Hudson's command is just terrible

[macsandz]

Hudson may have cost the Sox more than one game today. He may also have compromised their chances in the trade market to improve the ballclub. The Sox can't afford to have Hudson to cr.ap the bed like he did today in front of what was assuredly scouts from WAS, MIL and other clubs assessing his value. This was an important start not only for the front office, but also to allow the club to split a road trip that should have already assured them of a .500 finish were it not for one Bubba Jenks and his sudden lack of stuff.

 

Hudson has shown a nice ability to command in the minors but if he can't attack the zone against what is considered a weak hitting Oakland team, how will he fare against real AL hitters? Not just his results, but his lack of control and more importantly, lack of aggression could force Kenny to not only shift focus to replacing Peavy with an acquired 5th starter, but also really handcuff our options to make an impact-bat move this week.

 

Somewhere Dan Hudson just threw a drifting fastball out of the zone again...

[BearSox]

You're acting like he's a 10 year vet who sucks now. He's had what, 5 total MLB starts? No one is going to deny he needs to pitch better, but its completely ridiculous of you to go on this rant because a young rookie pitcher who is making his 5th or 6th MLB start ever has some struggles.

 

And this doesn't hurt his trade value. It doesn't help, but a team isn't going to all of a sudden lose all interest in him because he is struggling like 90% of rookies do.

Edited July 26, 2010 by BearSox

[Milkman delivers]

Yeah, it's still way too early for a thread complaining about Hudson.

Edited July 26, 2010 by Milkman delivers

[hitlesswonder]

Hudson may end up sucking, but it is early to decide he's crap. For heaven sake, Freddy was worse yesterday. Floyd and Buehrle and Peavy have all had more than a couple awful starts this season as well.

 

Hudson's stuff is decent, he's still young, and his minor league numbers project him as a decent #4 starter. None of that has changed. In the Sox management/coaching group, Cooper actually seems to be able to make some pitchers better. So I wouldn't give up on a guy that could be an average pitcher for super-cheap for 3 years just yet.

[ThunderBolt]

Anyone remember when Danks struggled after the Sox threw him into the fire? The kid faced adversity and then overcame it. I have little doubt that Dan Hudson can do the same thing. He has the stuff, he just needs the mindset.

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

Where was Hudson 12 months ago? You can't act like this is some former 1st RD pick who is a bust. We are lucky enough that he panned out as awesomely as he has, let's not rip him apart after he has a start that makes him look like a 5th RD pick and not a 1st RD talent.

[macsandz]

You're acting like he's a 10 year vet who sucks now. He's had what, 5 total MLB starts? No one is going to deny he needs to pitch better, but its completely ridiculous of you to go on this rant because a young rookie pitcher who is making his 5th or 6th MLB start ever has some struggles.

 

And this doesn't hurt his trade value. It doesn't help, but a team isn't going to all of a sudden lose all interest in him because he is struggling like 90% of rookies do.

 

It is not "completely ridiculous" to expect Hudson to step up and challenge hitters once in a while. If you don't think his performance today didn't hurt his trade value, that my friend is ridiculous.

 

[macsandz]

Anyone remember when Danks struggled after the Sox threw him into the fire? The kid faced adversity and then overcame it. I have little doubt that Dan Hudson can do the same thing. He has the stuff, he just needs the mindset.

 

Hudson lacks what has made Danks a great pitcher. The thing that makes John Danks who he is, is the size of his competitive ego and the cajones that support it.

Edited July 26, 2010 by bucket-of-suck

[Jerksticks]

It is not "completely ridiculous" to expect Hudson to step up and challenge hitters once in a while. If you don't think his performance today didn't hurt his trade value, that my friend is ridiculous.

 

He does have some interesting movement. Like you're saying, he needs to pound the zone with his stuff; it's almost like he thinks these hitters are better than they really are. If he starts getting 1-2 on batters, that fastball of his could strike some guys out; starting it on the inside edge to righties with it tailing into their hands, like a reverse Buehrle cutter with heat. Or a buncha broken bat choppers to Alexei.

[Jerksticks]

Hudson lacks what has made Danks a great pitcher. The thing that makes John Danks who he is, is the size of his competitive ego and the cajones that support it.

 

I know. He doesn't trust his stuff yet up here. He's gettin beat cuz he isn't throwin his good, confident stuff right at em.

