Here's a Thought: Making Sense of Kevin Slowey

Dan Haren, Roy Halladay, Zack Greinke, Javier Vazquez, Kevin Slowey. The first four pitchers on that list are aces. The fifth is Kevin Slowey. Those five lead all qualified pitchers in strikeout-to walk ratio. Looking at that leaderboard, Slowey sticks out. The first four pitchers have FIPs well below 3.00. Slowey's is 4.22. Everyone's taught that to succeed as a pitcher, you have to throw quality strikes. And no pitcher in baseball understands that better than Slowey. Some (like those first four) may understand it as well as him, but none better than him. Slowey throws the third-most strikes in baseball, and leads the majors in first-pitch strike percentage (68.5 percent). Slowey obviously executes the "throw quality strikes" idea to perfection. But why isn't he up with Haren, Halladay, Greinke, and Vazquez? The first, and biggest, reason for this is Slowey's propensity to allow the home run ball. Slowey is an extreme flyball guy who works high in the stri...