only missed a month, but the season never quite got back on track. He had his usual August surge, but note that even with his success, he didn't deliver the same strikeout rate as before. He's not fooling batters as often. He hasn't struck out more than 6 batters in a game since September 2005.

The main reason: hitters have adjusted. They wait and wait and wait for the changeup, and when it's flat, without that two-seam, sinking action, they whack it. Combine that with injury and control problems, and you suddenly have a mediocre pitcher. Mike Matheny saw it early. In 2005 he was telling Lowry to throw more curveballs, fewer changeups. Throwing the curveball well is another matter, and yesterday's game, in which Lowry threw several beautiful curves for strikes, could be a sign that the adjustment period is starting to pay off.

* Fuel for the Lincecum fire: Baseball Prospectus today ranks the top under-25 right-handed starters in the game, majors and minors combined. It's subscription-only, but here's the final list to tease you:

1. Jeremy Bonderman, Tigers (24)
2. Felix Hernandez, Mariners (21)
3. Jered Weaver, Angels (24)
4. Tim Lincecum, Giants (23)
5. Philip Hughes, Yankees (21)
6. Josh Johnson, Marlins (23)
7. Rich Harden, A’s (25)
8. Justin Verlander, Tigers (24)
9. Yovani Gallardo, Brewers (21)
10. Kevin Slowey, Twins (23)
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[April 26, 2007 2:31 PM]  |  link  |  reply
obsessivegiantscompulsive said

You've abandoned blogger! Very nice. Need to fix the Feedburner, still links to your old URL.

But about your logo, you better stick to your day job... I kid!!! It looks nice, I like it.

About Lowry, he's been adjusting all last year, if you look at his month to month rates, his K-rate started low then slowly rose, though never reaching 6.0.

The good news about Lowry's performance last year was his ability to avoid the truly bad games in spite of his inability to strike out hitters. As you know, I calculated the Giants' starters PQS last year - essentially a saber-rating of a quality start - and Lowry, while not dominating, he was able to avoid the big stinkers too.

And the overall stats on PQS shows that the key to having a good ERA is not just being a dominant pitcher, but also being consistent enough to avoid the disaster starts as well. While he could not be dominant, he was at least able to avoid the bad starts, at least until his elbow went bad and he had those horrible starts in September.

Hopefully he is building on last year's lessons.

About the BP Top 10, I'm more shocked that Matt Cain isn't listed on there. Are these other guys really that much better than he is?