Friday, July 3, 2015

Has Nathan Eovaldi Finally Figured It Out?


The Yankees have played a total of 79 games this season as we all saw in the “Yankees Leaders” post from earlier this morning and I don’t believe one player has been criticized more than Nathan Eovaldi. Esmil Rogers has been ragged on by the fans, CC Sabathia’s effectiveness as a starter is a constant question and concern while Stephen Drew just sucks but I think much of the animosity this season, whether deserved or not, has been thrown at Eovaldi after the Yankees traded David Phelps and Martin Prado this winter for Eovaldi and Garrett Jones. Many fans expected an ace rather than the unfinished work in progress we were promised by the Yankees brass and revolted when he continued to lead the league in hits allowed but if you’ve been watching his last three starts you may have noticed that Eovaldi may have finally figured it out.

Ever since Eovaldi failed to make it out of the first inning against his former team the Miami Marlins Eovaldi has been sharp, effective and has pitched much better than his 4th starter title would suggest. In his first start Eovaldi made a start on short rest against the Detroit Tigers and looked good pitching 6.0 IP allowing just two runs and a walk with four K’s notching his 6th victory of the season. His next start came against the Houston Astros and it was once again Mr. Eovaldi and less of Dr. Jekyll as Eovaldi pitched another 6.0 IP allowing two earned runs while striking out six for his 7th victory of the season. On Wednesday night Eovaldi logged his team-high 8th victory of the season against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim pitching 5.1 IP of scoreless baseball. Eovaldi wasn’t perfect and he wasn’t always dominant but he pitched to certain spots and walked certain batters when he had to and ultimately won those three games in a row in convincing fashion giving Yankees fans everywhere a bit of hope.


Eovaldi was presented to the Yankees fan base as a work in progress and that’s exactly what he is, a work in progress. Eovaldi will have his ups and his downs and after this post he may go and lay an egg in his next start, it’s called growing pains. He has the things you cannot teach though and that’s velocity and, knock on wood, durability. The rest can be taught including the baseball IQ to walk an Albert Pujols setting up an inning ending double play as well as the addition of a new pitch or two to keep batters from simply sitting on his straight fastball. Eovaldi may not win 15 games this season or ever become an ace but he’s getting better with every start and that’s all you can really ask for from a 25 year old flamethrower in his first season in the Bronx. For the Yankees sake let’s hope Eovaldi is figuring this thing out. 

7 comments:

  1. Good article, however I'm not fooled by his record in fact as you know I always look at numbers and I took a look at two other pitchers that have the same amount of starts and their teams are the leaders in their respective division. Let's look at the straight and see if indeed he has figured things out.

    The two pitchers I am using as a comparison for Straight is Edison Volquez of the Royals and Colin McHugh of the Astro's. All three pitchers have started 16 games. Quality starts has EV at 8 and CM at 10 and in last is straight with 6 quality starts. Wins... Straight and EV both have 8 and CM has 9 so this is where the comparison is a true comparison on bot starts and wins.

    Innings pitched in those 16 starts and Straight has the least pitched at 87.2 and CM has the most at 101.2 innings. Hits given up..yes straight is the leader of the three with 110 in only 87.2 innings yet EV has given up the least hits 82 in 95.2 innings. CM has given up 105 hits but his innings in 101.2. Now lets look at Earned runs given up. EV has 37 and Straight has 44 and CM has 51, so Straight is 2nd in that category.

    In Hr's given up straight has given up the 2nd most at 8 and EV at 7 and CM given up the most at 13. In walks given up Straight is again second at 25 with EV 33 and the least given up is CM at 24.

    K's per 9 innings for a flame thrower like Straight that hits 98 consistently he has the least K/9 ratio of 6.47 and next is EV at 6.87 and the leader is CM at 7.44 per 9 innings.

    Next lets look at the WAR number with Straight at 1.3 and then EV at 0.9 and then CM at 0.8. Now lets look at the WHIP numbers with EV at 1.20 and CM at 1.27 and Straight at 1.54

    ERA where EV has the lowest at 3.48 and CM is second with a 4.51 and Straight is 4.52 which is obviously not that far off CM

    Last I want to look at Strikeouts so far this season. Again all of these pitchers have started 16 games and they all throw hard. CM has the most K's at 84 and EV is second at 73 and the 98 MPH heater of Straight produced 63 K's.

    So even though I did enjoy your article I'm not about to roll out the red carpet for this guy as I believe what we have seen in his win totals is from the fantastic run support given to him by his team. Do I think he is our worst starter we have...absolutely NOT. If Straight was a number 5 which is where I believe he needs to be I would be OK with him, but he is being counted on as a 3 in my opinion. As the Rock would say when he was wrestling, Do you smell what I'm cooking and the answer is No I'm not. Yes I know the verbiage was a little different then what I wrote but you got the jist.


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    1. All this for a fourth starter.... That's the most important part that's not being relayed

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  2. Hold on here Burch. You wrote an article praising the Water Pistol. I pointed out to you...not so fast there. If you're going to write something that I or anyone else for that matter disagree with then I will state my case whether you or anyone agrees with my thoughts. I don't think he is a 4th starter as you pointed out. To me he is a 5th starter or long man out of the pen. The Yankees have had numerous one hit wonder pitchers that won because of run support and then when they had to rely on their pitching ended up getting sent packing. The likes of Shawn Chacon and Aaron Small come to mind. This guy has people fooled with the amount of wins, yet he doesn't hold up to his end of the deal with his alleged 98MPH arm.

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  3. The Yankees have the second best offense in baseball and many of the Yankees starters are getting that same run support without the wins. That was my point

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  4. Burch I politely disagree with you on Eovaldi and I think he is a 5 or long man. I understand your point on run support.

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  5. Oh and By the Way Burch I know you can still see the deleted comments and I still believe what I wrote, just taking the high road.

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    1. It's all good Hans. on both the deleted comments and the Eovaldi.

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Sorry for the Capatcha... Blame the Russians :)