DAVID MALINSKY
4* KANSAS CITY / TEXAS OVER 8.5
Neither Derek Holland nor Luke Hochevar bring anything special to this mound tonight, nor do a pair of bullpens that combined to throw 193 pitches on Wednesday. So in a game in which we do not need any kind of offensive explosion at this price point, there is excellent value to work with.
There is nothing dynamic about the stuff of Holland – it has been a 14-18/5.40 in three seasons as a Ranger, and his current 4.91 allowance is where it is supposed to be based on that 1.59 WHIP. He simply issues too many free passes to have much of an upside, and what bothers his handlers the most is that there are no signs of improvement – it was 3.06 W’s per 9 in 2009, then 3.77 LY, to the current 3.78. Half of his eight starts have produced PPI counts of 17.5 or higher, so the Royals will get plenty of runners on base, and with Holland only having worked beyond the 7th once all season the bullpen will also have to carry a load, one made more difficult after Neftali Perez threw 26 pitches over 1.1 frames last night.
Meanwhile Hochevar continues to also show no signs of an upside – while his 4.87 allowance is only slightly off of LY’s 4.81, his K’s per 9 are significantly down (6.64 to 4.71), and his HR’s per 9 have risen at a startling level (.79 to 1.89). His saving grace has been the geometry of baseball – of the 105 pitchers that have worked at least 45 IP his BABIP of .233 rates at #11. But here is the rub – of the 10 pitchers that have been even more fortunate than him, none has an ERA higher than 3.81. Of the top 30 on those charts Hochevar has the highest allowance, and none one else is within a half run of him. It shows that he does not belong at this price point, and with the Royals having to use all seven available relievers lat night, there will also be some scrambling going on in the latter
