Musing on Hughes before his start

By On April 19, 2012 · 12 Comments · In General Musings

Here we go again. Another start will come tonight, and once more, we’ll be crossing our fingers and hoping for something to click. As as I write this, I can’t help but feel bad, like I’m setting Hughes up for failure.

The first step in setting someone up for failure is setting low expectations, and that’s what I’m doing. After two inefficient and mostly ineffective starts, I’d be thankful to get five innings out of Hughes tonight. On a more micro level, I’d be happy just to see him throw some decent offspeed pitches and put hitters away. Even if he does these things, though, will it be enough? He is facing the Twins, not exactly offensive juggernauts and that will, even partially, temper any good that comes of tonight’s start.

A little more than a year later and we’re still in the same spot with Hughes. We’ve had two bad start after a year full of them. We’ve got the same lingering doubts, but now they’re more than lingering. Ths time, there is a more tangible threat to Hughes’s rotation security in the form(s) of and . If my faith in Hughes was entering its “last legs” phase as 2011 wore on, it’s now in the “running on fumes phase” in 2012. The problems are the same–lack of non-fastball command/effectiveness and inefficiency–but no matter how many rocks are overturned, no solutions are there to be found. At times Phil Hughes dumbfounded us in the best possible ways. At others, seemingly more, he’s dumbfounded us in the worst possible ways.

Sweet sips of talent and promise have left us with the bitter taste of confused disappointment in our mouths. For better or worse, the bottle is almost empty.

Tagged with:
 
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
Delicious Digg

12 Responses to Musing on Hughes before his start

  1. Red Stag says:
    April 19, 2012 at 10:39 am

    Why is no one willing to fully admit that Phil Hughes sucks as a starting pitcher? Even if he gives a decent start tonight there will be many more crappy ones to follow…

    He should stick that half-ass cutter up his nose and that curve has become virtually useless as the AL hitters just sit on it, after fouling those stupid straight 91 mph fastballs off continuously. Sorry, I just can’t stand it anymore.

    Go down to the friggin minors and work on some kind of off-speed stuff or just go to the bullpen.

    Reply
  2. oldpep says:
    April 19, 2012 at 11:31 am

    I guess 2009 & 2010 never happened. A lot of team’s fans would love to have a 25 year old that already has two very successful seasons to his credit. Not Yankee fans.

    Reply
    • Matt Imbrogno says:
      April 19, 2012 at 11:41 am

      One of those successful seasons was nearly three full years ago and the other one was basically half a season of success followed by a season and a half of problems that haven’t been corrected. Hughes is still young, baseball-wise, but he’s thrown nearly 500 innings of ML ball with more or less no progression.

      Reply
      • oldpep says:
        April 19, 2012 at 1:41 pm

        ‘He was exposed’ the same could be said of Pineda’s second half last year.
        Curt Schilling was 27 when he had a 2-8 4.48 era in the NL. He’d had some success and some failure in his 6 previous major league seasons.
        When Unit was 25 he was 7-9 with a 4.40 era. Up to that point he was 10-17 with an era north of 5, again pitching mostly in the NL.
        Hughes came into camp last year in lousy shape, and had just pitched a lot more innings than he had previously the year before. Some people here and elsewhere thought they’d increased his innings too much, and that he might have a rough year. He did.
        Hughes has had solid peripherals in every game since the start of ST, but his command has been bad. He’s 25, and still has a live fastball and decent other stuff.
        A lot of pitchers are off to bad starts. It’s way too early to be writing people off. I’m just grateful that Girardi realizes it’s a marathon, and that patience is the most important part of a managers job.

        Reply
    • Red Stag says:
      April 19, 2012 at 12:09 pm

      It happened all right… he was exposed in the second half of 2010, when the AL hitters figured out he only had that curve… and curves hang once in a while. The fastball was not scary and it was straight and there was nothing off-speed to keep them off balance. Sorry, but he’s a less than mediocre SP who cannot grasp the nuances of being a SP.

      Reply
      • says:
        April 20, 2012 at 10:42 am

        Agree with all you said. Not enough velocity to blow hitters away with four-seamer that he throws high. Not enough movement on the four-seamer to say that he generates weak contact with it.

        Certainly no consistently effective secondary pitch to add an element of doubt in hitters’ minds. He’s throwing 65% four-seamers and mixing in a change (to lefties) and a cutter (to righties) 10 times out of 100. Neither pitch has any downward action so everything is generally sitting in a good hitting zone in the middle of the vertical plane.

        He’s a valuable reliever with his fastball/curveball/cutter mix but, as currently constituted, he’s not a starter anymore.

        Reply
  3. YankeesJunkie says:
    April 19, 2012 at 11:39 am

    Hughes has until Pinenda and Pettitte come back, but at this point it may be time that Hughes is relegated to a bullpen role where he goes one or two innings. He has gotten plenty of opportunities, unlike Joba, and has rarely shown consistency to be a good starter for the Yankees.

    Reply
  4. Mark Finke says:
    April 19, 2012 at 12:46 pm

    I give him ten mire starts and if he doesn’t change anything (91mph fastball down the middle on a 0:2 count, no put away pitch, length) he has to go back to them pen like 09 and just overpower hitters for one inning with 95 moh heaters. How long can the Yankees wait for him to come around? He hasn’t shown any progress in his last 250 innings and that’s just a fact.

    Reply
  5. Donna says:
    April 19, 2012 at 12:50 pm

    I think this year is the last chance Hughes will see as a starter. He has maybe two more chances at starting and…they comes Andy, although Freddy Garcia better watch his back too. Hey, I’m not happy with Kuroda either!

    Reply
  6. DontChaKnow says:
    April 19, 2012 at 1:24 pm

    Hughes stated that he needs to get back to using his 4 seam and Curve and not work as heavily on the Change and Cutter.

    From what I recall they wanted him to develop the change up, because his 2 pitch arsenal wasn’t effective in strike outs or making it through a lineup more than twice.

    It just seems like he’s made for the bullpen or maybe the National League as a starter.

    Reply
  7. Mark Finke says:
    April 19, 2012 at 2:07 pm

    Comparing Hughes to The abig Unit and Schilling is a stretch in my mind. They both threw a lot more inning at the same point in their careers and showed more signs of what they could become. Plus they had just more stuff than Hughes. Espacially if you compare hom to Schilling.
    Patience is key with Hughes but for how long? They have given him every chance to show how good he can be, but maybe he is what he is even if every Yankees fan around sees him as a potential ace.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Set your Twitter account name in your settings to use the TwitterBar Section.