Reasons For Concern With Tim Hudson
February 14, 2013 at 11:00 am by Andrew Sisson under Atlanta Braves
Personally, it’s hard to believe that this is Tim Hudson’s ninth season in a Braves uniform. He will enter 2013 pitching his age 37 season. In baseball terms, he is getting kind of old. Among active pitchers, Hudson ranks third in career innings pitched (only five innings behind Roy Halladay for second), and fifth in career pitches thrown. Having thrown 30,000+ in-game pitches, not to mention any offseason, spring training and bullpen work, it is only a matter of time before even the most durable pitchers hit a steep decline. So, on that pessimistic note, I think there are a couple of pressing questions and concerns relating to Hudson and how he will perform in 2013.
Age:
It’s no secret that pitchers generally start to show a steeper decline as they enter into their mid to late 30′s. Whether it is injury or just wear and tear on the body, eventually father time catches up to their ability to throw a baseball overhand at speeds close to 90 mph. Looking back at Hudson’s injury history, we have already begun to see some signs hinting in this direction. While having Tommy John is very common these days and has high success rates, it is still a procedure on the elbow of a pitching arm. If there is a bright side, elbows seem to be a less or an injury concern than shoulders. Hudson also had surgery on his back (lumbar spine-fusion) back in November of 2011. It caused him to miss the start of last season, but it supposedly cleared up many back problems he’d been pitching through for the past couple years. Again, it may have cleared up previous issues, but it was still an operation on an important part of an pitching motion. Hudson has also dealt with nagging injuries in his ankle (bone spurs) that reportedly have bothered him over the past couple seasons and caused him to miss a couple of starts in 2012.
In the end, it is almost impossible to predict any type of future injury. As we have mentioned before on here, there will always be an inadvertent risk to pitching. At Hudson’s age, along with some injury concerns we have seen over the past few season, he does seem to carry additional injury risk. I am not predicting any type of injury will occur this season, but the chances of him making 30 healthy starts this year is pretty unlikely.
“Stuff”:
Stemming from the fact Hudson is getting older, he has begun to lose some zip on his fastball. According to PITCHf/x, Hudson fastball velocity dropped to 89 mph in 2012, after consistently sitting between 90-91 mph for the past number of seasons. This isn’t the end of the world, pitchers can still be effective when velocity drops, especially when they weren’t flamethrowers to begin with. At 37, it is unlikely Hudson will be able to add more movement or better locate the ball like younger pitchers are often able to, to offset any velocity loss.
Jeff Zimmerman, who has done some fascinating work with player aging curves, gave a basic summary about a pitchers velocity drop.
“As long as a pitcher is able to maintain a certain velocity… the player can generally pitch with the same results year after year. It’s only when the pitcher begins to lose velocity that he sees his stats degrade at a higher rate. Sure, velocity isn’t everything with a pitcher — but it’s important.” – Jeff Zimmerman
Hudson saw a bit of a spike in contact rates against him last season, which we could probably relate to the decrease in velocity across the board. But, all of this is what we ultimately expect with age, a decline in “stuff” and therefore performance. Even if Hudson is healthy, we may see an expected increase in BABIP due to aging, LOB and HR/FB rates return to career levels, which could suggest an ERA closer to 4.00 this season (league average). To put it simply, Hudson is a ground ball pitcher and will rely on getting enough ground balls that will have to be fielded and turned into outs by the defense behind him.
Defense:
Adding onto that point of being a ground ball pitcher, getting those balls in play turned into outs may be a bit harder considering the defense behind him. Hudson will pitch in front of an infield made up of Freeman (Gold Glove slightly below-average), Uggla (below-average), Simmons (well above-average) and either or both of Juan Francisco (average) and Chris Johnson (well below-average) for most of the season. First off, Simmons is probably close to the best, if not best, defensive shortstop in the game. Yes there are still sample size issues, but so far he has confirmed what the eye test told us to expect. It is somewhat encouraging that the position where most ball are hit to is played by the well above-average defender, but it won’t be enough to negate the three other infielders who resemble something closer to that of Stonehenge. A ground ball pitcher having that collection of infielders behind him doesn’t necessarily project well. On the other hand, it is a very similar alignment to the one he pitched in front of for most of last season.
I think Hudson should definitely be looked at as one of the bigger question marks in the rotation this season. As I alluded to earlier, he has been an innings eater throughout his career, posting above 200 innings eight times. The doesn’t mean he will continue to do so this year or in coming years. There seem to be a lot of different factors working against Hudson. They actually appear to be the same type concerns we were worried about at the beginning of last season, but will this be the year we start to see a significant drop off?
