The Twins are at it again. Reports are saying that former New York Yankee right-handed starter and unrestricted free agent, Phil Hughes has agreed to a 3-year, $24 million pact with Minnesota, as reported by La Velle Neal. This signing comes just days after the Twins agreed to ink Ricky Nolasco to a 4-year, $49 million deal.
Phil Hughes is coming off a sub-par season, where he posted a 5.19 ERA and lost a total of 14 games. This aforementioned ERA actually isn't absurdly different than his career ERA of 4.54, but there are some aspects that defend his true worth to a major-league team. These stats can be found here: http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=7450&position=P.
For the first seven seasons in his relatively young career, he's had to deal with the abnormally-short fences at Yankee Stadium, featuring a left field fence at 318 feet and right field fence at just 314 feet. These aren't exactly welcoming dimensions to any type of pitcher- especially to Phil Hughes, a prototypical fly-ball hurler. The dimensions of Yankee Stadium can be seen below, though you may need to zoom in to receive the best visual.
Compare those measurements to the dimensions at Target Field, as seen below, a stadium that should better welcome Hughes' high fly-ball tendencies. This new park should offer more neutral left field and right field fences to Hughes, sitting at 339 feet and 328 feet from home plate, respectively.
Looking at Hughes' pitching statistics at his former home park, it's clear that some are bloated due in part by the extreme dimensions. In 2013, for every fly-ball that he induced, 15.0% of them left the yard while pitching at Yankee Stadium. Compare this to his HR/FB rate while pitching at away parks- a much better 6.7%. Comparing these two statistics, the difference in HR/FB splits between home and road games is glaring. Put simply, Hughes was about twice as likely to give up a home run while pitching at Yankee Stadium than he was while pitching in other ballparks around the league.
Target Field, his new home park- heavily considered to be pitcher-friendly- should undoubtedly help Hughes lower his career HR/FB rate in 2014. Hughes was also relatively unlucky as a pitcher in 2013, not even really taking into account the dimensions at Yankee Stadium. In 2013, through 145.2 total innings pitched, Hughes' withstood a high BABIP, or batting average of balls in play, of .324. This is an unlucky and usual statistic, especially when considering his career BABIP of .294- which is about league average. Not taking stadium dimensions into considerable account, Hughes doesn't project to be as unlucky in 2014 by BABIP standards, according to www.fangraphs.com, which projects him to be at .294.
Taking into account more than one factor, it isn't likely that in 2014, Hughes puts up some of the gaudy statistics that he did last season as he compiled 78.1 of his 145.2 total innings while pitching at Yankee Stadium. The Twins are hoping - and possibly expecting - that he has a significant rebound next season. If his former home park's extreme dimensions and unlikely outcomes on balls put in play weren't enough to persuade Twins' GM, Terry Ryan, to bid for his services- maybe Hughes' career year in 2010 was.
During the 2010 season, while pitching in 106.1 innings at Yankee Stadium to a total of 176.1 overall, he posted a solid 4.19 ERA, 4.25 FIP and 4.13 xFIP, while winning 18 games and totaling a 2.5 WAR, or wins above replacement. He also holds a career K/9 rate of 7.56 while pitching in the American League, which should ensure Terry Ryan that such a rate will continue in 2014.
The Twins would love for Hughes to return to his 2010 form at some point, and by giving him a three-year deal, he'll have the proper opportunity to be able to do so while in Minnesota. At the very least, this signing gives Minnesota another starting pitcher that has averaged more than seven strikeouts per nine innings in his career. This is an important aspect of his game that will likely have him considered by Twins' Manager Ron Gardenhire to be the possible starter on Opening Day 2014.
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