Is there hope for Dakota Hudson?

St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Dakota Hudson has not pitched well since breaking spring training as a member of the big-league rotation, but there’s reason to expect the rookie to improve.

Hudson’s Triple-A season helps us set our expectations.

It’s sometimes easy to forget because stats begin anew at each level of pro ball a player reaches, but Hudson was very good last year for Triple-A Memphis in the Pacific Coast League.

IP	K%	BB%	HR/9	GB%	BABIP	LOB%	ERA	FIP
111.2	18.4	8.0	0.08	57.5	.313	78.5	2.50	3.54

That is a good line for a starting pitcher. It’s not a great line by any means. But it’s good. And that’s about what Hudson’s ceiling as a big-league starter is:  good, not great.

The righty is not — and has never been — a strikeout machine. Hudson’s strength is his power sinker, with which he pounds the bottom of the strike zone, inducing grounders. He doesn’t generate a lot of whiffs or strikeouts. And despite his velocity, this makes him something of a throwback to the Dave Duncan era.

Hudson’s minor-league profile thus helps us form our expectations for him in St. Louis. We should not expect Jack Flahert-like strikeouts. That’s not the type of pitcher that Hudson is. Instead, we should expect grounders by the bunches. In order to be an effective major-leaguer, that is what Hudson must do.

Hudson’s MLB performance has been marred by allowing too many homers and walks.

Hudson is not going to strike out a lot of batters. That means that he has less of a margin of error. The righty can’t afford to issue too many walks. So far in the majors, Hudson has done just that.

But walks aren’t the only problem he has faced. Perhaps relatedly, Hudson has given up a lot of homers. Consider the following table, which compares Hudson’s 2018 Triple-A numbers to his 2019 MLB numbers through play on May 6.

Level	IP	K%	BB%	HR/9	GB%	BABIP	LOB%	ERA	FIP
AAA ‘18	111.2	18.4	8.0	0.08	57.5	.313	78.5	2.50	3.54
MLB ‘19	30.0	18.6	10.7	2.40	56.1	.319	83.3	4.80	6.37

As you can see, Hudson’s low K%, increased BB%, and astonishingly higher HR/9 have combined for some ugly numbers. This is particularly true when it comes to Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP), which focuses on stats that tend to be more reflective of a pitcher’s individual performance:  strikeouts, walks, and homers allowed. Home runs have been the problem for Hudson so far this year.

Hudson is giving up harder contact.

The Statcast data on the indispensable Baseball Savant fleshes out what the homers allowed suggests. Hudson is giving up a lot more harder contact this year as a starter than he did last year as a reliever. Hudson’s average exit velocity against has gone up from 83.3 to 90.3.

A “barrel” is a category of hit that is the optimal combination of exit velocity and launch angle. In 2018, Hudson allowed just one barrel out of 80 batted balls. This year, he’s allowed 9 barrels in 99 batted balls. So it’s no surprise that his Hard Hit % has gone from 20% to 43.4%.

Simply put, opposing hitters are making harder contact against Hudson and a fair number of those harder hit balls are doing more damage. We’ll use Expected Slugging Percentage (xSLG) as a proxy for this. Hudson’s xSLG was .265 last year and it’s .483 this year.

Opposing batters are making better contact on pitches in the zone.

The most interesting data, to me, is the plate discipline data on Baseball Savant:

YR	PC	Swing %	Zone %	Zone Swing %	Zone Contact %	Chase %	Chase Contact %	Edge %	Wiff %	Meatball %	Meatball Swing %
‘18	433	43.4	48.3	62.7	87.8	25.4	52.5	40.4	22.9	6.7	65.5
‘19	545	42.2	51.7	64.5	82.4	18.3	27.1	40.4	29.1	6.8	73.0

Most interesting to me is that Hudson is the following string:

• Hudson is throwing more pitches in the strike zone in 2019 than he did in 2018.

• Hudson has increased his Whiff % by good amount.

• Opposing batters are swinging more often at pitches in the zone and whiffing more often.

• Opposing batters are chasing Hudson’s pitches out of the zone far less often (25.4% to 18.3%) and making contact with the pitches they chase far less often (52.5% to 27.1%).

Hudson has to reduce hitters' ability to hunt in hitter's counts. So far this year, six of the eight homers that Hudson has surrendered came on 1-0 counts and six of the seven doubles he has given up have come on hitter's counts.

For a sinkerballer, inducing chases down and out of the zone is important. Inducing weak contact on those pitches that leads to groundouts is the bread and butter of sinkerballing. Opposing hitters have been able to remain disciplined against Hudson and zero in on pitches to hit above the knees.

Is there reason to believe that Hudson can turn things around?

Hudson has not made a habit of surrendering homers in his pro career. In the minors, Hudson faced a total of 1,174 batters and allowed a total of 8 homers. That works out to one homer allowed every 146.75 batters faced.

Further, Hudson did not graduate to the majors and start giving up dingers at an obscene rate. Last season, the Cardinals promoted Hudson to the major-league bullpen. He notched 27 1/3 innings, facing 119 batters. And Hudson allowed no homers for the Cardinals.

As you can see above, this year has been a different story. Hudson has faced 140 batters and given up eight dingers. Or one homer every 17.5 batters.

If Hudson can start firing more first-pitch strikes, he should able to mitigate the slugging against him. This will allow him to have the upper hand and instead of opposing batsmen sitting back and waiting for pitches to drive, Hudson can induce them to expand the zone, chase outside of it, and pound more grounders into the infield turf.

Don't give up on Hudson just yet. Some good ol' fashioned Duncanism is the antidote to what ails him.