Sunday, December 27, 2009
Chad Billingsley 2010
Chad Billingsley is the opposite of his teammate Clayton Kershaw going into 2010. Billingsley was viewed as a rising star after his 2008 season, but a very slight regression in his peripheral stats and an ERA above 4 led many to lower their opinions of him. He is currently going substantially lower than Kershaw in most mock drafts, despite being a very similar quality pitcher. While he doesn't have quite the upside of Kershaw, he is also young (25) and has had a K/9 of 9.01 and 8.21 the past two years. Let your opponents go for the hype of Kershaw, and pick up Billingsley for yourself, a few rounds later in the draft.
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3 comments:
Billz started out like a Cy Young contender last season. I've forgotten just when, but fairly early in the season, I saw him pitch against the Giants and he seemed to tweak his left knee. He kind of bent it back, or hyperextended it, on his follow through. He and the Dodgers denied there was a problem, but he wasn't quite the same after that.
If he stays healthy and gets his walk rates down a tad, he should be fine and a near ace.
DrBGiantsfan - Not entirely clear if his month-by-month K/9 and BB/9 support that theory. The K/9 was higher in April and May than the rest of the year, but not so much higher that it's clear that something went wrong.
I don't think I said he completely fell apart. Here's Billz' April split: 4-0, 2.14, 33.2 IP, 12 BB, 34 K's. That looks significantly better than the rest of his year to me.
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