WHY WE LOVE PHIL HUGHES

With all the talk about the Yankees’ rotation and its holes, it seems everyone’s forgotten about Phil Hughes. Not only that, it looks like all the talk of our up and coming young guys has shifted to Jesus Montero and Manny Banuelos, and perhaps rightfully so. But I don’t know how everyone suddenly forgot how well Phil Hughes did last year.

In his first 5 starts of the 2010 season, Phil was 4-0 with a 1.69 ERA. Allow me to put that in perspective for you: Mo’s ERA last season was 1.80. Pedro Martinez’s best ever season ERA was a 1.74. So in essence, for the first month or two of the season, Phil was doing better than our closer was and better than Pedro Martinez, arguably the best pitcher of the modern era.

People were saying his stats were off the charts, and all eyes were on him to be our future ace. From there on out it's been a bit down hill. Phil ended the season with a 4.19 ERA and for some reason, the baseball world stopped talking about him. Sure a 4.19 season ERA looks like just a solid middle of the rotation pitcher, but it’s important to remember that 2010 was his first year as a full time starter. What’s more, he was selected to the All-Star game.

Now, I want you to go and try to find me a pitcher who in his first year as a full time starter was selected to the All-Star game. Not easy right? That’s because there aren’t very many. Phil had an absolutely stellar first season, despite his decline after the All-Star break, which is perfectly normal for a new starter. But hey, this is just me giving my opinion, if I don’t back it with stats what good is it? Well for your convenience I’ve compared Phil’s first season in the rotation against how current aces did in the same position. The results are reassuring.

NOTE: Some of these pitchers joined the rotation mid-season, which accounts for their low W-L numbers, I included their first season with over 140 innings pitched. Check it out:

I think that’s enough to make my point. The only real outlier in there is Josh Johnson with his incredible 3.10 ERA. But's it's something else, isn't it? Everyone else, including the two best pitchers currently in the game, Roy Halladay and Felix Hernandez, had first season ERA's very comparable to Phil’s. Hell, his stats aren’t just comparable to these guys’, he’s got King Felix beat by 0.33 and Cliff Lee beat by a massive 1.29 difference. Perhaps even more intriguing is how he had a better first season than our current ace: CC Sabathia. These aren’t the first season numbers of a #3 or #4 pitcher, these are the numbers of our future #1 guy. If he can play with any sort of consistency and continue what he did last season, he won’t just be our #2 guy, he’ll be CC’s co-ace.
Phil said himself that he felt like he declined in the second half of the season due to the fact that he stopped using his change up as much. Not using all your pitches to the best of your abilities is the kind of mistake a rookie makes. He’d also never pitched anywhere near that many innings before; you can’t expect him to his first year be ready to just go out, pitch over double the number of innings he’s ever pitched in one season, and maintain his off the charts numbers all season. (His previous highest was 86 innings, he pitched 176 in 2010.)

Now that he’s got a feel for what a full season in the big leagues feels like, and perhaps just as importantly what it feels like to pitch in the post-season, I expect to see Phil coming into 2011 on fire again, but this time it’s not going to stop half way through. He’s going to be a stud all year.

Hell, let’s not forget we just hired Larry Rothschild. He turned the hotheaded nut job Zambrano into a highly respectable ace. I can only imagine the success he’s going to have with A.J. and Phil.

-- Grant Cederquist,
Bleeding Yankee Blue Guest Writer

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