Looking ahead to 2011 requires a quick examination of the past. What follows is a quick snapshot of the aces of the AL Central (according to mlbdepthcharts.com) and how they go about their business. I’ve included their Marcel (via Fangraphs) projections for K/9, BB/9, HR/9 and FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching). Also, I’ve ranked each pitcher according to my thoughts, using the best projected pitcher in the AL Central (Verlander) as the benchmark (100). You could say this means I think that Francisco Liriano is 96% as good as Justin Verlander.
(100) DET: Justin Verlander (R) 8.72/2.85/0.69 - 3.18
Justin Verlander stands out as most likely to be the best starting pitcher in the American League Central this year. He made a paradigm shift in his pitching last year, using in 2010 the most effective change-up in his six year big league career. He also relied less on the fastball that made him so dominant in 2009, and for the first time was able to use a slider to positive effect. He went from a pitcher who threw fastballs roughly 65% of the time for the first five years of his career to someone who threw only 58% fastballs last year. He saw a slight decline in strikeouts from 2009 to 2010 due to the fact that he wasn’t throwing his power pitch as often, but was also not hit as hard and saw his ground-ball rate improve due to mixing in craftier, harder-to-predict pitches.
(96) MIN: Francisco Liriano (L) 8.51/3.23/0.75 - 3.48
Francisco Liriano stands to put up similar (if not better) strikeout numbers than Verlander, but is hampered by well-documented control issues. Last year he picked up the confidence he once had in his slider, throwing it over a third of the time (vs. 26% coming back from surgery in 2008 and 2009). Of course, the slider isn't quite as frightening as it was when he first came up in the bigs. He doesn’t throw it as fast or miss as many bats as he used to, but it’s still the most devastating slider in Major League Baseball and hopefully he’s throwing it in such a way that it doesn't kill his elbow again.
His control was also much improved last year, specifically his ability to throw the first pitch over the plate for a strike. Target Field should even help him by forgiving a hanging slider or two throughout the year. I don’t know if he’s working on developing his change-up (a pitch he throws 18% of the time), but finding a way to turn that into a more above-average pitch would seem like a logical next step for both the southpaw’s craftiness and arm health.
(89) CWS: Mark Buehrle (L) 4.91/2.21/0.87 - 4.03
Mark Buehrle’s K/9 and BB/9 rates are both so low, he looks like he belongs more to Rick Anderson than Ozzie Guillen. He’s also probably the least “ace-like” on this list when it comes to traditional power-pitching tendencies of ace pitchers. A fastball/cutter/change-up pitcher, he relies on his ability to place the ball exactly where he wants because he doesn’t posses the velocity to strike hitters out. Buehrle’s stats the last two seasons are remarkably consistent: just over 200 IP, right around 100 K and 50 BBs. The only major change was a drop in HRs allowed (27 in 2009, 17 in 2010). This could be due to his decision to decrease use of his cutter (25% in 2009, 15% in 2010) and use his fastball more. While his fastball tops out around 87 MPH, his cutter is not as effective as it was in 2007 and 2008. When he got taken deep a bunch in 2009, he may have decided it was due to a lack of life on the cutter and moved away from it last year.
(83) KCR: Luke Hochevar (R) 6.55/3.10/1.01 - 4.23
2010 was a year of pitching changes for Kansas City’s Luke Hochevar as well. Looking at his pitch type data, he significantly decreased his slider and curveball rates (23% to 12% and 13% to 9%, respectively) and discovered instead a cutter and a change-up. This is interesting considering that his slider was one of the most effective in baseball in 2009. He still favored the slider when far ahead in the count. The paradigm shift seemed to cause a few problems. He was throwing his fastball harder last year (91 MPH career avg vs. 93 MPH last year), and the cutter has much more velocity than his slider. This means he decided to sacrifice spin in the name of velocity (whether this was to avoid injury, I don’t know). It worked for him, because he missed more bats than ever last year in April, May, and June. In June of last year he went on the 60 Day DL with elbow strain. He came back for five starts in September in which he seemed to throw more tentatively. Whether this is a harbinger of more elbow problems to come or not remains to be seen. It will also be interesting to see if his fastball has as much life this year, and what he decides to do about throwing his cutter vs. his slider. If he can regain his early to mid-season form, he is liable to outperform his projections by a decent margin.
(82) CLE: Fausto Carmona (R) 5.66/3.64/0.81 - 4.34
2010 marked the full-time return of Fausto Carmona to the ranks of starting pitchers in Major League Baseball. Back in the days when he burst onto the scene (2007), he had a sinker that had him posting ridiculous GB rates (64%). After a hip injury limited his 2008 participation, he came back in 2009 and had lost all ability to sink his fastball, earning him a demotion all the way to single-A. In 2010 he came back, re-discovering a sense of control (dropping his BB/9 from 5 to 3) and got the job done with a mix of an above-average fastball, slider, and the most effective change-up he’s had in the last few years. Hitters are making a little more contact than before and getting the ball in the air more, but his increase in FB% is tempered by the fact that a disproportionately high number of his fly balls are pop-ups (as opposed to near home-runs). Considering that his improved control is the result of finding a new mix of pitches, I think it’s reasonable to expect him to outperform his projections this year, especially when it comes to BB/9.
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