Trevor Cahill and Brett Anderson are going to be good, really good. If you don’t know these two names just yet, you will soon. I’ve been working on our inaugural FantasyPros911.com projections for the past couple of weeks, and it was a pleasure getting to these two.

To be honest, it’s really not earth shattering to say that Cahill and Anderson are going to be good. They are ranked 1-2 on probably every A’s organization top prospect list, and highly on overall lists. However, we tend to just blindly accept that they are indeed being ranked appropriately. It was quite the surprise when looking over their stats, skill sets, and MLEs.

First, we start with Cahill. His career minor league GB% is 59% and it was nearly 62% in 2008. So he’s firmly at the top of the heap along with the Lowe’s and Webb’s of the world in inducing grounders. He’s also shown impressive strikeout ability, posting a K/9 of at least 10 at three levels before a drop-off to 8 upon his promotion to Double-A this year. His MLE in K/9 combining his High-A and Double-A seasons peg him for a 7.4 rate, which means that if he had pitched at the MLB-level this year, he would have recorded a 7.4 K/9, all else equal. So a 62% groundball rate and a 7.4 K/9? You know who that sounds like? None other than Brandon Webb who posted a 64% groundball rate and 7.3 K/9. Wow.

The only chink in the armor so far has been control. Cahill has not posted a BB/9 below 3.2 at any level, and his walk rate jumped to 4.6 at Double-A, not a great sign. However, BB/9 is the easiest of the three skills to improve upon, so this is not such bad news. All in all, Cahill posted an MLE FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching ERA) of 3.68 this year, and even in his weaker Double-A showing, still put up a 4.56 FIP, which would be near league average in the AL and respectable for a 20-year old. When you combine such a skill set with a forgiving ballpark and good defense, you have a guy who could post ERAs just as good as more hyped and flashy pitchers such as David Price and Clayton Kershaw.

From a statistical standpoint, Brett Anderson looks even better than Cahill. He’s also a major groundball pitcher, although a little less so than Cahill, clocking in at a 57% rate for his career. He’s also shown excellent strikeout ability, posting a 9.2 K/9. However, unlike Cahill who declined at Double-A, Anderson actually improved. He dominated in his 31 innings there by posting an 11 K/9, while only seeing a slight uptick in his walk rate. His full-season MLE K/9 was better than Cahill’s at 7.8, and spiked to 8.7 at Double-A. There is not one pitcher in baseball that combines such groundball inducing ability and strikeout ability like Anderson’s MLEs. Only Felix Hernandez is close, but his GB% suspiciously dropped to 52% this year.

The biggest difference between Cahill and Anderson right now is control. Whereas the walks have been a bit of a problem for Cahill, they have not been for Anderson. The 2.6 BB/9 he posted at Double-A was his highest at any level. Putting everything together, his MLE FIP was an impressive 3.80 in 2008. We do have to remember, however, that the MLE FIPs Ii’ve been discussing do not adjust the HR/F ratios. Anderson’s was higher than Cahill’s which explains why his FIP was lower. We clearly don’t have enough evidence to say that Cahill is better at preventing home runs on fly balls.

Upon further glance at Anderson’s stats, it becomes apparent why his name typically hasn’t been thrown around as one of the top pitching prospects in the game, until maybe 2009. He has suffered inflated BABIPs at every stop he’s made. Amazingly, his BABIP has never been lower than .327. This has clearly increased his ERAs and could be blamed for ERAs over 4.00 at High-A in both 2007 and 2008. Those analysts that put together prospect ranking lists focusing on ERA as their statistical support have undeservedly undervalued him.

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written by ducat2, January 02, 2009

Thanks for the link guys. Glad to be here.

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written by Paul Greco, January 02, 2009

Here is the link pal:

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/statpages/glossary/#fip

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written by patrickdicaprio, January 02, 2009

It is "Fielding Independent Pitching." basically it sorts out the defense from a pitcher's ERA. Check it out at The Hardball Times. and thanks for joining us for our launch!

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written by ducat2, January 02, 2009

Mike,
Pardon my ignorance but what is FIP? How is it calculated?

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