Player Review: Da. Price is Right

by rglass44 on Dec 5, 2008 10:39 AM EST

The number 1 prospect in the Rays system played a role in the Rays run to the playoffs, and a huge role in their run to the World Series. So, how good was David Price last year? Very, very good. In his first year in professional baseball he sported absurd numbers at every level but AAA. His tRA by level was as follows: A 2.66, AA 3.77, AAA 4.22, and MLB 2.98. As good as he was in tRA, his traditional statlines were even better.

Lvl	W	L	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	ERA	WHIP	K/9	K/BB	HR/9
A+	4	0	34.7	28	7	7	0	7	37	1.82	1.01	9.61	5.29	.00
AA	7	0	57	42	13	12	7	16	55	1.89	1.02	8.68	3.44	.12
AAA	1	1	18	22	10	9	0	9	17	4.50	1.72	8.50	1.89	.00
MLB	0	0	14	9	4	3	1	4	12	1.93	.93	7.71	3.00	.07
Total	12	1	124	101	34	31	8	36	121	2.26	1.11	8.81	3.36	.06

Working primarily off his Fastball-Slider combination (68.5% and 30.2%), Price got swings and misses on 24.4% of his pitches which puts him right about even with Kazmir in that department (4th on the team). He pounded the zone pretty well, as he ranked 5th on the team in that department (54.1%). Coupling these two shows just how dangerous he can be. Not only can he get people to swing and miss, but he can do it in the strikezone, which is very impressive.

The young buck has quite a future ahead of him, and if he works on the changeup (which he threw only 1.3% of the time) he could have the kind of year that will take this team on another deep run into the playoffs. The thought of two lefties in one rotation that can strike-out over a batter inning just makes you salivate.

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