Bleaher Report: Is Luke Hochevar a Bust?

While Hochevar hasn't picked up many K's, he does a good job limiting walks (just 3.2 BB/9) and homers (.9 HR/9). Batters find it difficult to lift his pitches (53.5 GB%) and they also struggle to hit liners (15.7 LD%).

Really, the only thing Hochevar doesn't do well is strike out hitters. And given his groundball tendencies, that's okay. Aaron Cook, Chien-Ming Wang, Jake Westbrook, and Roy Halladay have similar tendencies, and all four have carved out nice careers.

While the odds of Hochevar being the next Halladay are slim, he certainly could be right up in the Cook/Westbrook class. After all, he's only 25 and throws five quality pitches (93 mph four-seam fastball, 90 mph two-seam fastball, 83 mph slider, 75 mph curve, 83 mph changeup), so he certainly has good stuff.

over 2 years ago RoyalsRetro 5 comments 0 recs |

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No accounting

for his ability to deal with adverse situations. With this groundball/contact tendencies our D is forced to step up. Hoch may not be good enough to pick up 4 outs every inning…

I've got crazy flipper fingers!

by labbadabba on Jun 29, 2009 10:47 AM EDT reply actions

If we can forget for a second that he was a #1 overall pick,

then he is not a bust at all, so far.

I think labbadabba makes a great point in that having a starter like that in your rotation pretty much necessitates putting a good infield defense behind him. Same goes for Bannister needing a good defensive outfield behind him.

That is what’s so frustrating about this group of postion players – they aren’t particularly good at anything. If they hit like the Philles, for example, then we could live with the bad defense. If they defended like the early 70s Orioles, then we could live with the poor plate discipline. When they don’t do either well, then you have a 90 loss team, no matter if the pitching is good or not.

Mr Glass, this is a pro sports team, not a retail store - run it like one!

by loyal2sdad on Jun 29, 2009 2:06 PM EDT reply actions

question for you

do you think that if we had a really good ss, and the rest of the team were intact and as they were supposed to be (i.e. crisp in cf, gordon at 3b, teahen playing supersub) that this team would be above .500?

Kansas City Royals - rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic since 1994.

by Home Run Tony Cogan on Jun 29, 2009 2:59 PM EDT up reply actions

If you add a competent power bat to that mix, say Adam Dunn at DH

then yes, I think .500 would be about right if not better.

by AxDxMx on Jun 29, 2009 3:26 PM EDT up reply actions

Let's see

Fangraphs is down right now, so the defense part is off the top of my head… I’ll try and use Stat Corner’s offensive stuff. This involves a lot of hypothetical speculation of course, but isn’t totallly unfounded on performance of players so far.

Dunn over Jacobs = ~15 runs better

I think Gordon would be better than Teahen so far, but it’s hard to tell how much, let’s just call it even.

Teahen over Guillen in RF = + 10 defense, and that’s being conservative. And yes, that’s just for the year so far, and actuallly assumes TEahen would be below average in RF (I think he’s average at least, again…) He’s hit a bit better offensively that Guillen so far, say, 2 runs or so, so ~ 12 runs better.

Who is a “really good” shortstop? Let’s be more conservative and say the Royals,instead of signing a “Craig Counsell type” in Willie B., had just signed Craig Counsell (who signed for 1/$1M). He’s actually hitting very well this season, but let’s be conservative again (and it’s clear he’s going to regress from this small sampe size). He’s a great defender, +10 runs above average over a season. I don’t know what Royals SSs have done so far, but Aviles was so bad… I don’t hink it’s a stretch to say Counsell would have been +10 runs on ROyals SSes so far this season defensively this season.

So 15 (Dunn) + 12 (Teahen over Guilllen) + 10 (Counsell) = 37 runs, or almost 4 wins.

Remember these are speculative, but conservative hypothetical estimates. THe Royals, with those changes, could realistically be 3-4 wins better.or 35-39/36-38.

I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.

by Matt Klaassen on Jun 29, 2009 4:40 PM EDT up reply actions 2 recs