Or so says Ron Shandler:
er Felipe Paulino had some of the worst surface stats of any starting pitcher last season, including a 3-11 record, 6.27 ERA and 1.67 WHIP. Not exactly the kind of pitcher to target, right? Not so fast. His underlying skills were quite good. He had an 8.6 K/9 and 3.4 BB/9, meaning he struck out batters at a high rate while keeping his walks at a reasonable level. His problem was that he struggled mightily in specific situations. Left-handed batters posted a .354 batting average (BA) and .663 slugging percentage (SLG) against him. He also allowed 1.8 HR/9 (home runs per nine innings), a mark that seems inflated, given that he is not an extreme fly-ball pitcher. Finally, hitters managed an extremely high .370 BABIP against him. As his HR/9 comes down and his BABIP normalizes, he could make significant gains if he can find an out pitch against left-handed bats.
Hooray! Get after it, Arnsberg...
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
