Currently at AAA RR and pitching exceedingly well. By giving up 8 hits and a walk in his last start his whip just got over 1. Oh btw, he only gave up 1 run over seven innings. Who is this guy? Season numbers to date 66.0 IP 7W 2L 2.45 ERA 1.02 WHIP Born in 1984 Is he a legit prospect? Hampton has bought time with his last two starts, but how much longer can you keep a guy like this down?
Not bad #'s but 42ks in those 66innings indicates to me he isn't much of a prospect. Could be a serviceable starter at some point, but he won't be a top of the line guy. The only pitcher on that team that is really considered a prospect is Bud Norris and that is only because the Astros are so thin in young talent.
He'll be up w/ the club later this year. He's been in the bigs before w/ FLA & DET. Really good in the Det bullpen in '07, but no real ML work in '08. Too old now to be considered a top prospect but he certainly was considered that for both of those teams when he arrived there. Low 90's fastball, good control. The bullpen in Hou is going to look very different very soon. Brocail, Byrdak, Valverde, Ortiz are virtual locks to not be round in '10, or sooner.
K's aren't really a determining factor, IMO. A lot of pitchers out there pitch for efficiency and pitch to contact. A better indicator is the K:BB ratio. Bazardo is 44:15. Norris is 66:33. Bazardo walks significantly fewer people than Norris does. His WHIP is also significantly lower. He's lookin' pretty good to me.
Ks are a pretty big indicator of future success for all pitchers, but particularly for prospects. Obviously it's indicative of his "stuff" which will catch up to you the higher you go. It's also a pretty fine line pitchers have to walk if they can't strike people out. They'll have a wider variation in their ERA than strike out pitchers, because of the randomness of balls put in play. If Bazardo can keep up the control he can be servicable, but hes not a prospect.
