Here's an overlooked aspect of Kenny Williams' last two pitching trades: If he held onto Clayton Richard and Daniel Hudson, he might have had one of the fastest rotations of all time.
Beyond the Box Score compiled a list of pitcher paces, highlighting who gets the ball and throws it, and who dawdles around the mound. No. 1 should come as no surprise, but the top of the list is littered with familiar names. In the list of pitchers who threw 500 or more qualified pitches:
1. Mark Buehrle (16.0)
2. David Pauley (16.0)
3. Lucas French (16.2)
4. Brett Anderson (16.6)
5. Daniel Hudson (16.6)
...
11. John Danks (17.5)
...
19. Clayton Richard (17.8)
When filtering out the players who threw fewer than 1,500 pitches, you get:
1. Buehrle
2. Trevor Cahill (17.5)
3. Danks
4. Jon Niese (17.7)
5. Richard
The pitcher received in exchange for Daniel Hudson, Edwin Jackson, ranked 72nd on the list (out of 91 starters) at 21.5 seconds. That change alone may have prevented the Sox (19.1) from finishing ahead of the Oakland A's (18.9) on the team leaderboard.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that homegrown White Sox pitchers perform well in these rankings. When we had our conference call with Kirk Champion (which U-God laboriously transcribed), I asked a question about this matter:
JM: Watching some pitchers come up through the Sox system, one common trait they have is that they all work pretty fast. Hudson is a pretty quick worker; and Gavin Floyd was a pretty slow worker with Philly, but then when he made his way up through Charlotte he started speeding up his tempo. Is that something that is taught or a philosophy that is preached throughout the organization, maybe a Mark Buehrle trickle-down effect, or is it just a coincidence?
KC: It's not a coincidence. I think that Mark's had so many good outings and works fast, the defense seems ready behind him. And he's certainly an easy guy to point to because of the success he's had. We do address it and we go back to John Ely and Clayton Richard, guys who aren't in our system anymore and we certainly emphasized it. Clayton was a fast worker. We're trying to get a lot of our younger guys to realize that if we can cut some time down between pitches that it's a good trait that more pitchers in our system need to stick to. We don't force it on guys. There's been a lot of times where you can see a slow tempo and we certainly want them to be a little more aggressive.
Danks learned the skill at the major-league level, but that came along with the cutter. When he had a pitch that he could attack hitters with, he picked up the pace, much to everybody's benefit.
But back to Buehrle, this is the main reason why I'd never want to see him traded. Look at that starting pitcher list -- you have 1.5 seconds separating Buehrle from the second-quickest pitcher, which is the same gap between No. 2 and No. 17. That's how far ahead Buehrle is from the rest of the field.
It certainly works for him, and it's great that it's working for other pitchers, too, because their pace makes it so much easier to enjoy White Sox games night after night.
You might have seen me drop this fun fact on Twitter, but while poring over the White Sox game logs, I realized the White Sox played 24 consecutive games that finished in less than three hours, from June 12 to July 11. One was the John Danks-Ervin Santana pitching duel that clocked in at one hour and 50 minutes.
So I went back and ranked American League teams by their longest such streak. The results aren't surprising:
- White Sox, 24
- Athletics, 21
- Mariners, 19
- Tigers, 15
- Royals, 13
- Orioles, 13
- Angels, 13
- Blue Jays, 11
- Indians, 9
- Twins, 9
- Rays, 9
- Yankees, 7
- Rangers, 6
- Red Sox, 5
There's a healthy correlation between this list and BTBS' ones, especially when it comes to AL East pitchers. The division boasts the league's seven slowest qualifying starters, which means the agonizingly slow pace of other games can be chalked up to more besides, "Their lineups take a lot of pitches!"
It just makes me wish the Sox would trust their own pitching products more, especially Richard and Hudson in this case. Imagine if they never dealt them. You've heard of "Spahn and Sain and pray for rain?" That White Sox rotation would be, "Buehrle and Danks and Hudson and Richard and oh my god you better hurry and buy seven beers because it's already last call."
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Christian Marrero Reading Room:
*Justin Morneau voiced displeasure about Target Field's dimensions after the Twins decided to keep the fences where they are, and I'm not sure why:
"Right-center to left-center is ridiculous," Morneau said in an e-mail reply to the Star Tribune. "[It's] almost impossible for a righthanded hitter to [homer to the] opposite field and very difficult for lefties. It affects the hitters a lot, and you start to develop bad habits as a hitter when you feel like you can only pull the ball to hit it over the fence. You take those habits on the road."
It's a remarkable rant on two fronts. One is that the Twins went a league-best 53-28 at home, and it's because Target Field reinforces the pitching staff's strengths while minimizing flaws. They don't walk anybody, which means opponents need to string together hits to do so. But they don't strike out many and give up a lot of flyballs, so they appreciate the extra room to work with.
And wow, it's something how today's hitters take opposite-field homers for granted. It used to be a feat reserved for the strongest of the strong. If Frank Thomas were still around, he might start complaining about how hard it is to hit a broken-bat homer with maple.
Plus, Morneau slugged .757 on the road. If "bad habits" led to that crap showing, I'd say Morneau has bigger concerns. Most notably, if he'll ever play again.
This is all to say I officially endorse bringing in the fences at Target Field.
*Greg Walker still isn't officially in the fold? I thought this was resolved last week. He's like Brett Favre without the iPhone pictures (I assume).
*White Sox Observer reviews Alexei Ramirez's 2010 season.
*Jose Contreras is sticking with the Phillies for the next couple years, as he signed a two-year deal for $5.5 million with a club option for 2013. It seems like a good deal for the Phillies, as Contreras struck out 57, walked just 16 and posted a 3.34 ERA over 56 2/3 innings. It might also bode well for the price of relief pitching this winter, as last offseason started with a flurry of awful deals, like John Grabow's two-year, $7 million debacle.
*And speaking of markets, Cincinnati catcher Ramon Hernandez re-signed with the Reds for one year and $3 million. He only played half the season, but he had a renaissance year at the plate, so arbitration might look OK in A.J. Pierzynski's eyes.