Injury and PITCHf/x data courtesy of Baseball Prospectus and FanGraphs.
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This strengthens the view that if Uggla’s not hitting it’s not a bad idea to start Janish at 2B with Hudson on the mound.
Why have people seem to have given up on the idea of Pastornicky as the 2B of the future? Coming up as a below average SS with a decent minor league bat . . . at some point he may be better than Uggla at 2nd.
I’m pretty sure he’ll be better overall than Janish.
He is probably a better hitter than Janish but his defense was so awful last year that it would be hard to justify playing him with an extreme ground ball pitcher starting. Janish would at least solidify the up the middle D for Timmy.
Bonus points for the Stonehenge line. That was not only hilarious, it was spot on.
here’s the original stonehenge quote:
Wait that Stonehenge joke is from Shaughnessy?? You have been letting me be out here retelling and laughing at and occasionally taking credit for a Shaughnessy joke??? I feel unclean
yeah bro, happens to the best of us.
Sounds a lot like this year’s version of the Red Sox if you ask me. I certainly don’t know how people can claim that they’ve had a great offseason and how they should be a contender this season. I see the Red Sox losing 90 games easily again this season.
My dad used to call Klesko “Roberto Duran” due to his hands of stone!
Franklin brought to my attention he was actually the one who applied it to the Braves infield haha. I was was under the impression it was a term frequently thrown around last season and didn’t intend for it to be my “original” joke.
So yeah, let’s just say I’ll be expecting to catch shit for it from Franklin for the forseeable future…
haha, I mean like I said, I stole it from Shaughnessy, via the load quotes on OOTP baseball, so I suppose it’s fair game. But if you don’t give me credit when using Jurrducks, so help me god…
I missed out of the Jurrducks thing. Can you explain to me why Jurrjens was called Jurrducks?
people comparing jair to maddux –> Jair Maddux —> Jurr Maddocks —-> Jurrducks.
I really like Brisbee’s saying “he fields the ball as if wearing a Chewbacca costume.”
I wonder what this means as far as Huddy’s comments that he wants to stay in Atlanta for a few more years. Obviously performance this year will be a huge factor, but what are the odds the Braves extend him? Is there success for an aging pitcher perhaps transferring to the bullpen as a long set up man? On top of his ability as a pitcher you have to imagine that he’s a clubhouse leader. With the loss of Chipper, Ross and Prado I imagine he’s doubly important as a bridge for Heyward and Freeman, etc
I think he would hang up the cleats before taking on a bullpen role. He’s made plenty of money in his career and has a lot going on outside of baseball with his family and charity type stuff. Also it’s not like he’s really close to any significant stat milestones and though I think he could be borderline HOF with 2-3 more productive seasons, I don’t think others feel the same way.
If he pitches well this year, I wouldn’t be opposed to a one year contract, and even another if ’14 goes well.
Hudson is one of my favourite players on the whole team, I hope he does well this season.
My guess is if he pitches relatively decent this year (an ERA under 4) he’ll get an offer for next year. It’ll be for less than the 9 million he makes now, maybe 5 million or so but an offer none the less.
Given his age if the Braves want him around they’ll probably just keep him on a year to year contract. I’d like to see Huddy retire and as long as the Braves give him another year or two, he’ll probably never pitch for another team.
I think Huddy will post an ERA of 4 or under again this season. I understand the decline he has seen in his stuff the last couple of seasons.
I don’t think people realize that Hudson’s numbers are nearly identical to Halladay’s in their careers because Halladay has long been considered one of the best pitches in baseball while Hudson has never gotten much public acclaim as being one of the best pitchers in baseball.
I agree that if Hudson could post 2 or 3 more productive seasons at the same level he has pitched the last couple of seasons he would be a broader line HOF contender.
He’s 3 wins short of 200. Even though we realize how invaluable wins are when judging pitches. We also know how much pitcher wins still matter to the baseball writers who have a vote for the HOF and there’s not too many pitchers with over 200 wins who aren’t in the HOF.
Hudson, 13 seasons: 51.9 WAR
Halladay, 14 seasons: 72.2 WAR
viva, Problem with using WAR to compare Hudson to Halladay is that WAR uses FIP and Huddy always outperforms his FIP because of the type of pitcher he is (sinker baller)
So of course a guy who is a strikeout pitcher will have a better FIP and thus a better WAR than a guy who is ground ball pitcher. Not that I’m saying Huddy is as good as Halladay, but there is a reason behind their WAR discrepancies.
