Tim Hudson 2011 Forecast

Tim Hudson had Tommy John Surgery after an elbow injury during the 2008 season. He had put in 142 innings of work before he was finished for the season. He came back at the end of the 2009 season and put in 42 innings, making the surgery successful, as it usually is.

2010 marked his first full season since his surgery, and he looked like a new pitcher. After only having a 2.13 ERA when he finished his start on August 13th 2010, he slumped, finishing the season with a 2.83 ERA. It was his best season as an Atlanta Brave.

Many say his low BABIP or (Batting Average on Balls In Play) contributed to his fall off, saying he was extremely lucky for his successful season. BABIP is a measure of the number of batted balls that safely fall in for a hit (not including home runs). Since his was a .250 avg and the normal is around .300, it suggested all along that he was likely going to regress.

There is also xFIP, which is Expected Fielding Independent Pitching. It's a measure of all those things for which a pitcher is specifically responsible. It's supposed to help you understand how well a pitcher pitched, regardless of how well his fielders fielded. This stat also supposedly can tell you how well a pitcher might pitch in the future. Should his ERA regress or get better? Keep in mind it is for ERA. Think opposite of BABIP. The lower the number here, the better. If his xFIP is way higher than his current ERA, then you might see a increase in his ERA in the future.

Here's an article that can help you understand a little better as to what all this is about. It's not the best article and I don't think it really helps my case. The reason I bring all this nonsense up is because I will be predicting the Atlanta Braves' pitchers and ERA is one of the stats. BABIP, FIP, XFIP are some tools used to help predict future ERA. Not 100% accurate, but pretty good overall. Some people put way too much emphasis on these three stats. Some people don't like these at all, specifically traditionalist, who use only the basic bare bone stats such as W-L, ERA, strikeouts, average, home runs, and RBI and refuse to learn any more about the sport. Yeah, those are fantastic for fantasy purposes. If you want to only use those as arguments for comparing players in reality, you're going to get beat.

Other than the article I posted, the reason I say it's not 100% accurate is because it can penalize certain pitchers such as those who produce a lot of ground balls. Tim Hudson is a ground ball pitcher. Strike outs are a plus, but he pitches to contact for ground balls. His main pitch is a sinker ball, which in most cases causes a batter to hit the top half of the ball, thus forcing it downwards producing a ground ball. Derek Lowe is also a ground ball pitcher.

I'll have to keep in mind who's fielding behind these guys. People don't like the idea of Dan Uggla occupying 2nd base when Martin Prado is a better fielder. Uggla should be in left field (least important position) while Prado remains at 2nd base. Tim and Derek will be relying on their defense to be fielding these ground balls. Chipper Jones will be at 3rd base with a surgically repaired ACL as well. Limited range could be a problem.

Personally, I think that part of Tim Hudson's struggles in late August and September are as a result of pitching 228.2 innings his first full season back from Tommy John. Not all from a particularly "lucky" season. Perhaps he dealt with fatigue? 228.2 innings is a big jump from years of 142 innings and 42 innings. In his career, there is no year to year correlation of late season collapses. In other words, he has never dropped off in performance as significat as .70 Runs to his ERA at the end of the season. Here's an example, in 2007, Hudson remain fairly consistent through the season.

During Hudson's best season in 2003 with the Oakland Athetics, he had a BABIP of .261, the second lowest of his career. Hudson didn't regress that year. He remained consistent. In, fact, he went from an ERA of 3.29 in June and finished in September with an ERA of 2.70.

So with all this said, I don't see any reason to see any serious decline in Hudson's overall play. I'll be safe and bump his numbers up a bit. Just for the sake of the guys playing behind him, his age, and the whole "fluke factor."

I decided not to post Tim's prediction just yet. Maybe I will for my next post.