Pirate pitching prospects and Ks

It makes me wonder whether one of our sabermetrics people has found something about BABIP.

Another thing is that it takes more pitches to strike a guy out than it does to let him put the ball in play. Also, breaking balls are harder on arms than fastballs. Perhaps some of this pitch to contact stuff in the minors with fastballs is an attempt to prevent arm injuries in the minors.

we dont have many pitchers that make people miss except at WV. Which, by no coincidence, is pretty much the only team on that list to not be last. Taillon helps that. And guys like Kingham and Allie help SC. But Bradenton on up, not many pitch and miss guys. McPherson, Locke, Wilson are the only guys that truly come to mind that can K people on a consistent basis.

i wonder if the inability to use off speed earlier has an effect on the level of refinement of those pitches by the time they reach the major leagues…

On the flip side, West Virginia and Bradenton both lead the league in fewest walks against and Altoona is 2nd.

I have a bias toward results. I find the data disturbing, especially in view of the fact that Huntington and company have expressed a strong preference for big, projectable pitchers who can throw heat….. what everyone used to call power pitchers. With that in mind, I would NOT expect to see the whole system so weak at striking people out.

Finding reasons for such weak strikeout performance MIGHT be no more than rationalization and making excuses for….. weak pitching. I don’t mean that as a criticism for any posts in this thread. In fact, I thank bolton for calling this to our attention. He raised a good question. I am concerned.

and aren’t walking anyone, this must mean that they’re putting the ball in play and relying on the defense and that would get better as they move up to the majors (if they can keep the ball in the yard)

its not a post that is indicative of what we want to see out of our “top” prospects. Using a team ranking to classify the pitchers as a whole, is in itself fine but really doesn’t tell you much to either a) be concerned or b) not be concerned.

What I’m trying to say is that if for instance, at AA, Locke has good K numbers, but 3 other “non” prospects aren’t doing much of anything in terms of Ks than this “team ranking system” is flawed, because quite frankly, when it comes down to it, does it really matter much what the organizational depth is doing compared to one of our more highly ranked guys? Some will argue yes it does matter, but in the grand scheme of things, no it does not. So, I’m not really alarmed nor concerned at this point.

It’s probably as simple as that, if true.

Our GCL team is made up of 18-20 year olds and there was a stretch earlier in the year where the Nats ran out 3 straight non-rehab SP who were all like 23 and 24. I’m sure Nate Baker could dominate the GCL right now if we wanted him to, or put Bryan Morris back at Bradenton and he could K a bunch of dudes for you. This study isn’t in depth enough to mean much other than to show it needs to be looked at with more depth.