Gotta Let The Peacock Fly!

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Let the man fly

     Bradley Peacock is on his way back to the show, and scheduled to start Sunday. The right-hander acquired in the Jed Lowrie deal entered opening day slotted for the fourth spot in the rotation, but soon ran into trouble and was optioned to AAA OKC. During his allotted major league time Peacock struggled with putting men on base, owner a high BB/9 of 5.28, and had a tough time keeping it in the ballpark as 17.8 % of the fastballs he threw left the yard. A high walk rate associated with a low 28.1% groundball rate, is a recipe for disaster, sprinkle an elevated HR/9 number and you have the icing on the cake. During Peacock's time in OKC, he appears to have figured it out and then some. In 79 innings of work, he lowered his BB/9 from 5.28 in the bigs, to an outstanding 2.51. He also more than cut his HR/9 in half, going from 2.48 to 1.03. 

     One fringy pitch he was working on during the beginning of the year was his change, and the reported maturation of that pitch may have had a big part in his advanced performance at AAA. If he can use it effectively and keep it lower in the zone, Peacock's change pairs well his heavy reliance on his heater use at 68.6 %. The change will prevent hitters from sitting on his heavy reliance of two pitches which are fairly easy to identify out of the hand, this will also elevate his very low O-Swing% of 19.7 percent. The low O-swing indicates that he was fooling nearly no one, and hitters were able to sit dead red. With a well rounded arsenal, and better command of his fastball, I expect Peacock to fly high and see some form of success at the big league level. Here's a look at his 2013 AAA numbers........

W	L	%	ERA	G	GS	IP	H	ER	HR	BB	SO	WHIP	H/9	HR/9	BB/9	SO/9
6	2	.750	2.73	14	13	79.0	65	24	9	22	76	1.101	7.4	1.0	2.5	8.7