Has Chris Capuano finally proved the doubters wrong?

[activechamp2006]

There have been so many mixed opinons about this kid all season long.. If he's going to keep it up, will he falter.. but hes been great all season, only one bad start where he allowed 6 runs.. everything else.. 15 of his 16 starts have been atleast 6 innings with 3 runs or less.. and he hasnt pitched less then 6 innings all season long..
Cappy has 8 wins 3.33era 1.17whip 101ks in 108ip
Hes on pace for an amazing season, and I really believe hes the real deal, and may even end up striking out over 200 guys while winning 18 games...
It's time for all you haters to become believers!
Jump on the Capuano banwagon!

[CeeLoGreen]

I dealt Peavy and Hoffman for Capuano and D. Lee.

If Lee comes back strong I think this deal will work out heavily in my favor.

Cap could end up with better stats than Peavy by season's end.

[jlm53089]

I traded Schmidt for him, and next Schmidt has the worst game of the season and Cap has one of his best, lets just hope it stays this way...

[decoy562]

I'm glad I drafted him

[DeadWinterDay]

I'm glad I drafted him

same

[The Loveable Losers]

I was a doubter...his numbers last year did not look good if you delved down under the surface (less than 2-1 k/bb ratio with over 1.25 hr/9). His numbers this year are stunningly good. I'd say he deserves quite a bit of respect now...that 108ip/101k/23bb/10hr line shows that his era/whip of 3.33/1.167 actually INFLATED over what they should be (just under 3.00 era and a 1.13'ish whip). He's been an outstanding pitcher and is the right age to even get better for another couple of years. I had the chance to keep him and while my keeper I took (Rolen) worked out very well and got me some nice picks for next year in a trade I'd almost rather have Capuano as a keeper for next year now.

[roninmedia]

He and Mr. Penny. Drafted them late. Working out great.

[garf112]

I was a doubter...his numbers last year did not look good if you delved down under the surface (less than 2-1 k/bb ratio with over 1.25 hr/9). His numbers this year are stunningly good. I'd say he deserves quite a bit of respect now...that 108ip/101k/23bb/10hr line shows that his era/whip of 3.33/1.167 actually INFLATED over what they should be (just under 3.00 era and a 1.13'ish whip). He's been an outstanding pitcher and is the right age to even get better for another couple of years. I had the chance to keep him and while my keeper I took (Rolen) worked out very well and got me some nice picks for next year in a trade I'd almost rather have Capuano as a keeper for next year now.

This is just a case of pitchers being much harder to predict than hitters. Capuano did show the signs of becoming a good pitcher, though. The problem was that some of his stats from last year (namely wins) were overinflated leading to most experts telling everyone to stay away from him. Had I, and others, looked a little bit deeper, which is funny because everybody thought that they were digging deep to see the anamoly, we would have found a pitcher that was:

26- a perfect age for a breakout season.
a HR/9 that had gone down .6.

If you went back to 2002 and 2003 you would see excellent control and command, albeit in AAA.

2004 was an injury year- and it seems that it takes about a year and a half's worth of pitching for an arm to come fully back, especially control-wise.

Which puts us at 2006.

Now, only if I had put the research in myself pre-draft, I might have picked Mr. Capuano, instead of slow-starting, but pitching well of late Doug Davis.

[Tiki Barber's Barber]

I didn't hear any real reasons why he couldn't repeat last season's performance. Most just assumed it was a fluke I guess, but he's definatley proven them wrong.

[The Loveable Losers]

I was a doubter...his numbers last year did not look good if you delved down under the surface (less than 2-1 k/bb ratio with over 1.25 hr/9). His numbers this year are stunningly good. I'd say he deserves quite a bit of respect now...that 108ip/101k/23bb/10hr line shows that his era/whip of 3.33/1.167 actually INFLATED over what they should be (just under 3.00 era and a 1.13'ish whip). He's been an outstanding pitcher and is the right age to even get better for another couple of years. I had the chance to keep him and while my keeper I took (Rolen) worked out very well and got me some nice picks for next year in a trade I'd almost rather have Capuano as a keeper for next year now.

This is just a case of pitchers being much harder to predict than hitters. Capuano did show the signs of becoming a good pitcher, though. The problem was that some of his stats from last year (namely wins) were overinflated leading to most experts telling everyone to stay away from him. Had I, and others, looked a little bit deeper, which is funny because everybody thought that they were digging deep to see the anamoly, we would have found a pitcher that was:

26- a perfect age for a breakout season.
a HR/9 that had gone down .6.

If you went back to 2002 and 2003 you would see excellent control and command, albeit in AAA.

2004 was an injury year- and it seems that it takes about a year and a half's worth of pitching for an arm to come fully back, especially control-wise.

Which puts us at 2006.

Now, only if I had put the research in myself pre-draft, I might have picked Mr. Capuano, instead of slow-starting, but pitching well of late Doug Davis.

Yeah but going down to 1.27 hr/9 and getting up close to 2 k/bb shouldn't have had any of us overly excited in the prospects for 2006. He just took a MAJOR step forward where I would have expected a minor one. He's gone from close to a 2 k/bb to close to a 5 k/bb ratio and dropped more than a quarter of a home run per 9 from his stats. That's not a progression - that's an epiphany. But this does happen with pitchers...guys like Carpenter (after getting traded to the Cardinals), Putz (after perfecting a splitter)...like you said, pitchers are hard to predict.

I thought Capuano would be pretty solid this year and actually tried to keep him (by trading Rolen in the pre-season) but I figured on something like 7.5 k/9, 3.5 bb/9 and 1.1 hr/9 which would give him an era around 4.08 and a whip around 1.378. I didn't expect numbers like this from him ever and figured he'd top out in a year or two around 8 k/9, 2.8 bb/9 and 1 hr/9 for a 3.60 era and a 1.267 whip. He's blasting those numbers out of the water.