Impressions From A Frisco Game
Mike Hindman
Kasey Kiker - Photo courtesy of Scott LucasIt was hard to watch Kasey Kiker's 3.2-inning outing against Corpus Christi on Thursday. As bad as the line looks (4 R, 4 H, 5 BB, 2 WP, 1 HBP), the view from behind the plate was even more horrifying.
Kiker appeared to be at max effort to pump his fastball up to the 86-88 mph range. I didn't chart his pitches, so I can't say for sure that he didn't ever sniff 90 mph, but I can say that I saw a lot at 86 mph and a couple tick up to 87-88 mph.
In other words, this was not like last year where he seemed to be subtracting velocity with purpose. Yes, he'd sit 88-89 mph most of the time, but he was still firing off enough in the 92-94 mph range -- and the occasional 96-97 mph heater -- that you felt the velocity was there when he thought he needed it. Not anymore. Eighty-eight seems to be all he's got in his pistol these days, and only then with maximum effort and stress.
But here's the bad news (correct, the low velocity is not the bad news -- it gets worse): Kiker has literally no ability to repeat his delivery anymore and he's almost as likely to fly open as he is to throw across his body. His front foot might land anywhere. He'll plant straight at the plate three times, and then a foot towards the third base side for four pitches and then fly open and plant a foot towards the first base side. It's as if he has never been coached and doesn't understand the concept of a repeatable delivery. That's obviously not the case, but that's what it looks like.
Kiker's fastball is not only slow, but he leaves it up most of the time. It still has solid late life with remarkable armside run most of the time, but when he tries to keep it low in the zone, it's in the dirt more often than not. One of his two wild pitches was a 58-footer that was eighteen inches inside (the other probably should have gone down as a passed ball on Taylor Teagarden -- more on his lackluster effort in a moment).
As for Kiker's curveball, which was inconsistent last year but flashed as solid-average more than half the time, that's gone. The pitch does nothing now. Nothing. It's useless. It's difficult to come away from something like this effort and not have a very strong suspicion that Kiker is injured. And if he's not injured now, he probably will be soon given his absolutely horrendous mechanics.
Speaking of Kiker's horrendous mechanics, I found myself a bit disappointed that Taylor Teagarden didn't ever seem to intervene to point this problem out to Kiker. But Teagarden's failure to haul his butt out to the mound to communicate with Kiker was just one piece of evidence suggesting that the Texas alum had very little interest in being back in Frisco.
On two of the three occasions a runner at first base broke, Teagarden bobbled the pitch and then made a horrible throw (on the other occasion, Kiker got the out in a pickoff-rundown). Teagarden's first throw to second tailed off so sharply towards right field that Matt Lawson nearly pulled a groin muscle rescuing Teagarden from an error.
You can take one of the four hits on Kiker's ledger and smack Joey Butler over the head with it. On a weak pop to right, Butler immediately broke back and it took him about six steps before he realized he had misplayed the ball by about 40 yards.
Butler has wielded one of the hottest bats in the Texas League lately (.304/.380 /.448), and he racked up two more doubles on Thursday, but that play in the second inning was one of the worst defensive plays I've ever seen a Texas League outfielder make in my seventeen years as an observer of that circuit. Just file that away when people start building a Joey Butler bandwagon if he remains hot at the plate.
Reader Comments (22)
Hip as hell, Hindman writing. I hope to see it regularly.
Kiker sounds completely messed up mechanically. Perhaps he should just be shut down for a while and retooled in extended...Teagarden sounds even more a mess, though at least he can throw the ball back to the pitcher. Egad.
Welcome back, Mr. Kotter.
Prediction: Teagarden is finished...........no MLB career in the future!
@ t ball. Yup. Nothing left to be said.
@ Mike Hindman. Welcome. No, WELCOME and keep it up. You're a breath of fresh air in a cow lot of restrained opinion. (a cow lot is like a stall or small corral where rose bush fertilizer accumulates; it was a compliment)
@Craig Mellor. Yup, but hope you're wrong.
LOVE the report, Mike. Thanks a lot.