[hitlesswonder]

Hudson lacks what has made Danks a great pitcher. The thing that makes John Danks who he is, is the size of his competitive ego and the cajones that support it.

 

Danks cojones got him a 5.50 ERA his first year in the bigs and he was getting pounded at the end of that season fairly routinely. I'm going to guess that if you go back you'll find a lot of posts about how Danks didn't have the balls to pitch in the bigs. I know for certain that you'll see posts like that about Floyd, including a Sox beat writer who referred to Gavin as "she" (I know...can't get much funnier than that..that's why they get paid the big bucks to write). Either those guys grew some, or their problem wasn't lack of balls in the first place. I think it's the latter, but it doesn't matter. Hudson can still be a good pitcher for the Sox.

 

I think it's crazy to criticize Hudson for having 2 poor starts out of 3...much more ballyhooed prospects than him have fared as bad (Edwin Jackson for one....Phil Hughes had a worse era in his second year than Hudson has right now). I agree that Hudson's command has to improve, but he's hardly been shockingly bad considering his age

[greg775]

Bucket of suck is one great moniker on here. It is hilarious. I still smile when I see that name.

 

As far as Hudson, have some patience, luckily we're still in first place. Start three should be huge for him. I hope he gets it together. Freddy's last horrific outing was alarming. Hope he can come back strong.

Edited July 26, 2010 by greg775

[JohnCangelosi]

My biggest issue about Hudson is that he seemed to really lack command with the fastball yesterday, and the ball seems to float on him a bit. Of course that can be a good thing with the late movement as long as it's not floating back right over the middle of the plate.

 

The lack of a slider makes him a two pitch pitcher, and right now he lacks the ability to put people away therefore he's making a lot of pitches. Oh well, it's early, and yes, we said the similar things about Danks and Floyd in 2007. Bad thing is we're in a pennant race and cannot afford this nonsense right now.

 

[gatnom]

Hudson may have cost the Sox more than one game today. He may also have compromised their chances in the trade market to improve the ballclub. The Sox can't afford to have Hudson to cr.ap the bed like he did today in front of what was assuredly scouts from WAS, MIL and other clubs assessing his value. This was an important start not only for the front office, but also to allow the club to split a road trip that should have already assured them of a .500 finish were it not for one Bubba Jenks and his sudden lack of stuff.

 

Hudson has shown a nice ability to command in the minors but if he can't attack the zone against what is considered a weak hitting Oakland team, how will he fare against real AL hitters? Not just his results, but his lack of control and more importantly, lack of aggression could force Kenny to not only shift focus to replacing Peavy with an acquired 5th starter, but also really handcuff our options to make an impact-bat move this week.

 

Somewhere Dan Hudson just threw a drifting fastball out of the zone again...

 

The Sox can't deal Hudson anyways. If you think Hudson is bad, wait until Torres is your fifth starter, and that is completely ignoring the fact that I'm still not entirely sure what we can expect out of Freddy. After the Peavy injury, we completely lost all of our depth for our starting rotation. They not only need Hudson, they need him to pitch better than your average fifth starter because this team wasn't built to win on offense.

[justBLAZE]

To some of you experts, how does Hudson compare vs. Clayton Richard?

 

Remember when Clayton hit a bad stretch and he would get shelled second time around (or third?) vs any lineup, everyone wanted him out of town. This year I remember some of you wanting to personally drive Jake Peavy to SD and bring back Clayton Richard!

 

Hudson will be fine, we need him and Freddy to be a damn good 4-5. Pleasy Kenny get us a big bat and let's win this division.

[beck72]

Hudson's command was terrible yesterday. But the way he's thrown in as a pro he deserves the benefit of the doubt that this start was an aberration. As far as hurting his trade value, I certainly don't expect Hudson to be traded. Anyway, most teams also will give young guys a learning curve on pitching in the bigs. Which is what we should do. Few pitchers are lights out from day 1--even #1 type SP's. Hudson isn't expected to be a #1. Just a #5 for now.

[hogan873]

To some of you experts, how does Hudson compare vs. Clayton Richard?

 

Remember when Clayton hit a bad stretch and he would get shelled second time around (or third?) vs any lineup, everyone wanted him out of town. This year I remember some of you wanting to personally drive Jake Peavy to SD and bring back Clayton Richard!

 

Hudson will be fine, we need him and Freddy to be a damn good 4-5. Pleasy Kenny get us a big bat and let's win this division.

