Name: Jair Jurrjens, 25 year RHP with the Braves
Contract: He will be going into is 2nd year of arbitration. 2 years until a FA (I am horrible with contract information, so let me know if I am wrong). Was paid $3.25M in 2011.
Pitches: He throws several different fastballs (60% of the time). Also he has a curve/slider/cutter (20%) and a change (20%). His fastball averaged 89.1 MPH this last season. It is down almost 3 MPH since he joined the league:
Results
Here is his stats over the years:
| Year | Team | IP | K/9 | BB/9 | GB% | ERA | FIP | xFIP | SIERA | WAR |
| 2007 | Tigers | 30.2 | 3.8 | 3.2 | 21.5% | 4.70 | 5.26 | 5.32 | 5.60 | 0.2 |
| 2008 | Braves | 188.1 | 6.6 | 3.4 | 30.1% | 3.68 | 3.59 | 3.92 | 4.16 | 3.7 |
| 2009 | Braves | 215.0 | 6.4 | 3.1 | 26.8% | 2.60 | 3.68 | 4.28 | 4.43 | 3.9 |
| 2010 | Braves | 116.1 | 6.7 | 3.3 | 30.0% | 4.64 | 4.19 | 4.29 | 4.36 | 1.2 |
| 2011 | Braves | 152.0 | 5.3 | 2.6 | 26.9% | 2.96 | 3.99 | 4.23 | 4.28 | 1.5 |
The drop in velocity can be seen the drop in K/9. He does have a nice shiny ERA from 2011, his ERA estimators show him as a worse pitcher.
For comparison, here are the K/9 and BB/9 for a few Royals this last year:
- Luke Hochevar, 5.82 K/9, 2.82 BB/9
- Bruce Chen, 5.63 K/9, 2.90 BB/9
- Everett Teaford, 5.73 K/9, 2.86 BB/9
Injury History:
2007: Shoulder (missed 14 games)
2008: Ankle (missed 5 games)
2010: Hamstring (missed 52 games)
2011: Side (missed 11 days)
2011: Knee (missed 34 games total, 2 DL trips)
Conclusions:
A big pass with me unless he come real cheap. He is showing degrading skills (fastball and health) along with a skill set that is comparable to pitchers already on the Royals staff. If he was an available FA, I would not mind taking a chance with a minor league deal hoping he could improve. He is not an answer for improving the pitching staff.