Hochevar’s had quite the ride in his brief professional career and while this isn’t a screw Scott Boras article, it probably should be. Hochevar didn’t sign his first big-league contract until he was drafted for the third! time by the Royals first overall in the 2006 draft. Since then, the 6’5″ mountain of a man showed promise in the minor leagues before making his big-league debut in 2007. Then the wheels fell off. Hochevar couldn’t get his ERA below five at the big league level, but continued to dominate after being optioned to AAA.
Fastforward to 2010 and Hochevar has finally gotten his ERA below five by a full five-hundredths of a run (4.95) — Exciting!
With two starts coming up in the next week, Hochevar could prove to be useful despite his propensity to lose control and blow-up. On a team like the Royals, I wouldn’t count on Hochevar beating Ervin Santana (vs. LAA) or Justin Verlander (vs. DET) but that doesn’t mean Hochevar’s without value.
In the month of May, Hochevar’s pitched 32 innings of 3.94 ERA baseball. Hochevar’s month-to-month splits perfectly showcases the role of luck in baseball:
April: AVG – .313, WHIP – 1.71, BABIP – .369, LOB% – 56.7%, FIP – 3.60.
May: AVG – .233, WHIP – 1.09, BABIP – .233, LOB% – 61.8%, FIP – 3.69.
It’s not all luck though, Hochevar’s reduced his line-drive percentage from 26% in April to 17.5% in May while maintaining a relatively constant 50% GB ratio.
To maintain any semblance of success, Hochevar will need to continue to pound the zone as he’s done in his last two starts. Pitch location is key for a fastball that averaged 93.6mph against Cleveland (Note: KC’s Gun renders a bit high, thus the spikes in velocity, so I’m using @CLE data).
Early strikes have allowed Hochevar to use his relatively new cut fastball which has been dominant thus far. After throwing the pitch 0.2 and 0.8 percent over the previous years, Hochevar’s added a couple mph to the pitch and started throwing it 13.1% of the time.
In just his previous two games, Hochevar has went to the cut fastball 19.4% of the time eliciting a 62.5% swing rate and a whiff-rate of 22.5%. As a result of the cutter, Hochevar lasted 8 innings against Texas (2ER) and pitched a complete game against the Tribe (3ER).
Hochevar’s slider always been his best pitch and 2010 is no different as it’s registered a 3.07 (wSL/C) on fangraphs’ weighting system. To round out Hochevar’s repertoire are a couple of less than stellar pitches that may be coming around. Hochevar’s change-up has been consistently bad due to a lack of vertical movement but over the previous two starts he’s had a pretty good feel for it. Finally, Hochevar will throw a steep curveball that breaks well below his slider but like his change-up, he’ll have issues locating the pitch from time to time and will often hang it up right around the belt.
Hochevar’s interesting combination of straight-heat with tail, a cutter and a rather dirty slider could be interesting to follow for the rest of the year. If he’s able to maintain those three pitches while cleaning up his two-seamer, change and curveball, he may blossom into the pitcher that he should’ve been by now.
