Tim Hudson is pitching excellent this year as usual, but for some reason his K's seem to be way down. His WHIP and ERA are among the best in the game, yet he can't seem to rack up any strikeouts, whats the deal?
Pitching isn't all about striking guys out. I have him on several of my teams but I have not seen him pitch much live so I can't comment on actually seeing him. However, his ERA and WHIP indicate that he is pitching well. I would guess that he is keeping the ball low, getting a lot of ground balls, and pitching to contact. I would say that this is a very good sign for him because you would have to figure that his K's will come around and when they do he will be virtually unhittable I would imagine. If you need K's bad well then i guess it hasn't been good for you, but I have been enjoying his performance so far.
Hudson is the epitome of an efficient pitcher. He keeps the ball down in the zone, which generates a lot of hits smashed into the dirt. He was one of the best - if not the best in pitches per inning in 2003 averaging around 15 per. He is probably not going to strike out 200 batters a year like some of the other aces, but he is still a great pitcher. He will go deeper into ball games, and keep his endurance up long term by throwing less pitches. Fantasy wise, he is a notch below a guy like Wood (healthy) because he lacks the ability to strike out 200 a year. That being said, he isn't a bad guy to build a staff around.
I have had Hudson on my fantasy teams for the last 3 years and he is the definition of an ace. He is very consistant and the fact that he could easily have an era under 3 and a whip under 1.10and a decent win total makes him more valuable than wood in my eyes . (But that really depends on the makeup of the rest of your staff.) Hudson is definatly not a k pitcher, however I still think he can pull off 140-150k's this year.
I think 3 years ago hudson had many many more K's but the trade off of that was that he also had a lot more walks. Fantasy wise that meant Higher Era, and whip. Last year the K's went way down but so did the walks and the result was an even better whip and era. This year the K's have gone even FARTHER down, yet he seems even more dominant.
As others have mentioned, the entire A's pitching philosophy is being efficient. The Big 3 could care less about K's if they're winning. Harden will end up taking the same step in his career if he is to take his game to another level.
Another pitcher to watch is Carlos Zambrano in the future, he's becoming more and more efficient with his pitches. He's starting to understand he doesn't need to blown a mid-90's fastball to get an out. I'd expect his K-rate to decline over the next 2-3 years as he matures as a pitcher. 2 years ago, Carlos couldn't go 6 w/o throwing 100 pitches.
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by Rodsky11 » Thu May 20, 2004 6:48 pm 
. (But that really depends on the makeup of the rest of your staff.) Hudson is definatly not a k pitcher, however I still think he can pull off 140-150k's this year. 
