Braden Looper 2009

Braden Looper signed a one year deal yesterday to be part of the Milwaukee Brewers starting rotation in 2009. In his first season as a starting pitcher (2007), Braden Looper was awful. He struck out only 4.5 batters per nine innings and walked 2.7, while inducing 42.2% groundballs. That's barely major league quality pitching. However, he took a step forward in 2008, and put up much better numbers. His strikeout rate increased to 5.0, his walk rate dropped to 2.1, and his groundball rate rose to 48.4%. So which season was the real Braden Looper? I would expect the strikeout and walk rates to be somewhere in between this season, but for the groundball rate to remain high. So on balance, Looper is likely to be closer to the 2008 (good) Looper than the 2007 (bad) version.