Still a pretty small sample of 18.2 IP on the season...but its interesting to look at the components of his success thus far.
His K-rate is down 33% from last year. His BB-rate is up 25%. Those two numbers don't compute to more success of course. But there is one thing that does....his Groundball% is WAY up....its up almost 70% over last year. Groundballs help a lot, especially if you're walking more guys than normal.
So it will be fun to see if he remains a different pitcher in the AL then he was in the NL...or if, over the course of a season, his older pitching patterns re-emerge. As long as he keeps finishing off wins I guess it doesn't matter...but if he starts to struggle at all it might be due to some of the numbers above not holding up.
One thing for sure is that Valverde won't be able to maintain his Left-On-Base Percentage of 95.9%....nobody can. He will allow some runs here eventually....everybody does. Hopefully its just timed to the save opps where he has a multi-run lead to protect....luck plays into it a bit.
He's as fun to watch as a remember him from his days in Arizona though....my wife's family are D-Back's fans, so I watched him a few times out there. Its a fun show....
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