It’s been a bit of a roller-coaster for Mark Lowe these past few years. He dominated his way through his rookie season, and then promptly had arm surgery that knocked him out for most of 2007. His sophomore season was, frankly, bad.
But, finally, Mark Lowe found his mojo in 2009. He struck out 68 batters in 78 innings, compared to only 27 walks. Mark lowered his BB/9 from 4.81 in 2008 to 3.26 in 2009. His tRA dropped from 5.44 last year to 4.29 through his 2009 campaign, and his FIP from 4.42 to 3.60. His swinging strike percentage dropped a bit from 2008, but his control improved tremendously. And to put a cherry on his 2009 improvement, Lowe actually had a 1.3 groundball-to-flyball ratio according to Statcorner.com. Interestingly, Fangraphs has Lowe with a 0.97 GB-FB ratio, and I’m not sure why the two sites report different results. Either way, Lowe’s been a beast.
And, as we all know, Lowe’s changeup is absolutely monstrous. Jeff Sullivan called it the best pitch of any 2009 Mariner, and I would have to agree wholeheartedly.
Here’s the most (pleasantly) startling player comparison regarding Lowe’s improvement: Mark Lowe was worth 1.3 wins above replacement in 2009. David Aardsma was worth 1.9 wins above replacement in 2009. True, relief pitchers are debatably the most easily replaced type of ballplayer and don’t score well in the WAR department, but Mark Lowe was, in all honesty, close to Aardsma’s level of efficiency in 2009.
If Aardsma is dealt during the off-season, the Mariners have a more-than-capable replacement in Mark Lowe.
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A key difference (in my opnion) between Aardsma and Lowe, is simply that Lowe still hasn’t hit his ceiling and still has more to learn which is awfully exciting.
I won’t steal your show I know you have one coming up on Aardsma… i just wanted to throw out my two cents.
I think the M’s would probably get a better return from trading Lowe, because of the factor that Harrison points out- his potentially higher ceiling. Lowe has got better pure stuff than Aardsma, and I’m sure the scouts from other teams have long figured that out. So who’s going to be looking for a good eighth-inning guy/potential lights-out closer? Well, the Rays bullpen wasn’t exactly lights-out this year. Ditto the Cleveland Indians, and I’d say the last player we got from them turned out OK. We’ll see.
You want to keep the guy who has hit his ceiling and most likely will never be better than what he was this past season and trade the guy who has the potential to become a lights out reliver?
To be fair to Greg, Harrison, when dealing bullpen arms, you generally want to trade the one who has the most value – especially when you have guys like Fields, Aumont, and Manuel coming up in your system. We wouldn’t have a huge problem replacing either Aardsma or Lowe, so we might go with trading the more valuable one.
I don’t see us trading Aardsma, anyway.
To Harrison: Yes, if it will help get us a better return (preferably in the form of a decent infielder). Relief pitchers aren’t hard to find, and since we drafted so damn many under Bavasi we would have an even easier time replacing one.
Overpaying for “proven” closers is a trend with most GMs around the league…
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/brewers-sign-hoffman-to-2010-deal/
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/the-tale-of-three-overpaid-closers/
A return for Aardsma would be bigger just on basic mlb trends than for Lowe despite that yes Lowe would be the pitcher most teams should want for the long run.