MJH- Glad to see your fine work returning.
He's baaaaaaaaaack!
Because we could use some Mike Hindman.
Welcome back Mike! You've been gone too long.
The Mike Hindman writing style. Understands baseball, knows mechanics (or at least fools me into thinking he does) and writes about it in a way that even laymen like myself can understand. Man, I like that.
Don't be a stranger, brother.
Sorry to hear that about Kiker. He's always struck me as a tough kid with a hard head. I hope he isn't hurt and can put his listening ears on to get back what he's lost.
MJH - great see your name in print buddy.
I love seeing "Mike Hindman" at the top of the page. Welcome back.
MJH...goodness knows a lot of us have wanted to see your thoughts for some time now. Hate to see the negativity (although it is obviously justified based on what you saw), but I'd rather see the true recount of what happened rather than a glossy finish on a piss-poor performance. Hope to see your thoughts here more going forward. You've always been my favorite arbiter of Rangers info next to Jamey, so please come back and keep us up to date. Joey and the boys do a great job and you'd be a great addition when you can contribute.
More Mike. Welcome back. How long had it been -- nine months, or thereabouts?
I realize that a lot of catchers carve out reasonably long careers without being able to hit very well (hell, Henry Blanco has leveraged good defense and a lifetime .229/.293/.367 into more than $13 million in career earnings over 13 seasons), but the severity of his poor performance at the outset of this season -- both at the plate and in the field -- really alarms me for somebody with more than 1,200 professional plate appearances to his name and is in his age-26 season to boot. I realize you can play the "what if?" game until it drives you into madness, but I'm always going to wonder about what Texas could have netted for Teagarden after his monster '07 campaign.
Thanks for the kind words. This was a random thing. I stopped by the Frisco game this morning and was sharing my observations with JP in one of our legendary IM sessions when he asked if I'd write something up for BTiA. Joey had previously made an open invitation to contribute something, so I threw this together.
Nice work.
Always good to see the Hindman byline. Means we're going to see reasoned, sometimes provocative, but always passionate insight. No syrupy saccharine fluff here, simply the best Rangers blog contributor, bar none.
Thanks for the great writing, MJH. Nice to know two of our recently higher prospects suck....but its ok, we've got Scheppers!
Great to hear from you Mike.
Very dissapointing about Kiker. Sounds like he needs to eitrher be shut down and rebuilt from scratch (he's still young) or demoted to an environment whereas he can be dominant and hopefully find himself.
I'm even more dissapointed in TT. How could this kid go south so fast? And if you're observation was true, then shame on him and I hope JD and co took notice and make him pay.
BTW - someone on here mentioned the Rangers should look into Bengie Molina... and I replied that he's now fat and slow... well, it looks like the anchors at ESPN were having fun at his expense, and he didn't like it:
http://mlb.fanhouse.com/2010/05/13/bengie-molina-upset-with-espn/?ncid=txtlnkusspor00000002
Frisco pitchers for a number of years benefitted from Terry Clark's coaching ... and for a major portion of the time ... with Kevin Richardson behind the plate. They are both now in OKC with Richardson's move up to make room for Teagarden at Frisco. So now the future of the Frisco staff depends on Jeff Andrews an experienced pitching coach ... but who was unable to solve problems for the 2008 Pirates staff ... and Teagarden who has huge problems of his own.
Teagarden didn't have much other than hype his last time through Frisco in spring 2008 when he was hitting .169 w/23SO in 59ABs before being called up to AAA. He was so bad when wasn't on the field the day he was called up ... I swore he'd been sent back to Bakersfield. Might still happen this year.
w.m.w. -- I'm so far out of the loop now that I can't speak to what's going on with the instruction at Frisco, but I certainly concur that Terry Clark has proven to be an outstanding pitching coach and I would not be the least bit surprised if he is snatched up by another org as either major league pitching coach or minor league pitching coordinator. One of the problems of building a powerhouse development program is attrition of the architects of the program. Glad to see someone notice how outstanding TC has been.
Wow! MJH and Eric Belin on the same day. Outstanding