High & Inside: 4/26/11

Baseball links from around the sabersphere...

• Luke Hochevar and His Pitching Struggles | Royals Review
  

  Luke loses about ~1 MPH from the 1st to the 7th innings. Also, he loses ~0.33 MPH when he pitches from the stretch. Mike Fast has looked into the average increase in Runs Allowed per 9 innings to be -0.26 for every MPH decrease in speed. So in Luke should expect and increase of R/9 of about 1/3 of run. This change doesn't explain all of Luke's drop off, does explain some.

• Troy Tulowitzki And Ryan Braun: Part Of The Best Draft Class Ever? | Baseball Nation
  

  But the 1985 draft is the one that 2005 is chasing for the title of best ever. It has a fantastic shot. And if it doesn’t get there, at least it will hold the record for most 10-year contracts and hundred-millionaires.

• What's New with Aaron Laffey? | Lookout Landing
  

  Hitters are swinging more often at his strikes and his pitches are located a little bit lower. Those could be motivating the drop in walks and rise in ground balls. They might not.

• 3-2-1 Contact | Baseball Prospectus
  A look at whether pitching to contact is the right approach for Francisco Liriano.
• The Worst Trade in Phillies History | The Good Phight
  The Good Phight concludes that the Ferguson Jenkins trade was the worst in Phillies history.

More links after the jump...

• Don't Set Your Sights on Seeing Trevor Bauer Pitch in Pro Ball This Year | Penn League Report
  UCLA starter Trevor Bauer has had a heavy workload of late.
• Soriano's velocity is up | Don't Bring in the Lefty
  Rafael Soriano hasn't exactly made the best first impression with New York, but his velocity is up.
• Jered Weaver: from sabre-darling to sabre-nightmare | The BOOK Blog
  

  Weaver, Felix, Verlander, Josh Johnson, and Lincecum are all great young pitchers. And are all in the same ballpark of talent. If one stands head and shoulders above the others, it’s a sabre-nightmare to explain.

• Michael Cuddyer, Second Baseman | Fangraphs
  

  Cuddyer always been a poor defender, and is slowly but surely transforming into a poor hitter as well, even by second base standards. However, as crazy as it sounds, it’s still hard to kill the Twins here.

• Jake Arrieta Off To A Strong Start | Camden Crazies
  

  I didn't have a great deal of faith in Jake Arrieta coming into the season, after he barely got his K/BB ratio above 1 last year. Arrieta showed some quality pitches, but his control was spotty and that didn't allow him to take full advantage of them. So far in 2011, he's taken a step forward in that area, and the results have been positive.