Luke Hochevar: Starter? (Again)

With the departure of Ervin Santana and Bruce Chen, and the ineffectiveness of Wade Davis, the Royals are looking for some starting pitching depth. To replace Santana, the Royals signed Jason Vargas. The rotation is Shields, Guthrie, and Vargas at the top; while that isn’t that bad, it doesn’t scream playoffs. The Royals have a multitude of players for the other two rotation spots, including Danny Duffy, Yordano Ventura, Wade Davis, and Luke Hochevar. Wait, Hochevar? Again? Yes, again. The Royals are aiming to give him another shot. What can we expect? 

Comparing Ranges of K% and BB%

Recently, I’ve begun comparing pitchers based on their K% and BB% going back to 2002, which is when batted ball data begins to become available on FanGraphs. My thought is this: pitchers have pretty good control over their K% and BB%, so those reflect true skill. What I want to see is a range of effectiveness for pitchers in the MLB within a set range of K% and BB% to compare players. I recently looked into John Lamb, who is a pitching prospect in the Royals minor league system. What follows is not a rigorous analysis but just something interesting I observed.