RSSThe Golden Age of Young Power Arms
Jun 27
Over the past several years, baseball fans everywhere, myself included, have constantly bemoaned the lack of quality pitching the major leagues. While steroids played a role, expansion and the dilution of pitching was almost certainly a contributing factor in the home run explosion of the late 1990′s and earlier this decade. Among the old-timers, it’s common knowledge that pitching is terrible these days and teams simply can’t find enough quality arms to fill out a roster. And I’ve assumed that to be true.
But, something has happened this year. And I’ve started to question the established wisdom of the ages. How come every single team I watch has at least one young flamethrower who mows down hitters with a fastball up over 96 miles per hour? Why is it that there’s a young ace pitching nearly every single night? How can we simultaneously be in an age of awful pitching and at the same time be in a golden age of young power arms?
Statistics-obsessed devotees of sabermetrics (the absurdly complicated baseball evaluation methodology pioneered by Bill James) have long held that you don’t learn nearly as much about baseball by watching it as you do from analyzing the resulting data. And again, the old-timers spit chewing tobacco on your feet if you even suggest that. Now I don’t really know which point of view is more accurate, but I still think I’d prefer to watch the game than break down a spreadsheet. But, our eyes may be lying to us. Just because we think that pitching is spread thin, and ripping big league pitching is always a good scapegoat for increasing offense (plus, there are a million great baseball phrases to do it. My favorite is, “guys fight each other at the bat rack to get up against this guy,”) it doesn’t mean that it’s true. If you look around the league, you’ll see dozens of dominating and potentially dominating pitchers with cannons for arms who were all born in the 1980′s (does this mean my pro career really isn’t going to happen?)
In Boston, Jonathan Papelbon is a legend in the making of Riverian proportions in the closer role. He’s 26 and throws 96. Also on the Red Sox, Josh Beckett, the likely American League All-Star starting pitcher is only now 27 years old, leads the majors with 11 wins, and throws 97. Behind them are Jon Lester, Daisuke Matsuzaka, and Manny Delcarmen, all of whom throw 95.
The Detroit Tigers have four fire-armed twenty-somethings: Jeremy Bonderman, Justin Verlander, Joel Zumaya, and Andrew Miller. The oldest one is 24! Each day, they vie to see which one will hit 100 on the radar gun first.
Even the San Francisco Giants boast Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum. Vinnie Chulk even throws in the upper 90′s, but at 28, he’s too old to mention here (seriously, 28 is too old?)
Francisco Rodriguez in Anaheim (I hate to point out the obvious, but Anaheim is not L.A.) has been shutting the door at the end of games since 2002 and he’s still only 25.
In San Diego, Jake Peavy is a true ace at 26 and Chris Young is becoming one, though he’s also over the hill at 28.
In Cleveland, C.C. Sabathia has already been in the league for years and is only 26. He’s already up to 11 wins this year. Fausto Carmona throws 97 and is developing into a dominating pitcher in 2007.
Cole Hamels of the Phillies is only 23, but already has 9 wins this season and 256 career strikeouts in 239 innings.
Seattle’s Felix Hernandez, sometimes known as “King Felix,” is only 21 and is already among the most feared arms in the game.
I could keep going, but you get the idea. The point is that, every pitching staff is going to have bad days and look pathetic, even occasionally against a bad lineup (and then it’s fine to make fun of them.) And it’s true that many teams will have at least one guy filling out that last bullpen spot who really shouldn’t have a big league job. But, it might be time to rethink the old-timer’s stance. It’s true, pitchers don’t throw 150 pitches per game anymore, or pitch 20 days in a row and then start both ends of a double-header on the 21st. But, just like those Don Zimmer types didn’t actually walk uphill to school both ways, the message about the old days is louder than the reality. And the reality of today is that there are dozens of exciting, hard-throwing pitchers in their low and mid-20′s who are more than worth the price of a ticket. And if we start throwing in some of the guys who are a few years older, like Tim Hudson, Brad Penny, Dan Haren, John Lackey, Roy Halladay, Johan Santana, and others, we might start to have a different perspective. For all our complaining, any time any of these guys take the hill, we know we just might see something really special. And that alone proves pitching is making a very powerful comeback.
More Notes From the Cheap Seats
One of the great pitching matchups of the year was this past Sunday in San Diego. Josh Beckett got the better of a worn-down Jake Peavy and won his 11th game of the season, costing Peavy his 2nd loss. The Red Sox dragged more than 110 pitches out of Peavy in just five innings. But, the crowd was as electric as you’ll see out in mellow Southern California. From the vault of oddly specific statistics, it was the first time two pitchers with at least 9 wins and no more than 1 loss pitched against each other in many years.
A heavy contender for the American League All Star starting pitching assignment is Justin Verlander of Detroit. It doesn’t hurt that his manager, Jim Leyland, will be managing the AL team and might be inclined to go with one of his own guys. Of course, it also doesn’t hurt that Verlander, 24, is 9-2 going into Wednesday, with a 2.78 ERA and threw a no-hitter a couple weeks ago. Oh, is that all?
Dan Haren of the Oakland A’s has developed into an ace in 2007. Appearing on the scene as part of the 2004 St. Louis Cardinals, notably swept in the World Series by the 2004 World Champion Boston Red Sox (boy, it was really easy to slip that reference in there…,) he was traded to Oakland the following year. After two seasons of 14 wins each, with about a .500 winning percentage and a 4.00 ERA, Haren has taken his 93-95 mph fastball and nasty splitter to new levels, leading the American League in ERA to this point in the season, at 1.78, logging a 9-2 record.
