Is Edinson Volquez For Real?

Following up on my post earlier this morning, I thought I would take a look at another young pitchers who had a breakout year in 2008 and ask if we could expect sustained success in 2009.

In a deal that landed Josh Hamilton in Arlington, Edinson Volquez was traded to the Reds prior to the 2008 season. Volquez, a powerful strikeout king in the minor leagues (never below 9.5 K/9 at A, AA or AAA), had just made an abbreviated (34 IP) stint with the Rangers in 2007, where he posted a 4.5 ERA (4.56 FIP) and solid 7.68 K/9 with questionable control (1.93 K/BB). Overall, Volquez, between A, AA, AAA and the majors in 2007, logged 178.2 IP at age 24 (45 IP increase from 2006). In 2008, he had a breakthrough season, posting a 3.2 ERA (3.6 FIP) to match improved strikeout numbers (9.46 K/9) and control (2.22 K/BB). While Volquez took baby steps backwards in the BB department, his increased strikeouts and decreased HR/9 rate (due to an increased usage of off-speed and breaking pitches -- 10% decrease in fastballs, 6% decrease in FB and 8% increase in GB) more than compensated.

While many speculate that Volquez, who posted a 2.1 ERA through the first three months, was getting lucky and point to his 4.37 ERA after the break, a lot of Volquez's true luck -- which was actually negative luck -- came in the final three months, when he posted a 3.95 FIP. During his first few months of baseball, Volquez put up great peripherals that lent to a 2.95 FIP -- surely higher than his 2.1 ERA, but still great numbers none the less.

Volquez struck out 45+ batters in two separate months in 2008 and kept his walk rate pretty consistent and in line with the league average all season long. Volquez's strikeout "decline" (from >9 K/9 to 8 K/9) in the middle months may have been the result of fatigue during his first major league season, but he ended the year strong, punching out 45 guys in 33 frames.

All and all, you gotta say Volquez earned much of his reverance as one of the game's toughest pitchers in 2008. His numbers are largely in line with his career averages. The glaring exceptions are his BB rate -- which most projection systems predict to fall a little -- and HR/9 rate, which one would have to expect to regress a bit in the homerun friendly Great American Ballpark. All five projection systems on fangraphs expect Volquez to pretty much repeat his numbers from 2008, albeit with a slight regression in the ERA/FIP department, for 2009.

So Volquez is probably for real, but we gotta ask ourselves another question before simply drafting him: is Volquez primed for injury? Statistics aside, Volquez plays for a man who single-handedly broke the two greatest pitchers not named Greg Maddux to ever come out of the Chicago North farm system. Baker is notorious for abusing pitchers -- especially young pitchers. This should scare guys like Homer Bailey, Johnny Cueto and Edinson Volquez.

Last year, Baker was handed one of the NL's most durable pitchers in Aaron Harang. Harang had pitched 210+ innings in each of the last 3 seasons and over 230 each of the last two. Over the course of this time, his numbers remained both dominant and consistent, with a K/BB well above 3 and a BB rate that never eclipsed 2.2 per nine innings. As an owner of Harang last year, Baker's impact was extremely frustrating. As fangraphs notes, Baker used Harang pretty heavily early on, but he held together pretty well. That is until May, however, when Baker found a very creative way to break him. After having thrown 103 pitches through 5.1 innings on May 22, Baker called upon Harang to throw another 63 across four innings just three days later. Four days after that, Baker started Harang on four days rest, allowing him to throw 73 more pitches across four more innings of work. Prior to the May 22 start, Harang had a 3.5 ERA and the following peripherals:


In his eight starts following the late May fiasco, Harang's numbers tanked, as his ERA exploded to 7.31. As fangraph notes, Harang's peripherals regressed to the following line:


Harang eventually ended up on the DL and came back to pitch 2.83 ERA baseball over his last eight starts, but his K/9 fell even further to 6.00 and his BABIP was a lucky .258. A winter's worth of rest should do Harang a lot of good, but knowing the effect of Baker on a guy like Harang sends chills down my spine when I look over Baseball Prospectus' Pitcher Abuse Point rankings for 2008 and notice that Volquez actually accumulated more PAP points than did Harang last season.

Thankfully, this news isn't as bad as it seems. Harang never eclipsed a 120 pitch count -- the danger zone threshold for abuse -- and Volquez only did it once (almost twice) in 2008 (by contrast, Mark Prior pitched 120+ pitches nine times in 2003, often in a consecutive starts). Furthermore, Volquez was "only" the 17th most "abused" arm in all of baseball, falling well below other guys like Tim Lincecum, CC Sabathia, Johan Santana, Ryan Dempster and even fellow Red Bronson Arroyo. Additionally, Volquez -- at age 25 -- only increased his seasonal workload by a reasonable 27.1 innings in 2008, thereby avoiding the ominous "Verducci effect" threshold (I really like that word, don't I?).

So what is my conclusion? Considering that Volquez's performance last year was largely "for real" and that he wasn't nearly as abused as many people (like me) may have superficially believed before delving into the numbers, I would say that Volquez may be one of the more underrated value arms for 2009. Volquez has an ADP of 104, which makes him available with the likes of Rich Harden, Carlos Zambrano and AJ Burnett. Given his strong K rate, sub-4 ERA upside and relatively less abused arm/better health history, Volquez is probably the best pick of the bunch.