Minor League Ball :: Minor Leagues blog featuring John Sickels

Minor League Ball :: Minor Leagues blog featuring John Sickels

The long-lost blogger returns! And to all of my adoring audience (if you haven't totally given up on me yet), I promise to pay some attention to this blog going forward.

Anyway, my blog sucks compared to the linked Minor League blog with John Sickels. This is just plain the best blog-style baseball site that I have come across. In addition to going through the top prospects of all the teams, he's got a Young Pitcher Symposium going on, which started as a "Who would you rather have?" discussion featuring Josh Beckett, Rich Harden and Jake Peavy.

I'll admit to a little bit of bias here in saying that I would prefer Beckett - because he came through Portland and because he beat the Yankees in 2003 and because (perhaps not coincidentally) he's the only one of the three who I've seen pitch. But, man, he looked like Pedro in the 2003 playoffs - he was freaking unbelievable!

After looking at their numbers, I will stick with Beckett. His biggest problem has been staying on the mound, but that's been related to blisters (a problem that he should be able to overcome), rather than muscle or joint damage. Beckett has the best WHIP and K/BB ratio of the three. Peavy does have a better W/L record (which means little), and a sexy little ERA crown under his belt. (That was set in a pitchers park, but his Adjusted ERA+ of 177 in 2004 also led the league, ahead of the Unit's 171). Harden doesn't have these kinds of numbers on his resume, but he's only 22 and right in line with what Beckett and Peavy had done up to that point - plus he utterly dominated in the minors in 2003, forcing the A's to call him up.

Actually, let's look at how Harden stacks up to the former Big 3 (tm) for a moment. At age 22, Rich Harden pitched 189.2 innings in the majors, posting an 11-7 record, 3.99 ERA (117 ERA+), a 1.33 WHIP and 2.06 K/BB ratio. At the same age, the Big 3 (tm) did this

IP W L ERA ERA+ WHIP K/BB Player
154.0 9 10 5.44 87 1.69 1.27 Mulder
92.7 7 4 2.72 174 1.18 1.73 Zito
Hudson didn't make his MLB debut until he was 23.

Harden looks pretty good so far.

At age 23 (Harden's upcoming season), the comps look like this:

IP W L ERA ERA+ WHIP K/BB Player
229.1 21-8 3.45 126 1.16 3.00 Mulder
214.1 17-7 3.49 125 1.23 2.56 Zito
136.1 11-2 3.23 149 1.34 2.13 Hudson

Harden could indeed have some very good days ahead of him.

But I digress. I think that I would go Beckett, Harden, Peavy given the opportunity, but I think that they will all be great pitchers for a long time.

And check out John Sickels' blog - it really rocks!