Pitcher A is 23 years old. He's 6'3" 180lbs. This season he is 7-4 with a 3.29 ERA/1.33 WHIP. He has cut his Hits/9 from 8.6 in 2012 to 7.2 in 2013, though his walks have increased from 4.0 per nine innings to 4.8. Still, his strikeouts have jumped from 7.2 per nine to 9.0.
Pitcher A has made 18 appearances and has allowed two or fewer earned runs in 13 of them. Twelve of his 17 starts have resulted in a Game Score of greater than 50, seven of them 60 or higher.
Righties are posting a .663 OPS against him; Lefties? .597. He has only pitched to 12 batters (out of 401) who are younger than he is.
Pitcher B is 24 years old, six months older than Pitcher A. He's 6'4" 235lbs. In 13 starts at Triple-A, he has a 3.06 ERA/1.10 WHIP. At Triple-A he's allowing 6.6 hits/9inn with 3.3 walks/9 and 7.5 strikeouts per nine innings.
Though he split time between Double-A and Triple-A, he has allowed two or fewer runs in 14 of his 19 appearances, seven of them have been scoreless outings, and three of those scoreless outings are 18-out appearances or more.
Righties have a .568 OPS against him; lefties a .653 OPS. He has faced a younger batter 82 times in 420 total plate appearances.
Who do you choose?
Answer? Both of them because Pitcher A is Jarred Cosart and Pitcher B is Asher Wojciechowski! Watch your back, Harrell!
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
