Samuel Deduno

You haven't heard his name mentioned much in spring training this year. There is a reason for that.

He's playing for the Dominican Republic in the WBC. The cool part? Even though he is pitching against guys that aren't very good, he hasn't issued a walk in 5 innings of pitching. For "Wild Boy" Sam, that is simply amazing.

Peter Hagerman wrote an article yesterday telling us about Deduno's wildness and how it NEVER really seems to affect him or the Twins. Though he walks a ton of guys and frequently gets into horrible strike counts, he never really gives up a lot of runs. Why? Because he still gets a ton of strikeouts and ground balls with the most unhittable fastball in the entire league.

From Hagerman:

"With 121 innings split between Rochester and the Twins, he walked 75, or 14% of all the hitters he faced. Five measly innings of not throwing four balls in a given at-bat is not going to change that fact.

His inability to work ahead of hitters put Deduno in many precarious situations in 2012. A whopping 8% of his match-ups resulted in 3-0 counts (league average being 5%). Overall, hitters knew his reputation and refrained from chasing much of anything outside of the strike zone. According to Fangraphs.com Deduno got opponents to chase after just 23.5% of all out-of-zone offerings – the second lowest rate in baseball with a minimum of 70 innings pitched.

Here’s the catch: Despite being behind hitters frequently, he was not damaged significantly. He walked plenty, but teams were unable to put the ball in play sharply. Thanks to his incredible movement of his fastball which had an MLB-best 67% ground ball rate, the opposition showed they simply could not square up. Even in situations where they should have an advantage, they were unsuccessful. While the rest of the American League’s pitching staffs had a .299/.465/.513 batting line when behind in the count, Deduno produced a walk-heavy yet respectable .244/.524/.389 line.

With his nearly unhittable fastball (not to mention decent curve), Deduno has the foundations to be a very good pitcher. The giant elephant on his chest is his incapability to throw the ball over the plate consistently."

Me again.

Watching Deduno pitch last year reminded me so much of Liriano BEFORE he hurt his arm. I'm really hoping that the Twins see enough value in him to give an entire season in the majors to prove himself. This is a season where they don't expect to make the playoffs. If that's the case, let's see what Deduno can do. He excites me more than any pitcher on their roster right now and he's one of the few pitchers I'd actually turn on the game to watch. I'd also cut him some slack if he's wild. He's not "Liriano-Wild." It's just that his fastball has so much movement on it that it literally can break anywhere. THAT is a GOOD THING. That is an amazing thing. And I sure hope the Twins are smart enough to see that.