Wil is correct, if you use RA/9 WAR (substituting FIP for runs allowed per nine innings, including error allowed runs) Hudson has 66.4. Halladay has 75.8 RA/9 wins. Halladay is the better pitcher, but FIP has undervalued Hudson by a large margin considering the length of his career.
Yeah I realized that but 20.3 WAR is a large margin that’s hard to ignore even when factoring in the FIP disparity. I love Huddy and he’s one of my all time favorites, but “Hudson’s numbers are nearly identical to Halladay’s” is just not entirely true as Halladay outperforms Hudson in nearly every metric.
Just havin a discussion, not trying to be a dick.
Well I never looked at their advanced stats. But looking at the traditional stats Hudson’s numbers are very close to Halladay’s.
The only area Halladay has a major advantage over Hudson for their career’s is strikeout to walk rate which was just because Halladay was clearly the better pitcher with the better stuff.
I’m not saying Hudson is as good as Halladay. That would be stupid. Just trying to say that Hudson has been far undervalued in career by the national media.
Halladay – 403 G, 377 GS, 2687 1/3 IP, 199 W, 100 L, 1 S, 556 BB, 2066 SO, 2591 H, 1087 R, 987 ER, 3.31 ERA
Hudson – 406 G, 405 GS, 2682 1/3 IP, 197 W, 104 L, 0 S, 810 BB, 1801 SO, 2504 H, 1111 R, 1019 ER, 3.42 ERA
Guys, Halladay spent most of his career pitching against good Red Sox and Yankees teams. That’s the only reason some of his numbers are close to Hudson’s. I love Hudson, but they aren’t the same class of pitcher.
The current HOF voters do not use WAR (in general). Doesn’t mean I think they see Hudson= Halladay, I believe that the SO numbers will cause a large difference in HOF votes, but you have to account for who the HOF voters are in any disscusions.
(Also never being linked to PEDs could be a huge boost in HOF votes for boarderline players in the future)
250 more walks tells the story. Roy Halladay doesn’t walk people. Not to say Hudson walks a lot of people, but Halladay walks almost NO ONE. That’s before you get to the discrepancy in Ks. Halladay is also predominantly a sinker pitcher. But he misses bats, which is a pitchers main goal if he can do it while still throwing it in the zone. I love Tim Hudson, but Roy Halladay’s are EXTREMELY rare.
The biggest thing to determine the future of Hudson is how other pitchers continue to develope. Hudson will experience his anticapated decline but I doubt anything too severe. But if even one or two of the following happen:Teheran falls on his face, Gilmartin and Graham struggle, Beachy struggles returning from Tommy John, Medlen and Minor take steps back from their sensational 2nd half showings. Then Hudson may be needed for another year or two. A couple years ago most of us figured Jurrjens and Hanson would be rocks for the rotation for years. Then they both fell apart. There is less concern of a drastic drop from a proven Hudson than anyone else in the rotation.
Also the defense wont be as bad as Andrew makes it out to be. Simmons is awesome and will help a lot. Francisco should be average and Uggla is below average. Freeman is average overall but he is not stone hands just stone feet. There are a lot worse infield defenses like Philly or Detroit. I would wager our defense overal would be slightly above league average as a whole.
Also, if Andrew is going to talk about a pitchers decline it should be in reference to the pitcher type (Fatball, Knuckler, Sinkerballer, etc). As long as Hudson can maintain break and control on his sinkerball and splitfinger he may be able to slow his decline better than other pitchers. Hudson has been one of the rare pitchers that come around that are able to be effective for an extended period of time. I don’t see why he can’t be servicable for just another year or two. Remember Smoltz had one of his best years at age 40.
Smoltz was also still throwing 91-92 and 93 at times well in to his age 40 season.
I’ll I’m saying is as long as he maintains enough velocity to get a good break on his pitches he well fare well enough. I will bet on him to be good enough to be worth a back of the rotation spot. And bet he is with us the next two seasons because somebody else that we love fails.
I understand what you’re trying to say but a better example would have been Glavine or Maddux. Guys who were not power pitchers.
After age 36, Smoltz had an average FB of 92.7 with a 22% K and 5.5% BB.
Smoltz also relied on a splitter not a sinker. The Smoltz quip was just to say older pitchers can still succeed. And that 92 mph was a decrease from where he used to be.
Steroids.
Would have been nice to see more actual numbers in this post — I think looking beyond velocity, there is some cause for concern, but I agree with the post that it’s hard to be sure.
