Your scouting report on Giants starting pitcher Tim Hudson

To counter the Royals and Jeremy Guthrie in game 3 of the World Series the Giants are sending Tim Hudson to face the daunting KC lineup. I'm a self-proclaimed Guthrie hater so we'll focus this article solely on Tim Hudson and I'll begrudgingly leave Guthrie alone.

Tim Hudson is 38 years old. He's the oldest pitcher in the playoffs this year (a fact I've only briefly researched) and the oldest since Bartolo Colon started for Oakland last year. Hudson is the 3rd oldest starter to make a World Series debut ever, and he's one of the oldest players to start  a World Series game since Roger Clemens did so back in 2005 at the age of 43. I don't subscribe to B-Ref Play Index so if someone wants to truly run that query they are more than welcome to fill us in accurately.

Hudson is past his prime, no question there. Once a perennial elite level pitcher, one who average 4 wins per year in a 6 year span, Hudson has seen his value decline as run environments declined and strikeout rates increased. Tim has the lowest BB/9 of his career this season, but that's also been coupled with one of his lower strikeout rates of his career too.

That command has carried over to the post season as in 13 innings so far Hudson has yet to walk a batter and in the same span he's bumped his K/9 by 3 strikeouts.

2014 pitch usage:

Hudson has a pretty deadly sinker that batters pound into the ground and he's one of the league leaders in groundball rates year in and year out. The Royals are also one of the most groundball hitting teams in baseball so I think there's a good chance the Giants infield defense is put to the test in some fashion.

Hudson is also slightly better at home than away. Something likely helped by the pitcher friendly ballpark he plays in.

One noticeable standout with Hudson is his platoon split,