Looking Back: Jordan Zimmermann

This season I put my thoughts out on Jordan Zimmermann when he made the team in Spring Training. I was not ready to suggest Zimmermann as an add in leagues, but saw he did have potential. Perhaps we should start with my final advice:

I would pass on Zimmermann for now. He was very impressive this spring with 20 strikeouts and only 2 walks in 14.1 IP, but we all now to use caution with spring stat lines. Let's keep an eye on him and see what happens in April. Add him to a watch list and see how he does in his first 2-3 starts.

The lack of Triple-A numbers had me questioning what would happen to his ratios, but they looked good up through Double-A. My concern stemmed from an decreasing K/9 at each level and an increasing BB/9 at each level, but he definitely had the numbers to be successful.

So far he has shown his strikeout rate will be solid at 8.81 K/9 through 79.2 innings. That is for real and would have him tied for 12 in the league with Johan Santana right now if he had enough IP to qualify. While many pitchers struggle with walks in their first season Zimmermann has been fairly solid in his BB/9. So far he has a 2.82, which is not great but solid. This has his K/BB at 3.12.

His luck has been a drag so far and his defense is the worst in the league. This makes it difficult to say his BABIP will improve from .341, but since the team added Nyjer Morgan the defense is somewhat better. How much that changes will be a question to keep an eye on.

His FIP right now is 3.44, xFIP is 3.47 and his DERA is 3.56. Obviously he has pitched better than his results, but don't expect an immediate regression to the mean with such a bad defense. Morgan can't fix the holes in the infield defense and Adam Dunn is still there costing the team 18.2 runs so far just on defense.