He’s shown he can dominate in MLB. Not too close right now.

Buchholz is a starter and Feliz is in the pen, so its not even close. The Rangers are going to have Feliz close an will never find the motivation to put him in the rotation. I have no doubt Feliz will be a great closer, Texas won’t want to move him after him having alot of success in that role. Clay even if he never lives up to what he was thought of should be an average starter, with some years above average thrown in. the only way I could see arguing Feliz is value to team, Texas needs Feliz in the pen, the Sox don’t need Clay in the rotation they have enough starters, so if you want to take context into it it might be a better discussion

I haven’t seen enough of Feliz to comment. But I’ve seen every pitch Buchholz has thrown in MLB (and analyzed most of them with pitch/fx).

A very important thing to remember: ultimately command is much more important than stuff. If Buchholz never improves his command and consistency, his ceiling may be as a #2 starter.

A further thing to keep in mind: velocity is damn important, too. Clay doesn’t throw as hard as, say, Pedro in his prime, and that extra couple of mph is part of what made Pedro the best pitcher of all time. Clay will never have that edge.

Having heard those two caveats, you shouldn’t get too carried away when I say that Clay Buchholz has the best stuff of any pitcher I’ve ever seen in almost 40 years of watching baseball. He gets swings and misses on both changeups and curves that can elicit bursts of laughter, they’re so off-the-scale nasty, and since his no-hitter he’s improved his slider to a plus pitch (it would be most guy’s second best) and added a quality two-seamer which he now throws more than the four-seamer. All of these eyeball opinions are backed up by pitch/fx data, BTW.

He finally got it going this year in his last 15 batters against the Rays tonight (after coming unglued a bit after a 2-out error in the 1st): 7 K, 4 GO, 2 FO, a BB and a 2B.

I think he’s has a chance to be an outstanding pitcher, a weak 1 or very good 2. As several people here have noted, CB has four above-average pitches. He has excellent FB velocity. His control isn’t perfect, but we’re not looking at Matt Clement here.

Remember also that Buchholz didn’t concentrate on pitching until after he left high school. He enrolled at McNeese State in 2003 as an outfielder. Pitching was an afterthought until 2004. He was 20 years old at the time.

He’s still on the uptick of his learning curve.

Feliz has a great arm. He’ll be a very good reliever. I like Buchholz more.