The Loveable Losers wrote:I'm not quite as bullish on Hamels as the previous poster. His skill set is one that you'll see a lot of minor leaguers get by with up until they come up and then get shelled. He's a great strikeout pitcher with a plus fastball and change-up but he's very much a fly ball pitcher - 34.3% gb% so far this year. His 13% park adjusted hr/f% shows that his 1.52 hr/9 ratio is only slightly elevated...at best I would expect it to improve to the 1.28 hr/9 range (barring a change in his gb%). Along with a 9.6 k/9 and a 4.0 bb/9 that hr/9 number projects him to a 4.05 era and a 1.338 whip. If he gets the command in check and lowers the bb/9 he'll be able to mitigate that somewhat (especially the whip) but he's a fly ball pitcher in Philly...he's only going to be able to do so much about the hr/9 and that will always make him risky in the era area.
but he's a strikeout pitcher.. meaning he's gonna throw strikes and try to get it by you. occasionally the good hitters are gonna catchup to his mistakes and hit HRs... i think a lot of power type strikeout pitchers are susceptible to giving up HRs. if he gets his control in check i think his HRs allowed will reduce.
He's definitely worth the 5 bucks. The kid has a chance to be something special as early as next season. A lot of his problems seem to come from being left in the game for one inning too long. I can think of at least 3 starts where he was cruising, got in a tad of trouble in the 6th, gets out of it, then he comes back out for the 7th and gets killed. His last two starts are very promising though.
he's putting up huge strikeout totals and has lowered his walks.....3 games ago he had 12 k's but gave up 3 homers.....up until that point i wasn't really sure what this kid could do.....but there was no way i was gonna drop him after that.....so i stuck with him and the next outing he tosses 8 more strikeouts and minimized the mistakes for a win...then he got another 12 yesterday, with even less mistakes.....i think he's finally starting to figure out how to pitch...he'll still have rough outings (everyone will in phillly with that ballpark) but i seriously think he's turned the corner.
As I said earlier, this kid has great potential. I have seen him pitch incredible and last night was one of those nights. As he matures, he'll learn to throw less bad pitches, which reallyl have hurt him this year, and have better command of the strike zone.
Glad I picked him up the other day from the waiver wire!
The Loveable Losers wrote:I'm not quite as bullish on Hamels as the previous poster. His skill set is one that you'll see a lot of minor leaguers get by with up until they come up and then get shelled. He's a great strikeout pitcher with a plus fastball and change-up but he's very much a fly ball pitcher - 34.3% gb% so far this year. His 13% park adjusted hr/f% shows that his 1.52 hr/9 ratio is only slightly elevated...at best I would expect it to improve to the 1.28 hr/9 range (barring a change in his gb%). Along with a 9.6 k/9 and a 4.0 bb/9 that hr/9 number projects him to a 4.05 era and a 1.338 whip. If he gets the command in check and lowers the bb/9 he'll be able to mitigate that somewhat (especially the whip) but he's a fly ball pitcher in Philly...he's only going to be able to do so much about the hr/9 and that will always make him risky in the era area.
but he's a strikeout pitcher.. meaning he's gonna throw strikes and try to get it by you. occasionally the good hitters are gonna catchup to his mistakes and hit HRs... i think a lot of power type strikeout pitchers are susceptible to giving up HRs. if he gets his control in check i think his HRs allowed will reduce.
You're right that a lot of strikeout pitchers give up a higher number of hr's...but that still doesn't help his era. Better control could certainly help the hr's allowed too.
Snakes Gould wrote:see the thing is, his command was AWESOME throughout the minors and all of a sudden he seemed to lose it. i definitely think the bb's will come down in the future. he does need work from the stretch and holdin runners on base.
The minor league numbers may be deceiving and they may not. I'll profess that I don't know for sure on this one but it's certainly possible that the lack of walks in the minors were due not to Hamels control but to the fact that minor leaguers couldn't lay off his change-up. When you have a plus pitch like that you don't have to throw it right where you want it in the minors...most of the hitters are so overmatched that they'll swing and miss at your mistakes. Again, I have never seen a Cole Hamels minor league game. He may have had pinpoint accuracy there or he may have been Rick Vaughn for all I know. I'm just saying that a low bb/9 or hr/9 in the minors, while usually due to good command, can also be due to overmatched hitters unable to handle a pitcher's stuff.
When Liriano went down hard I needed another ace starter and Hamels was about the only chance at duplicating Liriano's streak of excellent starts. His turnaround started two games ago, I picked him up Sunday and started him today (nervously) agains the Mets...boy did he prove me wrong!
Let's hope he keeps it up!
Everything is easy baby, leave it up to Weezy-baby!
ok so i go online to check the scores, not knowing what happened to my hamel start, thinking "i hope he didnt get lit up, by beltran, wright, etc." just hoping for lots of Ks and maybe a W. and i see a 13-0 score and without looking at who scored the 13, i was somehow in despair thinking cole gave up like 10 runs to the potent mets offense. then i look again, and the 13 runs are from the phillies!
LSUtiger wrote:When Liriano went down hard I needed another ace starter and Hamels was about the only chance at duplicating Liriano's streak of excellent starts. His turnaround started two games ago, I picked him up Sunday and started him today (nervously) agains the Mets...boy did he prove me wrong!
Let's hope he keeps it up!
You know I did exactly the same. I had him the start before this as well. His play by play looks exactly like Liriano's - ground balls when needed, ks when needed. Few more fly outs though. Good pitch count too. He's got Wash on Friday - man a Liriano type pitcher in the National league...
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by fuj » Fri Aug 04, 2006 3:09 am 
