I tried to clip a cool intro for this article. People my age will recognize this from the classic into to the "Six Million Dollar Man." We will call this the "Eight Million Dollar Man."
Please read part 1 here - my analysis of the Graveman for Lee trade.
Graveman is here. If you did not like Part 1, you are way more likely to enjoy Part 2. Let's follow our normal strategy for making pitchers better. Pitch less of the bad pitches and more of the good pitches. This may seem overly simplistic to you. IT IS what the Astros did last year with Will Smith to improve the 4.38 ERA Braves pitcher to the 3.27 ERA Astros pitcher.
So, let's implement our strategy for the Astros to improve Kendall Graveman.
Let's review where Graveman is with his pitches vs. RHH and LHH.
The strategy would be
- Less sinkers to RHH AND LHH
- Way less sliders to LHH - let's eliminate them
- A few less sliders to RHH
- Way more 4-seam fastballs to RHH and LHH
If the Astros did this the pitch distribution would look more like this.
Graveman has never thrown his 4-seam fastball to this extent. His velocity is good. I say give it a try.
This is how the stats compare year over year and optimized.
You know who that is?
THAT, Astros fans is a REALLY good RP. That is a pitcher I would be happy to trade for.
Kendall Graveman, the Eight Million Dollar Man, we CAN rebuild him- Better, Faster, Stronger. The seventies- you had to be there.
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