For what it’s worth, Hudson didn’t outperform his peripherals by much last hear, as his 3.62 ERA was backed by a 3.78 FIP and 4.10 xFIP, the difference do to a low HR/FB year.. But the velocity drop is concerning, as is his drop in GB%, down to 55%, just below his career average of 59% and his PB 64% in 2010. His control remained great last year, with a BB/9 of 6.4% (League average was 8.1% last year). Overall, then, I think there’s no cause for alarm, especially as he’s a classic pitcher, not a thrower.
@Peter For his career Hudson has outpitched his FIP/xFIP by about 35 points, so last season was not really outside the norm in those cases.
It would have been interesting to see comps and how they aged in their 37-40 seasons. Can anyone think offhand of some comparable pitchers by way of GB%, BB%, K%?
@wilt I actually looked this up while writing the post but decided not to include it because there were not many close comps for various reasons (SSS, non-similiar K&BB rates, different pitchers in general, GB% prior to 2002…)
One interesting comp I found was Hiroki Kuroda from his age 37 season last year, but it is hard to compare because he has thrown less than 1000 MLB innings.
Kevin Brown was also interesting. He bounced back for a couple strong seasons after he was injured in his age 37 season.
Kuroda is an interesting comparison, though he still never had quite the GB prowess of Hudson, however, had more strikeouts and better control. He’s still going strong too.
I have a general intuition that Hudson will be able to prolong his success compared to a more traditional pitcher his age because of his unique skillset. Barring injury of course.
Derek Lowe stands out in my mind.
His closest comparables are probably Kevin Brown and Orel Hershieser. Can’t think of many people who threw that good of a sinker and had other decent offerings like a splitter. Derek Lowe throws a sinker but not really comparable in any other way.
would it make sense to look at lohse as a backup plan? i know he won’t pitch as well as he did last year, but it seems like there’s a drop off after teheran (before beachy gets back), and that’s if everyone is healthy and effective. maholm is gone after this year. just wondering
Most of what I’ve read seems to suggest Braves will let Maholm go at the end of the year, but I’m curious if it might not be a better idea to let Hudson go, give some of his cash to Maholm, and either get another starter or open up another spot for a young MiLB’er. Maholm seemed to have upped his K% with Braves, curious if there’s any sustainability to that? IMO, he seems more likely to be a league avg innings-eater going forward than age 38+ Hudson.
The reason they are going to let Maholm go is because they have a soft tossing control lefty waiting to take his spot in Gilmartin. He’d probably provide production similar to Maholm for 400k.
Not sure I agree with that statement. Maholm has 7 seasons of 101 FIP- under his belt and Gilmartin has 7 starts at AAA. He’s also been basically as durable as can be. Proven league-avg stats from the left side is pretty valuable. I like Gilmartin as much as the next guy, but its a huge stretch to say Gilmartin = Maholm.
Would the Braves consider offering Huddy a qualifying offer at season’s end? Assuming it will be around the 13.5 million range that would be quite a raise for him, but will only be a one year deal.
Also, if Lohse drops demands to a one year deal around 6-8 mil, should the Braves consider it?
No they won’t offer Huddy a qualifying offer because he’d be sure to take 1 year at 13 million, given that his current deal is worth only 9 million this year. I think they will make him an offer to stay though, it’ll just be for less than the 9 million he made this year.
As for Lohse, no. With Beachy coming back mid-season, our rotation already has enough arms.
Hudson is not going to out run father time, but I don’t think there’s an overwhelming risk of huge decline in the next year or two. The most likely scenario is small incremental decline over the next two or three years and then retirement. He’s likely to endure a series of nagging injuries like any player his age, and will likely miss a few starts each year.
I thinks its important to have at lest one veteran on the staff. If he stays relatively healthy and wants to continue to pitch in Atlanta, I can’t see Wren slamming the door in his face.
As for Hudson’s future… it seems like the cop out answer, but it is honestly just best to reevaluate after the season. So many factors involved and so many different directions things could go. The present situation WILL change one way or another over the course of a year from where we are today.
Yep, the long story short is it is nice to have him help out this season and know he is on a 1 year deal. After the season we can figure out which way we need to go.
