Player Review: Spitfire

Acquired last Winter for Delmon Young and change along with Barty and Eduardo Morlan, Garza pitched his first full season as a ray and pitched relatively well. Blessed with great stuff, Garza made strides in terms in terms of control and took a small step back with his strikeout ability and forcing groundballs. 

Garza had a FIP of 4.14, pretty much unchanged from his FIP of 4.18 in 2007. His LD% sat at 18.6% with a BABIP at .278, so his BABIP is worth around 30 points of regression, his HR/FB sat around his career average at 8.4%, but his GB% was down 6% to 41%. He K'd 6 per nine, down about a K from last year, and he walked about 1 less as well, improving to 2.88/9. His K/BB was better as a whole to a tune of 2.17, which is servicable, but something to improve on.

His tRA sat at 4.32, or 111+, a slight decrease from last year. One worrisome note about Garza is how his Swing Swtrikes have gone down to a career low. His fastball usage jumped this year, up to 72%, coming in a close second in terms of most used pitch was was his slider at 13%, followed by his changeup, than his Curveball. As such, his fastball velocity was down about a MPH and his secondary pitch velo was up on average by about 2 MPH each. 

For next year, I would expect him to regress in the batted ball field, while progressing in striking out and continued development on his control, and the control of his emotions on the mound. A FIP around 3.90 isn't out of the question, and a tRA+ around 120+ sounds reasonable, making him a servicable #2 starter, and yet again a key cog in the stacked pitching rotation.

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