Fantastic writeup by Jeff Sullivan on Peacock's transformation: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/brad-peacock-has-become-a-strikeout-god/ The changes he made in the minors last season have paid crazy dividends. His father talked about his alterations in the radio booth in Spring Training. He's a completely different pitcher, and it's a joy to watch. Oldest tenured Astro besides JA and Marwin. It'll be interesting to see how many innings his arm can take, but I'm optimistic he'll wear fine. Starter his entire career. Most importantly, a sneaky solid pickup for my fantasy team. Figured his play warranted it's own thread. One of my favorite storylines thus far.
When he controls that slider, it's absolute filth. His stuff plays well to the Astros desire to throw more breaking balls. The movement he creates can be pretty nasty...hope he keeps it up.
This chart is pretty incredible to have 5 Astros out of 10 players: Most Unhittable Pitches Pitcher Pitch Swings Contact% Charlie Morton CU 101 47.5% Brad Peacock SL 132 47.7% Zack Greinke SL 205 47.8% Max Scherzer SL 215 47.9% Chris Devenski CH 129 48.1% Luke Gregerson SL 112 48.2% Stephen Strasburg CH 120 49.2% Corey Kluber SL 125 49.6% James Hoyt SL 121 50.4% Alex Meyer CU 125 51.2% SOURCE: Baseball Prospectus
The Astros deserve a lot of credit. The 5 pitchers from the Astros were/are not big names with a long track record. They isolated players with modest fanfare and signed or traded for them. FWIW the Astros may very well have had a 6th pitcher on that list if McHugh had been healthy.
The only bad performance was when some smarty pants decided to open the roof in a June game, in houston. But I remember one of the only few bright spots of that Texas Rangers broadcast that moonlighted as the national broadcast was they went deep into detail on the emphasis that the big L and the rest of the organization place on ball spin rate.
With the inconsistent pitching from the back end of the bullpen this year and with McCullers, Keuchel, Morton and McHugh looming on the horizon. I think Peacock's stuff would pitch well in the 9th. He has a Wipeout pitch with that nasty slider and he appears to have a nasty demeanor, which would serve well in closing situations. Martes , Paulino and Feliz can keep the 6th, 7th innings. Just a thought, I'm sure they'll keep sending Giles out there and I am not completely against Giles. Just an old man rambling on here.
Agree he would probably be good there, but you are right they won't be moving Giles out of the closers role unless he implodes
If they move Peacock to the pen I would much rather try him as another Devo than limiting him to closing. Having a pair of wipeout artists that can go multiple innings would be invaluable. Giles is doing his primary job very well, consistently getting him the ball has been more of an issue than him failing.
