Background information. I was driving to New York today, battling the Thanksgiving traffic as John Lackey battles mediocrity, and I hopped on to my computer. Given the fact that I had no Internet access in my car, I turned on OOTP 11. OOTP 11 is a baseball management simulation game, and it's by far the best there is. In short, you take the helm of a current major league baseball franchise (or a historical one, if you want, which is pretty awesome) under your name and control everything from trades to contract extensions to lineups and pitching staffs. The rosters are excellently accurate and mostly in line with what the rosters were when the 2010 season started. It's a slow game, but for anyone with an ambition to work in baseball, it is reasonably fun. The demo is available online at ootpdevelopments.com, and I encourage any baseball fan to try it out. That brings me to my point. Look at where Clay Buchholz is right now. We see him as one of the top starting pitchers in the American League East. His pitching line indicated dominance in 2010, and with it some regression in 2011. He went 17-7 with a 2.33 ERA while striking out 120 batters in almost 174 innings. That isn't a great strikeout rate, but this is Clay Buchholz, and he is here to stay. It's about the more distant past that makes up this article.
What this post is about is something that I found on OOTP 11: Clay Buchholz's minor league statistics from 2007, showing why he was and is a true phenom. With the Sea Dogs in Double-A in 2007, Clay went 7-2 with 1.77 ERA. He mixed in a superb 116 strikeouts over nearly 87 innings. Go further back, to Greenville in 2006, where he went 9-4 with a 2.62 ERA, along with 117 strikeouts over 103 innings. Then look at the current day. Just noticing the sharp drop in his strikeout rate. Can we see the strikeout-master Clay Buchholz in 2011?
Just something that caught my eye.
Stats given by ESPN.COM and www.soxprospects.com
Information from OOTP 11
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