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Tuesday, September 5, 2006
Chuck James, the improbable new ace?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At this time a year ago, odds look pretty good that the Braves’ next homegrown ace, their next kid phenom pitcher signed and developed by the organization, would be an Atlanta-area native.
The odds still look good, but it’s at least a split on who the kid will be. Or is their someone out there who still firmly convinced Kyle Davies has a brighter future than Chuck James?
Maybe he does. Maybe Davies, who will only turn 23 on Saturday, is merely having the same type of early career struggles than Maddux and Glavine and Smoltz had, coupled with injury. Plenty, even most, stud pitchers struggle in their first couple of seasons.
But the point here isn’t to question Davies’ potential; it’s way too early to make any judgments on that. The point is that it’s time to recognize that little Chuck James, generously listed as 6 feet at 190 points in the media guide, is a damn impressive young pitcher with a bright future.
He’s two years older (will be 25 in November) than Davies, doesn’t throw as hard, doesn’t have the variety of pitches, and might not be as, uh, well, cerebral as the right-hander from Stockbridge.
But the lefty from Mableton, the one with the shaved head, heavy Southern drawl, slightly devious smile and Knothole Gang demeanor, the one who looks like he might’ve stole your bike in grade school and left it at your front door a couple days later … that dude can flat-out pitch.
Last night’s eight innings of one-hit, scoreless ball against the NL’s most potent lineup _ even without Carlos Beltran, it’s probably still the best _ was about as convincing a statement as could be made.
Pencil him into the rotation along with veterans John Smoltz, Mike Hampton and Tim Hudson for next season, and go from there. And at this stage of the game, Smoltz is probably the only one of those three whose chances of winning 15 next season I’d feel better about than James. Seriously.
James leads major league rookies in wins (eight) since June 25, when the Braves brought him back from Richmond after getting his arm stretched out to move from relief back to his forte, starting. He’s been in their rotation since then.
He’s 8-3 with a 3.65 ERA in 20 games this season, including a 3.84 ERA in 13 starts. And he’s getting better and better with experience.
He’s 4-0 with a 1.85 ERA and .213 opponents’ average in his past six starts, allowing two earned runs or fewer in each and working six innings or more in five of those six games.
And the way that he’s performed on the road is even more impressive, especially in places like the cauldron that Shea Stadium was last night. The Flushing faithful were geeked up to welcome their first-place team back from the road, and James quieted them as the night wore on.
He’s 5-1 with a 2.75 ERA in six road starts, and his 2.25 road ERA for the season would lead the NL by a quarter of a run if he had enough innings to qualify.
In his past three road starts, the kid is 3-0 with a 1.29 ERA, with only one homer allowed in 21 innings. The homers were what gave him trouble earlier in the season, but he’s keeping the ball down enoughto keep it in the park, while also keeping hitters off-balance better and getting ahead in counts.
He only throws about 87-88 mph with his fastball most of the time, but he can get a bit more on it when he needs to. He doesn’t need to often, because of a deceptive delivery and the change-up that keeps hitters guessing.
His changeup makes him more effective against righty hitters than against lefties, which is unusual, but the same as Glavine for most of his career. James’ .215 opponents’ average against right-handers is the ninth-best in the NL, just ahead of another former Brave, Jason Schmidt.
Anyway, he’s been one of the few real bright spots for the Braves, and watching James in the second half has provided some hope for a return to something approaching the Braves’ great pitching standards of the past.
If Davies develops into the pitcher they project, the Braves could have two homegrown aces atop their roation in a couple or three years. But for now, one of them is ahead of projections and helping to ease some worries about next year’s rotation. That one is James.
The Braves are stuck with Hampton because of his enormous contract, and fortunately for them, he’s working his butt off in an effort to get back to being the elite pitcher he once was. People forget, he was the Braves’ best pitcher for quite a stretch before his string of assorted injuries leading up to the elbow and knee surgeries of last winter.
As for Hudson, the Braves have to keep believing _ praying? _ he’ll get back to being the ace they thought they were getting when they traded for him from Oakland and then gave him a four-year, $47 million contract extension at spring training 2005, before he’d thrown his first pitch for them.
As I stated late in the chain of posts on the last blog, sometimes we all look for places to put blame when someone or something fails to meet our expectations. In Hudson’s case, the guy has simply underperformed for most of two seasons. It’s not the Braves’ fault. Not Leo Mazzone’s fault last year or Roger McDowell’s this season.
And while his last season in Oakland was one of his worst, and his strikeouts-to-walks ratio had declined before the trade, NO ONE in baseball circles had anything but high marks and congrats for the Braves when they made that trade. No one. I was at the winter meetings at Anaheim when the deal was being put together, and I heard all the buzz from all the other teams trying to get him.
Hudson, who would’ve been a free agent after his first season with the Braves in 2005, set a deadline of signing an extension by March 1 that season, and said he wouldn’t negotiate during the season if it didn’t get done.
So if he’d had one of his typical Oakland seasons, the Braves wouldn’t have stood much chance of signing him when the Yankees or another team offered the going rate of more than $15 mill per. The Braves had to sign him by March 1, 2005 or hope he didn’t have a great season and other teams would back off.
They signed him, then he didn’t have a great season.
And he’s not having a great one this season, again.
If you remember the reaction when he signed the extension with the Braves, many national media members questioned Hudson’s decision, some expressing disbelief, as if he were crazy or irresponsible to take so much BELOW market value and leave so much potential money on the table by signing with the Braves for under $12 mill per season in average value.
I didn’t buy that point at all, because to me he was still setting himself up for life and getting long-term security of a four-year deal _ when Braves were way reluctant to go more than three _ and he was getting chance to move back to what is home for him and his wife, where they could build a home in Auburn and raise their kids there, and not watch dad go off to another city during the season. That’s worth a lot.
But again, there was NO ONE out there, fans or media members or fellow Braves, who criticized the team for giving him that extension until last season, when many of you, and me, rightfully pointed out that Braves were really going to look bad if Hudson continued to pitch like he was pitching last year when he was at his worst, before going on DL.
He’s pitched pretty poorly a lot of nights again this year. So it looks bad now. And will for several years, if he doesn’t snap out of it and they keep him.
But the Braves and other teams don’t have that luxury of hindsight when making moves. And only the Yankees and a couple others are willing to swallow huge chunks of contracts and move a guy after one or two bad seasons (see Boston, re: Edgar Renteria).
Braves thought they were getting a staff ace in Hudson for below-market value, a guy who’d led AL in wins over a five-year span.
Hey, but at least they’ve got Chuck James, and he’s really cheap for a couple more years.
OK, real quick MUSIC NOTE (just move on to the blog-posting portion if you don’t like good music): Someone asked about the Flatlanders. They put out their long-awaited second album (only 14 years between discs!) in 2004, “Wheels of Fortune,” which is very strong.
And if you like them or the song you heard somewhere, you should also try the latest from Jimmie Dale Gilmore and John Prine, both released in the past year. And though he’s not a Flatlander, check into that Todd Snider CD I recommended a couple weeks ago, that just came out. What a great songwriter.
Oh, and I lost some respect for my may Peter Moylan when I asked the Aussie reliever if he liked Nick Cave, his countryman and one of my favorite brooding, intelligent rockers. Moylan can’t stand him. Now, I can’t stand Moylan (kidding, of course; Moylan’s a great dude, just doesn’t have great taste in music).
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