what will it bring?

First let's look at 2007 for him.

IP   169.2
Hits 146
HR   14
BB   61
K's  144

type 2B HR BB  K  Avg OBP SLG OPS
vsLH 19 12 35  78 257 326 432 758
vsRH  8  2 26  66 198 262 252 514

Looking at that he had low hit numbers, very good K numbers for a first full year, decent but not great BB numbers.

Next when looking at splits you can see LH hit him much harder. But he was able to K lefties just as often as righties. This would imply his offspeed works just fine against them. And watching him you can see both his curve and slider inside account for most of his K's against lefties. Against righties it's the same pitches but away. He doesn't K that many with his fastball - which is normal for a ground-ball, or low in the zone, pitcher.

Looking at the month by month splits you can see he was bad in May, ok in June, and good the rest of the way.

If you looked at his batting average against the last 3 months you would be surprised at his ERA thinking it should be lower. But there were two things I saw.

1. was he faced the Yankees a fair bit and walked them a lot and gave up too many runs in those games. But that's the Yankees.
   
2. he was getting tired and running out of gas. I felt he pitched as well in August and September as in July but he frequently tired early in those games occasionally getting rocked.

1. Endurance. He tired at the end and it clearly affected him. This was expected though. He even talked about this to the media and stated how he needs to be much better conditioned for the long season. This sounds a lot like what Verlander was saying last year. I just hope he bears fruit like Verlander who didn't tire so much this year.
2. LH hitters. He has shown he can K them. His off-speed works fine against them. The problem is they are able to sit on his fastball too much and not only hit it but hit it hard. He needs to improve his change. Maybe even throwing a few more off-speed pitches early in the count. But the change is the big one.
3. Fastball. It's a top-notch pitch. One of the best in baseball. But he rarely strikes anyone out with it. I think he is watching Halladay too much. He has to start throwing the high fastball for K's when ahead in the count. I like him pitching down in the zone. But with that fastball when ahead pitching up would be huge for him.
4. Location. It was terrible early in the year when he got nervous or hit around a bit. But as the season progressed he maintained his cool more and more. I'm impressed.
2008. I think he will have a low to mid 3's ERA with K's slightly higher than IP, walks will go down a bit, hits will go up a bit.

I don't expect all this of anyone and you shouldn't really ever expect an ace. But he really doesn't have far to go to become one. Only time will tell if he can make these steps.