Cotts vs. Waddell - Lesser of Two Evils?

The issue with Neal Cotts was his control, so he got optioned to Iowa. Jason Waddell gets his first shot at the bigs, despite a history of control issues of his own. To compare the two lefties, I'll use Minor League Equivalents (MLE) for Waddell and MLB stats for Cotts. Career numbers in both cases.

I start with the Lefty-Righty match-up. From the little I've seen of Waddell, he may be fine against lefties but righties may get a good look at his low slung delivery. But I'll let the numbers, and not my eyes, do the talking:

vs. RHH
JW NC
B/9 5.8 5.4
K/9 6.7 6.9
HR/9 1.2 1.1

MLEs are nice, but not a guarantee. But, wow, that's not much of a difference. The comparison may not be fair, though. MLE for a short Minor League career against a career line for a Major League career going back to 2004. It gets us into the ballpark, and I'll go with a slight Edge to Cotts, all things considered (unscientifically).

vs. LHH
JW NC
B/9 3.4 3.6
K/9 7.7 10.1
HR/9 0.5 1.6

Waddell is much tougher on lefties, but the walk rate is still high according to MLE. Almost as high as Cott's career line. The bigger differences show up in their K and HR rates. Cotts gives up more home runs to lefties than righties, go figure. But he strikes them out a lot. Still, I'm giving Waddell the tentative edge against lefties.

Waddell has been pitching well lately, maybe the Cubs can ride the hot hand.