Deja Vu
Chicago White Sox general manager Ken Williams has just given Gavin Floyd the kiss of death.
Yesterday, Mike Gonzalez added this three line tid-bit at the end of his article in The Tribune after profiling what condition Juan Uribe will be in after his much publicized shooting incident:
With the completion of the Arizona Fall League, Floyd was his usual Jeckyl and Hyde self with numbers to prove it. In the six games he pitched in, he tallied 19 1/3 innings, 17 hits, 12 runs – all earned – for a grand total of a 5.59 ERA. Despite that, the numbers indicate that when hitters got to Floyd this winter they hit him around pretty good. Williams must be banking on the Sox’s offense and Floyd’s ability of holding ASL hitters to a .223 average to promote such confidence.
His GO/AO(ground ball/fly ball hits against ratio, excludes line drive and bunt hits) numbers are at an even 1.00. Out of the 17 hits he surrendered, we can surmise from the GO/AO ratio that he gave up eight fly ball and eight ground ball hits. Two of those flies managed to find their way over the outfield wall.
Floyd’s curve ball has been his money pitch throughout his career. It often found him success through his AAA career K-ing 549 batters in 117 games. On the rare starts that he has found success in the big leagues he used it effectively to keep hitters from locking in on his flat , mid to low nineties fastball.
Hitters would dare him to consistently throw his curve for strikes knowing that the only other pitch he could get over was the fast ball. When this happened, he began missing with the curve, putting him behind in counts. As a pitcher, when you keep allowing hitters to get up in the count , they will be seeing green lights all day long.
