Homer Bailey entered the season practically analogous with the word phenom. Project Prospect ranked him as the No. 3 pitching prospect in baseball while MiLB.com and Sports Illustrated had him as the game's best pitching prospect.
The 2004 first rounder works in the mid-90s and tops out at 98 MPH with a devastating curveball that has 12-6 break. He struck out 30.2% of the batters he faced between High-A and Double-A last season, establishing himself as fearless competitor. What’s not to like about a guy like that?
Flash to Bailey after six starts into 2007.
At first glance, the 6-foot-4, 205-pounder’s numbers look great: 3-1 with a 1.83 ERA and batters are hitting just .177 against him in Triple-A Louisville. It’s when you start to look at his 21 strikeouts and 15 walks in 34.1 innings that you step back and think, “What’s going on here?”
The Reds have put a real emphasis on Bailey working on his off-speed pitches. Louisville pitching coach Ted Power even thinks the righty may need a few tinkers with his delivery. So perhaps Bailey’s dropoff in strikeout rate (15.8% so far this season) is simply because he’s throwing a lot more off-speed stuff and not going with his fastball as much as he’s used to.
Another reason for the decline in K's could be that in two of his six starts he has been staked to at least 7-run leads early in the game. After both games, he has been quoted saying when you get that far ahead, you tend to back off a little bit. So lacking a competitive environment could explain things a bit as well.
Let’s take a look back at Bailey’s 2006 numbers, though. In his first six starts, he struck out more than five batters just once. Batters hit .205 against him and he posted a 1.04 WHIP. Through his first six starts this season, Bailey has yet to strike out more than five batters. His batting average against (.177) and a WHIP (1.02) are lower than last year. Comparing his first six starts in 2006 and 2007, I’m not as concerned about his “slow,” start.
Bailey has succeeded in keeping hitters off-balance more frequently by incorporating more breaking balls. And while the hitters he’s facing are good enough to make contact, the contact that they are making is not very good.
For example, batters are getting ground ball hits 5.9% less often against him this year. Before you think he is getting lucky, let me point out that last year he allowed 12 infield hits, while this year he has allowed 0. That plays a large role in that number. Bailey has a line drive rate on balls in play that is up 2.8% from last year, while his flyball rate has dropped 2.0% and his pop up rate is up over 3.0%.
That was a lot of percentages in a short period of time. Let me clarify what they say. These percentages tell us that maybe guys are fouling off a few more pitches against him than they did last year in High-A and Double-AA. And he’s also getting extra outs on weak pop-ups and ground balls to infielders – instead of a strike-three call.
After only having one big-strikeout game in his first six starts last season, Bailey had 10 games with more strikeouts than innings pitched. Maybe he’s just a slow starter and he is about to kick it up a notch. Maybe he’s having his strikeout numbers influenced by throwing his off-speed stuff more than usual. In the end though, it is a little tough to find much fault in a 21-year-old in Triple-A who is allowing less than 0.60 hits per inning.
Doug Gray is an avid Reds follower. You can find more of his work at www.redsminorleagues.com and reach him by email at dougdirt@cinci.rr.com.