Great article. Doesn’t it feel though that Hudson has been dogged by this worry for almost 10 years now? Seems like it started the year before he became a Brave and that we’ve been waiting for a decade for the whole thing to fall apart. But it never really did. He’s been remarkably consistent. There are now definitely some slight indicators of slippage as pointed out in this article. If it goes bad, hopefully it only gets derek lowe ugly
Can someone please explain to me why so many people seemingly want Pastornicky? His defense at SS was so horrid he didn’t last but a month at the position. Between his lack of hands and one of the weakest throwing arms I have ever seen in MLB he has no business above A ball.
Pastornicky is a .240BA, .287OBP player with very little pop. Defensively he may be a slight upgrade over Uggla, which isn’t saying much. Uggla has had 2 of the worst years possible, yet still managed a .344 OBP and 18HR. But I will agree that the abysmal .215BA left a sour taste for the money he is being paid. (Uggla 25ab per HR, Pastor 84ab per HR.)
Even beyond that, substituting him for Uggla as a “defensive replacement” yields very little sense as well. Last year Pastornicky was a .948 fielder, Uggla was a .984 so again, I lack to see the logic of the support for Pastornicky. Obviously Braves Management and GM’s are smarter than “Rev fan”, and that REALLY isn’t saying much.
How anyone could be asking for Pastornicky to play over Dan Uggla is either A) lost, B) a blind fan of Pastornickys, or C) Pastornicky trying to get himself a roster spot.
The guy is a bumb, and his roster spot would be better filled with either Gattis as a bench bat, and/or Janish when he returns.
I’m not ready to write Pastornicky off completely yet and he definetily deserves to be higher than A ball. You make lessen your point by saying that. However, he should not be in Atlanta at all this year. He should spend the whole season in AAA working at 2B and hitting. He also should spend time working many positions as a potential utility player. Uggla should get every at bat from second base this season and if we need a defensive sub it should be Janish, defintely not Pastornicky.
I agree. Let Pastornicky spend the year at Gwinnett gaining more experience at playing different positions. I actually think Pastor could be a decent enough hitter to be a utility guy in the majors in the role of a Ryan Freel type player.
Re Pastornicky–no, he should not spell Uggla for any reason other than occasional rest days for Uggs.
But he’d be a better bench player than Janish. Pastornicky is no offensive powerhouse but Janish is not much better than sending up a pitcher. A 600 ops is better than a 500 ops, though both are bad. With Simmons being set at short, bat is more important than glove for the backup infielder. Should Simmons or Uggla need to be miss a week or more, then bring up a better glove.
All that said, since Pastornicky is still a young guy it wouldn’t be the worst thing to have him spend a big chunk of the year in the line up for Gwinnett. He could play several positions (hopefully not all horribly) and be groomed as a utility player.
BTW, Janish apparently has options remaining so it’d be easy to stash him at Gwinnett until such a time that Simmons might miss a several games in a row. Hopefully that need won’t arise.
Ugh…Freddy Freeman should be a gold glover due to his beast mode prowess at “scoops.” Come on, Andrew…scoops are totally an awesome stat that you should use in your evaluation. I mean, if Tostito’s has a “scoops” offering, why shouldn’t you??
After all, what would DOB do?
#WWDOBD
Scoops should not be the deciding factor in evaluating the defense of a first baseman bun the 10-15 extra scoops he makes a year help move him from below average to close to average defensively. Thats like saying he gets to an extra 10-15 balls that his range hurt him over a season.
I’m guessing you missed the joke.
I’m not missing the joke. Many people believe putting faith in something likes scoops is a joke. All i said is it does add a little value to his defense. I guess you missed on what I wrote.
Yeah… the joke was joking about how much of a joke it is to be an excellent “scooper” with no range. Basically the jokey version of your response.
Yes you guys are making a joke about scoops, that they count for nothing and Freeman sucks defensively. What you are failing you register is that Freeman will save 10-15 throws a season at first other first baseman will not get. He also will make additional plays with his arm that other first baseman would not make. These are not what make a good defensive first baseman but as I said they help move him toward adequate, I would call him slightly below average at first base.
I guess the main thing I wanted to get across is why knock Freeman for doing something well at first. He is not a great defender at first but why knock him for doing something right.
its not so much making fun of freeman as much as making fun of the people who think he’s a gold glover because #scooooooooops. I have actually heard people say “he probably saves a run per game with his scoops!” Like he’s a 16+ win defender because of scoops.
Scooping ability is worth around less than a quarter of overall defensive value, a couple of runs either way. Being able to field ground balls is worth is the majority of defensive fielding value when it comes down to it. So yes, being able to pick the ball at first is part of the defensive evaluation, but it is much less than what it is usually perceived to be.
