It'll Be A Battle Till The Bitter End (For League Lead In Walks)

Going from marveling at Ben Sheets' amazing control for a strike-out pitcher to a couple of guys in the O's rotation who have a ways to go to even be average in that department - Daniel Cabrera and Adam Loewen.

Daniel Cabrera has been frustrating pretty much everyone who has heard of him for years now. In consecutive starts to start the 2006 season he went: 1.1 IP, 3 H, 7 R, 7 BB 1 K; 5, 3, 1, 9, 10; 7, 5, 1, 1, 6. Consistent he is not. The guy will pitch 4 innings and give up 5 walks and 7 runs, and then come back and throw a complete-game shut-out with 2 walks and 10 K's. Every time you think he's finally put it all together, everything falls apart.

Let's take a look at Daniel's progression as a pitcher. K/9 has gone from 4.6 to 8.8 to 9.6 to 7.3. BB/9: 5.4 to 4.9 to 6.3 to 4.8. HR/9: 0.9 to 0.8 to 0.7 to 1.10. H/9: 8.8 to 8.1 to 7.9 to 9.1. When Leo Mazzone came aboard, Cabrera's stats other than walks continued to gradual improve, as they did the previous year. The BB/9, however, shot up well past his previous high. Then in 2007, in order to compensate for the high walk rate, Cabrera altered the way he pitched (from anecdotal evidence: he seemed to throw softer (93-95 as opposed to 96-97) and the fastball was straighter; he also seemed to "groove" more pitches in an effort to not walk guys) and while his BB/9 were a career best, all of his other stats dropped off. I'm fairly comfortable calling 2007 a bad experiment year that is more "outlier" than indicative of a new career path.

For 2008 I'm projecting an improved K/9 of 7.8 (though I think that he could easily go above 8.5 or even 9); some continued improvement in BB/9 to 4.5; the HR/9 getting back on track at 1.0; and a slightly improved hit rate at 8.8 per nine. An average of composite ERA and fielding independent ERA gives 4.42. I think this a perfectly reasonable projection and that Cabrera (with some luck) could get it under 4 in the next couple of years. Or, you know, he could walk 150 guys and be out of the league - whichever.

And now to the left-hander:

I like Adam Loewen a lot. I think he has a chance to be a top of the rotation starter in the future - I just don't think that's going to come this year. People may look at his 3.56 ERA from 2007 and assume further improvement. The truth, however, probably lies in between that 3.56 and his 5.37 from 2006.

While there was a drastic improvement in ERA, Loewen's K/9 fell from 7.9 to 5.0 and his BB/9 rose from an already very bad 6.6 to an atrocious 7.8. [2007 was a small sample size - 30 IP - but it still counts for something.] He went from being a bit unlucky on BABIP (.314) to a bit lucky (.286).
For 2008 I projected Loewen's K/9 to be a solid 6.9 - a small drop-off from '06, but much better than '07. His control was never very good in the minors (5.2 BB/9) and I have him at (what for him would be fantastic, but is still not good) 5.7. Loewen is quite good at keeping the ball in the park (0.3 HR/9 in the minors and in '07; 0.64 in '06) so a HR/9 of 0.6 sounds like it's in the right neighborhood. As for H/9, its been 8.9 and 8.1 in successive years, so 8.75 seems reasonable.
This produces an ERA of 4.53, which I think may still be a bit optimistic.

Adam Loewen has all of the tools (size; good velocity; movement on the cut-fastball; quality curveball) to be an effective pitcher, and most of the stats back it up (good K rate, low HR rate, low-ish (but not terribly flukey) hit rate) but the control is the big issue. If he can't get it below 5 per nine, then he can't be a #1 (or even #2) starter, and even a big improvement for 2008 will still have him amongst the worst in the league.

People seem to have Adam Loewen as the team's #1 or #2 starter with Daniel Cabrera as #3 (or sometimes worse). I think that is incorrect based on their respective levels of play to date, and that Cabrera possesses just as much potential as Loewen. It seems that people like Loewen better because he's younger, and so they can "dream" on him more. Cabrera is only 27 years old - for a tall pitcher who was rushed to the big leagues that isn't so bad. I'm holding out hope that he can make a quality career for himself.

[Interestingly, Daniel Cabrera is the 8th most similar pitcher to Adam Loewen through age 23.]