Randy Wells Refresher

Randy Wells will be called-up to start Friday's game in Milwaukee. This isn't his first trip, as the Rule 5 pick got an inning as a Blue Jay before being returned to the Cubs. The Cubs also found a few innings for Wells in 2008.

Over four total outings (5.1 IP), Wells didn't allow any hits, fell behind often and didn't miss many bats with any pitch. He ended up with just one strike out against three walks. All the walks, and the K, came against right-handed hitters.

In the minors, Wells has maintained a 3:1 K:BB ratio, and he lowered his BB/9 from 3.9 in 2007 to about 2.5 for 2008 and 2009. 2009 has been a tidy year, and Wells has been tough to hit in the Pacific Coast League.

Hopefully the GO:AO ratio that he put up (9:5) in 2008 was for real. That ratio corresponds to a 64% ground ball rate that isn't in line with his minor league career. For the most part, Wells has been in the upper 40s, although his early returns for 2009 are a good 10 points higher (source).

I hope that is a real improvement. Wells throws a four-seam fastball (F4), a sinking two-seam fastball (F2), change-up (CH) and slider (SL). A good sinker is a valuable weapon, so I wouldn't be surprised if that is at least some significant part of his recent development based on his recent numbers. I'm guessing though, totally guessing.

Here's his stuff, flight paths at the end.

cfx	#	lhh	rhh	mph	pfx_x	pfx_z	deg
CH	14	5	9	82.0	-5.5	6.7	218.9
F2	11	7	4	88.2	-5.9	6.0	224.5
F4	23	4	19	90.3	-2.9	9.8	196.4
SL	6	1	5	82.5	3.9	1.6	111.7

During his 2008 stint, Wells liked to go to the change when ahead and the fastball when behind, but balanced of all four pitches on 0-0 counts. Not like he was throwing strikes, but at least he has stuff that he's willing work with more than one time through an order. A steady stream of first-pitch fastballs would not bode well for a prospective starter, so it's nice to see Wells mixed it up in the majors, even if the results weren't there.

The Graph - three views of the pitch flight, and the slices/layers chart snuck in there (the scale on the latter is 45%, btw, since this is a beta version of this chart, the labels are too small/fuzzy).

Click for a full-sized version