6/08: Pitcher Preview Justin Masterson

Justin Masterson squares off vs Seattle and Erik Bedard tonight. This is part two in the tonight's game preview. See the previous post for the Bedard analysis.Masterson, a rookie, will be making his fourth career start in the majors. So far, he has been effective even while being wild. He sports a 2.95 ERA to go along with 14 k's in 18.1 innings. He is a sinkerballer who has a GB% of 56.3%. While all of this looks nice, he does show some disturbing numbers. His BB/9 is 4.42 and his BABIP is a measly .175. Along with an unreal 89.9 LOB%, we can't expect his success to last. As his numbers start to revert to the norm, expect his ERA to rise and his struggles to start happening. He shows a promising skill set for a rookie, but don't expect success going forward unless he is able to buck these trends.Here is his pitch f/x data:As you can see, that is one nasty sinker. His sinker has more downward movement than his changeup and almost as much downward movement as most pitchers curveball....