SPECULATOR: The next Phil Hughes
Mar 14 2015
Two weeks ago, Brent Hershey filled in as our pinch-hit Speculator columnist, and did a great job of conducting a search for the next Michael Brantley. For our follow-up pitching exercise, we resisted the urge to use AL Cy Young Award winner Corey Kluber as our subject: Kluber was a premium, known breakout candidate entering 2014, the only surprise there was the degree of his breakout.
Looking for a more interesting breakout profile, we settled on Phil Hughes. As a reminder, Hughes, a one-time top prospect who had not yet achieved consistent success in the majors, finally broke out in 2015 with a 3.52 ERA (his first sub-4.00 season as an SP) and an MLB-record 11.6 Cmd ratio in his age-28 season.
With Hughes as our template, our breakout...
Almost!
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