Regarding Phil Hughes and 2014

Hughes ranked 22nd in Zach Sanders’ rankings among starting pitchers.

I have to admit, as a Twin Cities native I was super psyched to hear about Phil Hughes signing with the Twins while I was on Thanksgiving vacation in Montana. No jokes, please.

The Twins had been talent poor in the rotation a couple years running, and even with Hughes’ obvious warts was a much better option to make starts than Pedro Hernandez, Andrew Albers, and a post-apocalypse Scott Diamond. Hughes was basically everything the rest of the Twins staff wasn’t. Projectable, talented with a pretty good fastball, and for crying out loud not a pitch-to-contact guy.

It stood to reason that Hughes would be a good fit for Target Field, too. Not necessarily the Twins with their collection of cast iron outfielders, but still for a park with expansive dimensions and its difficulty for left-handed hitters, Target Field appeared to be a match made in heaven for Hughes.

Oddly though, Hughes was better on the road. And not just a little better — a lot better. At home, Hughes pitched to a 4.25 ERA, a 3.01 FIP, and allowed a home wOBA of .306. On the road, the right-hander checked in at 2.78, 2.28 and .284. Interestingly, the home and road xFIPs are basically identical: 3.16 on the road, 3.20 at home.

A big thing for Hughes this year was also setting a career-high in innings pitched at 209.2. In fact, Hughes famously came one-third of an inning shy of a contract bonus when, in his last start of the year, a game was delayed by rain at Target Field and the right-hander did not go back out after a roughly 30 minute hiatus. Hughes also declined the Twins overtures to allow him to pitch in relief in the team’s final series of the year, simply stating he was done for the season and wasn’t too worried about such a bonus.

Even the most positive of prognosticators couldn’t have seen this sort of season coming from Hughes. He has basically always been a strike-thrower, but he took that to new heights this season. Everyone knows about Hughes setting the all-time strikeout-to-walk ratio. And in fact he did it by a wide margin at 11.63 to Bret Saberhagen’s 11.0.

As a result, it’s no surprise that he took the top billing in Zone% at 56.4 percent. It’s not particularly close either, as Miami’s Nathan Eovaldi checked in second at 51.4 percent. Only four pitchers in baseball were over 50 percent, with Wei-Yin Chen and Clayton Kershaw the others.

I found myself wondering just how good that truly is. Flip the dial back just to the year 2000, and Hughes is tied with five other pitchers — Pedro Martinez, former Twin Eric Milton, Cliff Lee, Mike Hampton, and the departed Joe Kennedy.

But what might surprise you is that Hughes is tied for 97th place in that time frame. I would have figured much higher, especially given Hughes’ huge lead this year. It’s probably a research project for another day — or more accurately, someone much smarter than I am — but I wonder if strikeouts are up, but Zone% is down. That would almost seem counterintuitive, but perhaps not? Maybe we’re in an era of nastier stuff with more swinging strikes on pitches out of the zone? Perhaps I’m babbling.

From that same time frame there is a place where Hughes is in rarified air: first-pitch strike percentage. Hughes threw a strike on 72.5 percent of his count opening offerings. Just Brad Radke in 2005 was better at 72.8 percent. That’s right. Brad (redacted) Radke of the same (redacted) Twins who have preached DO. NOT. WALK. ANYONE. for about as long as anyone can remember.

Not even the Twins could have imagined Hughes turning out this way though, I can’t imagine.

In some ways that first-pitch strike affinity lays out a pretty simple-to-grasp reason for Hughes’ success. Especially when considering that after 1-0 last year, American League hitters hit a collective .267/.372/.423. After 0-1? A paltry .224/.265/.336. That’s an OPS difference of 194 points.

No, Hughes’ walk rate is almost certainly not sustainable. But if the first-pitch strike rate is — worth noting this year wasn’t a huge increase from 2013’s 71.7 percent with the Yankees — Hughes should remain on the radar as a very valuable fantasy asset.

Hughes came into the season as the No. 90 starting pitcher and finished 22nd, with a value of $12.41. Hughes may not improve much — or perhaps even fall back a bit — but as the team around him improves, it may not be unreasonable to see the righty hold his value.

Steamer has Hughes at 12-10, with a 3.92 ERA and just +2.5 WAR next season. That’s a pretty steep dropoff from this year’s 16-10, 3.52 and +6.1. For me in my entirely unprofessional opinion, I’d split the difference down the middle and feel pretty confident.

Bonus reading: my Pioneer Press feature on Hughes from May.