Joe Kelly Spotlight Edition

Back in the halcyon days of spring training in the sun splashed fields of dreams young Joe Kelly announced far and wide that he would win the Cy Young in 2015.   Right now he's stuck in the minors, having lost his rotation spot in a hail of straight fastballs and short outings.  But as the summer has begun and the team's rotation has crumbled like so many broken promises I had a thought.  Why not compare him to the current Cy Young favorite in the American League, Chris 'The Condor' Sale of the south side Chicago White Sox.  They are not only similar in age as it turns out.  Thanks to Baseball HQ for the stats as usual.



Kelly's bugaboo has been a lack of command.  As you can see Kelly hovers around 2 for Cmd (K/BB) while Sale is positively blowing it out of the water with a rising 6.7 this year.  In turn this shows up in Ctl (BB/9) and WHIP while Sale is killing it there too.  But what about the rest?  The skill-set all MLB teams are looking for in starting pitchers is a combo of strikeout and ground ball abilities.  Chris Sale is the pinnacle right now.  He's throwing 43% GB with a 16 SwK (swinging strike strikeout metric).  Now we peel back a layer and see that Joe Kelly has an even stronger GB tilt than Chris Sale but lacks that punch-out hammer to put guys away with only a 7 SwK.  I admit, that's a big chink in the armor, but stay with me.  Kelly is right on par with Sale in terms of 'hitability', with an almost identical H% (number of batted balls the result in hits) and got a little unlucky in S% (number of baserunners stranded on base) this year but has been in Sale's category in the recent past.  And finally, he's also fairly even with Sale on HRF (home run per fly ball).

Clearly Kelly is talented.  In AAA his mandate has been to get his walks down and control his fastball.  It remains to be seen if he can can put it all together, but he clearly has something special with his ground ball and strikout ability.  Once upon a time Kelly did face the Red Sox in the World Series in 2013 and put up 5.1 Innings with 2 Earned Runs, 3 Walks and 6 Strikeouts as a 25 year old.  Perhaps this speaks to a larger problem with the Sox.  It's clear to me John Farrell has work to do to be a successful manager year in and year out.  There have been way too many mental mistakes and questionable managerial moves to think otherwise for this die hard.  Kelly has a ton of potential and maybe, just maybe, if Farrell wasn't so overwhelmed he might be able to help more than one pitcher to seek out new heights.

Until Next Time,

The SAHD