Gavin is finally here

If you’re looking for a front of the rotation ace, the guy that was drafted #4 overall, breezed through the lower minors, and looked like one of the best pitching prospects in baseball, I’m not sure you’ll find your answer in Gavin just yet Let’s get some things out of the way. He’s been very lucky, in fact, he’s probably been the luckiest pitcher in the AL over the first half of the season. While his peripheral stats aren’t impressive overall, they are showing signs of promise.

April (30 IP) – 15 BB: 15 K
May (33 IP) – 12 BB: 17 K
June (37 IP) – 10 BB: 35 K
July (10 IP) – 10 BB: 8 K (2.2IP, 7BB, 2K vs Texas over the weekend, his worst start of the year)

Prior to his last start in Texas, where everyone seems to get whacked around, GF was showing improvement month to month, lowering the total number of BB’s, increasing his IP, and increasing his K’s. In June, he was downright dominant. While I don’t expect that to continue over a full season just yet (he’s still on 25), it wouldn’t shock me if he stabilized a bit in that area, just as Danks has this year, and turned into a solid mid-rotation starter.

From a purely subjective standpoint, I think he has one of, if not the best curveball in the AL (his slider is effective as well). So while is FB is merely average (90.2 according to fangraphs), he can be a strikeout pitcher similar to guys like Cone, Blyleven, and Zito (the good one) who did it with plus breaking stuff.

As for EJax, one word. Fluke. He’s not striking anyone out (even less than GF) and he’s still walking people, albeit less than he was in previous seasons. Sell high if you still can.

To answer your question, no. He’s still too much of a nibbler to produce consistently top notch results. He’s also getting pretty frickin lucky as far as balls hit into the field of play.

On the other hand, his breaking stuff is good enough to get him out of jams (letting his surpass what you’d expect from his peripherals). And when he gets his fastball over the plate early in the count he can be downright unfair. Finally, do note that he’s allowing significantly fewer home runs this year than in previous years. I’m not sure what his “real” ERA should look like at this point. But I think he’s probably a guy who should be posting an ERA in the area of 4.20-4.40, with potential to improve on that. I guess that makes him a borderline 3/4 at the moment?

is currently running a .226 BABIP compared with .295 for the White Sox as a whole. Nobody can sustain that. As the balls put in play against him normalize, his ERA will likely climb up into the mid-4’s where it belongs.

I’ve had the privilage of talking to opposing players directly after a couple of the gems floyd has thrown (particularly his near no-hit games) and the one thing I kept hearing was that he was “effectively wild”. From what I’ve personally observed, he has been fairly lucky. And no, his curveball isn’t that great. It can be a pretty decent pitch, but it’s not even close to being a “best in majors/AL” type pitch.
If you want an Ace who emerged this year for the Sox, take a look at John Danks. Now there is a guy who is for real and isn’t getting by on luck.