John Sickels wrote a post on his blog, Minorleagueball, linked to the left by the same title on Tuesday, August 12. The basic gist of the post is that Sickels still thinks Crick is going to be a good SP in the majors someday as opposed to Closer or setup man as some other analysts have suggested. Sickels' reasoning is that for a pitcher as young as Crick, the high K rate and velocity trump the high walk rates, which he believes Crick will eventually get under control. The comments were mostly supportive, but there is still a lot of angst about the walk rates.
The reason I am writing this post is because I think there is strong evidence in the statistics that Crick is adjusting well to AA and actually improving right in front of our eyes. That evidence is nowhere to be found in Sickels' post or in the Comments section. One thing I always look for in evaluating prospects in addition to their overall stat lines is if they show adjustment and improvement within the season, especially if their promotion to that level has been aggressive or they are young or inexperienced for the league.
I believe I have mentioned in a couple of Down on the Farm posts that Crick's numbers seem to be getting more consistent with fewer wide swings from game-to-game as the season has progressed. I just looked up his Splits from his milb.com bio page. I think you will be pleasantly surprised by the results.
Crick has made exactly 20 starts this season. His overall pitching line is, what it is, a lots of K's and lots of walks with a slight GB tendency: 6-6, 3.32, 86.2 IP, 55 BB, 104 K's. One thing that the exactly 20 starts makes easy to see is that Crick is not having as many short starts due to disaster starts or high pitch counts within an inning. Over his first 10 starts he pitched a total of 39 innings or 3.9 IP per Start. Over his last 10 starts, he has pitched 47.2 innings or 4.8 IP per start averaging almost 1 extra inning per start. Now, 4.8 may not seem too good, but the increase of almost a full IP per start does show significant improvement.
The next piece of information showing Crick's progressive improvement over the season is his monthly splits focusing on BB's and K's. Here they are month-by-month:
April: 14 BB's, 15 K's.
May: 10 BB's, 16 K's.
June: 14 BB's, 29 K's.
July: 14 BB's, 39 K's.
August: 0 BB's, 5 K's(just one August start so far. His first start of the month was skipped or pushed back due to a back strain).
As you can see, Crick has improved his K/BB each month of the season.
Kyle Crick, Clayton Blackburn and Adalberto Mejia, all age 21 are young for AA. Crick, at least, is showing steady progression and maturation as the season goes on, which I believe bodes well for his future even if his overall numbers are not as exciting as we might like them to be.
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Nice take DrB. I haven't had a chance to read Sickels' article yet, but will try to check it out when I can. The fact that Crick's highest K/month totals came in July are a very good sign to me. He is learning, adjusting, and improving. The critics have been harsh on him this year... But I think back to MadBum, whose K rates really took a dive in AA. Remember everyone panicking about him? Supposedly he'd lost all of his velocity, and he was a player on the decline. We all know how that turned out.
ReplyDeleteJason Parks can say write whatever he wants, but I still have plenty of hope that Crick will be a solid MLB starter for the Giants one day.
We'll see how this nuclear wasteland farm shakes out eventually!
ReplyDeleteI like Kyle Crick. Pretty sure Tampa Bay was trying to poach him. Aren't those guys supposed to be smart... like smartest in the room smart?
Crick and Beede are some big talking points about the pitcher whisperer reps. I think that one is as overhyped as the hitters being no bueno. Truth is in the middle.
Nice post Doc.
all in all i love the community. it makes me all warm inside when i thinks of you biatches.
ReplyDeletebig squeeze and a boner bump