.210 BABIP, 29 BB, 25 K! His OBP against is higher than his SLG against! 11 wins!

He's an enigma wrapped inside a pinstriped uniform.

I don't get to see the guy on a regular basis, but either he's an amazingly special pitcher, or he's just the luckiest bastard to ever step on a mound.

Eh, maybe they're just lucky.

here is Charon's post:
http://www.minorleagueball.com/comments/2005/6/15/154256/424/7#7

Unfortunately the Star Tribune article he links to has been aged of that website.

Working from my memory that article stated that the pitching coach tinkered with either Crain's  delivery or arm action and his pitch repetoire. The pitching coach felt he had plus velocity but that his ball was too straight. He overhauled Crain in hopes of getting more movement on his pitches.

He has been successful this year. Still, I find this overhaul questionable. Why fix what ain't broke. I think you wait and see that a pitcher can't succeed rather than change him to the point where you discard what was previously his best asset. Tinkering is fine but not at the expense of a pitcher's best asset. Other than Santana the Min org seems to go overboard with the whole idea of pitching to contact.

Even if Crain's movement has improved this BABIP is not sustainable. He needs to regain an outpitch or he will regress.

I'm not a Crain hater. The opposite, I was always a big believer. I'm just a little bitter with the direction the big league staff has steered him.

That being said, it is not unusual for a young pitcher's strikouts to drop a bit when he comes to the majors. However, that is usually seen in starters, not relievers, and the drop is usually not even close to as steep as Crain's was this year. Unless Crain improves those K rates, he almost certainly won't continue this success. He shouldn't be written off; those K rates could improve next year.

It's been very good for him -- 12th best in the AL. His DER is .798 as compared to the Twins' overall DER of .703 (4th in the AL). Research shows that defense, like run support, is not "equal" for pitchers on the same team. Research also shows that it is not always consistent from year to year.

>>>It's possible that Crain's stuff allows for lots of weak dribblers that don't get through the infield.  This is a signature Crain out from this year.  In other words, I think he can control, to a certain extent, his BABIP.<<<

His Line Drive % significantly below League Average, so that helps him control his BAPIP. He also induces more infield flies than average. However, he induces less ground balls than League Average. Perhaps is is getting more than the average amount of dribblers though.

As a result, Crain's velocity is down and his slider isn't as sharp. Despite the overhaul, Crain really hasn't added all that much movement to his fastball, evidenced by his unremarkable 1.11 G/F ratio.

Is Crain going to develop that kind of stamina or be that good? I'd bet not (and so would just about anybody).  My bet is he ends up being something like a Todd Worrell. Which wouldn't be a bad career at all.

Wouldn't surprise me a great deal to see the k's go up a little and he pitches 160-180, maybe peaking at 200 innings for couple seasons in his prime. Probably with the Twins in a couple years or so. Then one season at 5.0 ERA where it all catches up to him and fairly effective relief after that.

1. Lemon and Wynn were starting pitchers.
   
2. They pitched in the 40s and 50s, when pitchers didn't strike out as many batters.

It's a repeat of the Danny Kolb experience, and like Kolb it's going to get very ugly very quickly.

Lemon and Wynn did not have K rates greatly out of line with their eras (era in time not earned run average)In 1949 Lemon had a 138/137 K/bb in 280 ip.
That year the league as a whole had 4369/5627 k/bb ratio in 10938 ip.  Lemon's k/bb ratio and k/9- both terrible by our standards were actually better than average.

Next year, I think his strikeouts will jump considerably (probably double at least) and his performance will stay around its current level.

www.wyoung.net/twins

I tend to think that Crain will increase is K ratio by a decent margin next year now that he is comfortable with the change and has all offseason and spring training to work on it, but he won't approach the numbers he put up in the minors.  In the long run, this change should make him a more effective set-up man.