I was going to say something about Richard, too. Many thought that he couldn't be part of a trade package because of his inability to string together a few good starts. But, he was a major factor in the acquisition of Peavy.

[RockRaines]

5 starts:

 

No command

No balls.

 

 

Nice evaluation.

[fathom]

Hudson will end up being just fine. He might struggle the rest of the way, but he has impressed me with his ability to make the hitter miss. It's not like he's getting hit hard by big league hitters. There's a few mechanical adjustments that need to be made, and hopefully he gets confidence in his slider. He's going to be a huge part of this franchise going forward.

[Balta1701]

As I said in my Soxnet.net game writeup...it's not that he has no control, it's that he hasn't had to pitch to selective big league hitters yet.

 

Unless you're a Straslike pitcher, coming through the minor leagues, it's been somewhat easy to get people out with stuff if you've got good stuff. Hitters will swing at things just off the corner and you'll be able to get ahead of them.

 

Then, you hit the big leagues, and suddenly those pitches that you were getting swings and misses on to get ahead of guys are now being taken for balls, especially if there's a tight strike zone like Hudson got yesterday, and it takes pitchers a while to adapt. They start pressing and try to throw a perfect pitch right on the corner every time, and it winds up either drifting off the plate or drifting over the middle and getting hit.

 

The things you legitimately need to watch on Hudson are things like...how is his stuff in general? Overall, he's got a good fastball that isn't always straight, and he snapped off some real good changeups yesterday. He didn't throw much of any other offspeed stuff, but part of that is the catcher calling the game (and you'll note that AJ flat out couldn't catch anything yesterday in the dirt, so why would he want to call for a breaking ball) and part of that is that the pitcher couldn't get ahead of batters with his fastball so the offspeed stuff wasn't set up.

 

The other thing to look at is the repeatability of his delivery and how much of an injury risk that might put him at. He's got that snappy changeup we've seen some righties throw, and only some of them have stayed healthy throwing it. He's gotten a good number of innings so far in the minors and Coop does a very good job of keeping his pitchers healthy.

 

When you bring up a rookie pitcher, there's always going to be an adjustment period like this. Hudson has the stuff to make it. You saw that beautifully in the 5th inning yesterday. He was already at 100 pitches, he knew that first baserunner he was out of the game, so he just went out there and threw whatever he had left, and bang, 123 inning.

 

With a rookie like this, you get some good starts against teams he can handle (i.e. Seattle last week), some weak starts against teams that he doesn't match up well against or where he isn't feeling good, and the occasional dominating start where everything comes together. If you want to have him in your rotation in the playoff hunt, it's perfectly doable and it's a great thing for his career. Only problem is...you need to have an offense that can bail him out occasionally.

[Balta1701]

It's not like he's getting hit hard by big league hitters. There's a few mechanical adjustments that need to be made, and hopefully he gets confidence in his slider. He's going to be a huge part of this franchise going forward.

I realized this last night after signing off...the guy who would have been calling for his slider couldn't stop anything in the dirt yesterday.

[NorthSideSox72]

Hudson will end up being just fine. He might struggle the rest of the way, but he has impressed me with his ability to make the hitter miss. It's not like he's getting hit hard by big league hitters. There's a few mechanical adjustments that need to be made, and hopefully he gets confidence in his slider. He's going to be a huge part of this franchise going forward.

Good post.

 

[chw42]

http://pitchfx.texasleaguers.com/pitcher/5...o=7%2F26%2F2010

 

Pitch f/x looks fine to me. Not throwing strikes really isn't the problem. He had a lot of 0-2 counts yesterday, just wasn't able to finish the hitters off. He needs better pitch selection and he needs to throw the change-up more. Having a good slider would greatly help as well.

Edited July 26, 2010 by chw42

[SoxFan562004]

any scout from a team interested in him really shouldn't be scared away from his performance, his stuff still looks good. He's a young prospect and any of the teams who want him for the long term would likely still base their assessment of him off their minor league scouting and that when he actually shows some control he can be effective in MLB

[southsider2k5]

Anyone remember when Danks struggled after the Sox threw him into the fire? The kid faced adversity and then overcame it. I have little doubt that Dan Hudson can do the same thing. He has the stuff, he just needs the mindset.

 

He has really good stuff. Nothing he throws goes straight. To me, it looks like he is afraid to get hit, so he is trying to nibble the corners with the perfect pitch. Because of this he is pitching from behind a lot.