I like watching AJ Burnett, when he's pitching well that is, more than anyone else on the Blue Jays' staff. Out of Halladay, Marcum, McGowan, and Litsch/Purcey/Parrish, Burnett makes hitters look the worst but again, when he's actually pitching well. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with watching Halladay, but it's a different kind of excellence (and a better kind, to be sure, than almost any else's in baseball). Halladay can get six outs on five pitches; since 2001 he's average a ground ball out/fly ball out ratio of 2.27, as a reference point this year's leader is Brandon Webb at a freakish 3.34 and at a distant second, Aaron Cook of Colorado's 2.33. Halladay's ability to avoid high pitch count innings (this year averaging 14.26 pitches per inning, 6th in the majors), move the game along quickly, and pound the strike zone has made him the best candidate to succeed Dave Stieb as the franchise's best pitcher (some would say he's the best now, but I disagree and will prove it another time.)
Halladay's strength is picking corners, cutting fastballs all over the strike zone and forcing bad contact. Burnett's strength is just filthy stuff which he uses to get more strikeouts, which lead to higher pitch counts and shorter outings. Halladay will go through a lineup and make them all feel like they "just missed that one" because they made contact. Burnett, and I say WHEN HE'S ON as loudly as I can type it, makes hitters look like small children swinging shovels at flies. 98 mph fastball, a curveball that starts out as a beanball and ends up in the dirt, and, apparently, a changeup that he learned and never throws because, I guess, that would make him too good. There's nothing as satisfying as watching the vaunted Yankees totally overmatched by Burnett's A game, and this is exactly why J.P. Riccardi should absolutely not trade him. They bought him so they'd have someone to follow up Halladay in those series against the Yankees and Red Sox (and now the Rays too), and every time you watch Jesse Litsch get run out of the game after four innings and 100 pitches against those teams, you're reminded why you need real pitching to win divisions.
Oh yeah, sometimes Burnett sucks. Sometimes he nibbles the corners and walks too many guys, he throws way too many pitches when he's up 0-2 in the count, and even Ben Zobrist can hit homeruns off 98 mph heaters when they're down the middle. Oh, and he gets hurt a lot, making over 30 starts in a season just once. And he's more inconsistant than Brett Favre's retirement plans; in his 20 starts this year (prior to tonight) he's given up five earned runs or more in six starts. And yet he's given up two earned runs or less in nine other starts, so there's been some stellar performances in there as well. This is not a great pitcher, there aren't any stats out there that suggest he's been under-rated or under-appreciated, but this is, as the refrain with AJ always goes, a tremendous talent. He should end up with 15 wins this year, which usually means nothing since wins are such a bad way of measuring a pitcher's performance, but in this case it might actually be indicative of AJ's value. See, when AJ's on, he's lights-out good and when he's bad he's terrible, so when he gets a decision in a game it'll be after giving up something like seven runs over four innings or none over eight. In other words, he EARNS his decisions. The irony, therefore, is that wins, a useless measurement, might say more about him than good stats like WHIP or ERA+, since with Burnett those numbers will be based on extreme performances. His performances are better approximated by flipping a coin than averaging out previous performances.
So keep Burnett because, while he might not ever become the pitcher his talent would indicate, he's exactly what the Jays will need to keep pace in the American League East. I like Jesse Litsch and Shawn Marcum, they're both good control pitchers who've done well with the stuff they have. They just don't have the stuff to mow through a lineup, any lineup, like Burnett and Halladay, and even McGowan some days, are able to. It's true that with Burnett you are indeed flipping a coin to see what kind of performance you'll get, but at least you know that getting heads might get you 8 innings, 10 K's and 2 hits. Lots of pitchers can do that against Seattle or Kansas City, but there aren't many with the stuff to do it against the AL East's big spenders.
No comments:
Post a Comment