I believe Freeman is average defensively, not below-average. He catches everything he does get too even if it is very little outside of his prepitch position. And scoops do account for something. But the Gold Glove talk was silly especially when guys like Votto and LaRoche and towards the end of the season Adrian Gonzalez are playing 1B in the NL. Now those are Gold Glove first basemen.
Speaking of the eye test for Simmons at SS, Huddy seems to pass the test for a pitcher. I know it’s not the same, but when I watch him pitch, Hudson still has it. It just seems like his stuff is still better than someone else in his spot or mixing up the rotation. I don’t think we’ll see a marked drop off in his stuff this year. The infield defense might create some runs for the opposition, but I don’t think we see Hudson getting hammered this year.
The big problem is that virtually all of hudson’s peripherals that made him a great pitcher in previous seasons took a step back last year:
His line drive percentage went up, his ground ball percentage went down, his flyball rate went up, his infield fly rate went down, his strikeout rate went down. The only peripheral that went in the correct direction is his walk rate dropped a bit. But his K/BB ratio still dropped.
On top of that, all the rates that we tend to look at as ‘luck rates’ were on the lucky side last year, his flyball/homerun rate was below HIS career rate last year. Given that every other metric seems to indicate he was hit harder last year, we have to view this as lucky. Further, his BABIP was below HIS career rate last year, again, indicating he was a bit lucky.
Basically every sing peripheral sign, except walks, points in the direction of Hudson declining. Sure, not a massive decline, but he’s definitely declining.
How fast he declines, and when he really starts to decline is, of course, the multi-million dollar question. We can’t really know, but I think Andrew’s point is that we should at least be prepared for the possibility that it very well MIGHT be this year that he really falls into steep decline. If hudson sees his peripherals tail off even more this year, similarly to the decline from last year, and his luck is average or slightly bad, he could easily be in for a rough year, for him.
Wanna see something weird? Look at Huddy’s 1st and 2nd half splits in GB%,LD%,K/BB rate and how they relate to FIP and ERA….it doesn’t really seem to make much sense.
With the only infield changes being a new 3B and Simmons (hopefully) playing the entire season, I think our infield defense actually IMPROVES. Chipper has been an average-to-below average 3B for his career and over the past few years (depending on how you view the numbers) and while Johnson is an absolutely terrible defensive player, Francisco’s limited defensive numbers are promising. Combine more playing time with his improve conditioning and I have no doubt Francisco can at the very least be on par with Chipper with the glove.
And the biggest improvement is swapping Pastornicky (-46.4 UZR/150 and -16 DRS in only 332 innings!) and Janish (a very respectable 6.9 UZR/150 and 4 DRS in 450 innings) with Simmons and his astronomical 31.6 UZR/150 and 19 DRS in 426 innings. Even if Simmons isn’t *that* good and Pastornicky isn’t *that* bad, it’ll still be a helluva improvement.
As much as I would like to see Hudson retire as a Brave, we have to consider that Chipper Jones was the outlier in that he a) retired a Brave and b) went out on a high note. Maddux was gone, Glavine the Met was forced into retirement, Smoltz gone. Maybe Hudson can be the Braves’ Tony Gonzalez but we’re all gonna have to hope that he starts to suck AFTER he dons his Braves uni for the last time.
Hudson is a pitcher that has reinvented himself so many times throughout his career. There’s no reason to believe he can’t do it again. The velocity drop is obviously concerning – especially after watching Hanson and JJ deteriorate because of it. But they are not the pitchers that Hudson is. I think there will be a definite decline, but for now, I think he’s still a very useful pitcher. Perhaps he’s gone from a solid 2 to a 2/3, valuable in its own right.
Echoing a few other comments, I think that how Hudson’s season is perceived will depend primarily on the role that he fills this season.
The two extremes, of course, are: (a) the other starters pitch up to their potential (our hopes) for them and the Braves have the luxury of treating Hudson like a 4th-5th starter; versus (b) hitters adjust to Meds and he doesn’t adjust back, Julio doesn’t take a step forward, Beachy has some set backs, etc. and Hudson needs to fill a top of the rotation role for much or all of the season. Ultimately, as it usually the case it will likely be somewhere in between the two.
Based on the data in this post and my own feelings, I’d feel comfortable with Hudson being a mid-rotation guy. Anything more than that, I expect that one of the stories at the ASB will be “What can the Braves do to improve their rotation?” This is particularly true given that Hudson will likely receive the least advantage from the Braves’ outfield defense (and conversely the most liability from our infield defense).
Great post Andrew!