Zach Duke of Earl is a pearl

One of the amazing surprises of the year for me has been the success of Zach Duke. After all, for so many years as a starter in the early part of this millennium, Duke came to symbolize everything that was wrong with the (then) perennial losing Pittsburgh Pirates. After a successful rookie season, he quickly sank into a slot of one of the worst starting pitchers in baseball. And here he is reinvented as one of the most solid relief pitchers in baseball.

Let's look at Duke's amazing numbers this season. He has vultured four wins in relief against no losses. He has a 1.94 ERA with a 2.24 FIP and 2.10 xFIP. His ground ball rate is the highest of his career at 55.7% and he is striking out 11.65 batters per nine innings.

That last statistic is the most amazing of all. If you prefer strikeout percentage, he is sitting at 32.3%. His career average is 12.7%. His career K/9 rate is 4.97. His strikeout to walk rate is 4.29 compared to a career average of 2.02. Who is this guy and what have you done with the real Zach Duke!?

Here is a guy who has pitched for four different organizations in the past four seasons and during that time was released twice. This is the same guy who came into this season with a 50-76 career record with a 1.470 WHIP. His average game score as a starter was 46 when fifty was average. Of all his starts, only 50% were quality starts. What happened here?

The Reds have to be given credit in 2013 for turning Duke permanently into a relief pitcher. The Nationals had him earlier than that and used him as a starter in the minors and then gave him a few relief appearances in the Majors. But the Reds, once they acquired him, put him in the bullpen permanently. And it has made all the difference.

Also different is how Duke pitches. He has completely ditched the four-seam fastball that was a staple of his repertoire. He only throws fastballs 50% of the time and most of those are two-seamers. Almost 49% of his pitches are a combination of curves and sliders and he has a positive value on the two-seam, slider and curve this season. His fastball has picked up a mile per hour over his past seasons. Significant but still only an 89.4 MPH heater.

What has really helped Duke is that 61.3% of his first pitches are strikes. Getting ahead in the count has really helped and his swinging strike rate has gone up to the highest rate of his career.

Sure, he is sort of a LOOGY. He has pitched 45.1 innings in 55 outings. But he has actually pitched to more right-handed batters (103) than he has lefty swingers (83). And his success rate against either is terrific. Right-handed batters have only a .581 OPS against him and lefty swingers, .552.

Zach Duke has gone from a pitcher of derision to someone that manager, Ron Roenicke, has 100% confidence in. Duke's resurgence as a relief pitcher after a bumpy career as a starter has been one of the really fun stories of 2014 and is one of those little reasons why we love this game so much.

Zach Duke - A Cautionary Tale

It's hard to believe Zach Duke is only 27 years old. It seems like he has been pitching for a decade. The past few seasons, his seasons seemed like decades. Duke went from phenom to bust quicker than just about any pitcher in recent memory. You could compare him to Dontrelle Willis without the walks. But Willis at least had a few seasons of success before it all fell apart. Duke had one glorious half season. But it was a mirage then and the Pirates kept reaching to get to that hazy oasis on the horizon and could never get there. The Pirates gave up on Duke yesterday and designated him for assignment, ending his Pirate career after six seasons.

Zach Duke was an 18 year old kid fresh out of high school when the Pirates drafted him in the 20th round in 2001. Against the odds, he started piling up stats for the Pirates, but that was part of the problem. He pitched 142 innings as a 20 year old and and 148 at the age of 21. His strikeout rate was healthy, topping out at 9.8 in 2004. Plus, he had great control, walking only 1.8 per nine. But the higher he rose in the Pirates' organization, the lower the strikeout rate went. Then came his debut year for the Pirates in 2005.

Duke had already pitched 108 innings in 2005 for their Triple A affiliate. The Pirates then called him up and he pitched 84 more innings for the big club. Remember that he was only 22 years old at the time. But they were 84 GREAT innings. Duke made 14 starts for the Pirates that year and went 8-2 with an ERA of 1.81. It wasn't lucky either as his BABIP was right where it should have been at .303. He gave up only three homers. It was an impressive debut and everyone thought he was going to be the next great pitcher. His K/9 rate was healthy enough at 6.2 and his K/BB ratio was 2.52, a nice total. He would never again come close to those kinds of numbers.

The very next year, Duke made 34 starts and pitched 214+ innings. He was 23. He ended up going 10-15 that season and gave up more hits than anyone else in the National League. His K/9 rate fell below five per nine. His WHIP went up to 1.50. It was all downhill from there. Since his rookie season, he has gone 37-68. He was the poster boy for everything that was wrong with the Pirates.

And now, at the age of 27, in what should be the peak of his career, he has washed out of Pittsburgh and his future is unclear. He could catch on with a minor league contract. Some club might have an idea they can reclaim him and find lightning in a bottle. But looking at his strikeout rates, his homer rates and his hit rates, it appears that there is little left in what was once a promising arm.

This writer believes he pitched too many innings at too young an age and as a result, washed up early in life. Who knows, Duke could resurface and could somehow become an effective pitcher in the majors again. But those chances remain slim and he looks like a cautionary tale to all those who think babying pitchers is a stupid idea.