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Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Sickels: The Long Journey of Sam Deduno

Behold: a new SBN tablet-friendly design, a lickable Sickels!

Deduno has had strong outings on August 29th (nine strikeouts, no walks, seven shutout innings against the Mariners) and September 10th (two runs and six strikeouts in seven innings against the Indians). He was also blown up for seven hits, three walks, and seven runs in 2.1 innings on September 22nd against the Tigers.

Deduno is no stranger to up-and-down performances, having had a mercurial minor league career. Does he have any chance to help in Minnesota in 2013?

News breaks fast.

LATE NOTE: About 20 seconds before I pressed the “publish” button on this post, Deduno was removed from his start in the second inning against the New York Yankees with an apparent injury. We’ll update as more information becomes available.

Greg Franklin Posted: September 26, 2012 at 02:40 PM | 9 comment(s) Login to Bookmark
Tags: minor leagues, sabermetrics, scouting, twins

Reader Comments and Retorts

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1. DL from MN Posted: September 26, 2012 at 03:02 PM (#4246434)

His fastball is nasty but nobody knows where it is going when he lets it fly. Hitters shake their heads after facing Deduno. He has more in common with RA Dickey than he does with a standard sinker/slider guy.

2. RoyalsRetro (AG#1F) Posted: September 26, 2012 at 03:25 PM (#4246454)

I liked Deduno a long time ago when he was on waivers, but as a cheap reliever. Good to see him having some success.

3. Craig in MN Posted: September 26, 2012 at 03:35 PM (#4246462)

He was removed from the game because he couldn't see straight, at least not any straighter than he could throw. He was apparently having a hard time seeing the ball being thrown back to him from the catcher. Bizarre.

4. Der_K Posted: September 26, 2012 at 04:30 PM (#4246526)

2: me too. still did going into this season. i thought of him as a poor man's e.volquez.

5. Mike Emeigh

Posted: September 26, 2012 at 05:01 PM (#4246559)

Maybe like some other guys (Hosmer) the vision problems are real and affecting his performance, and he can be helped by Lasix.

Deduno's done it with mirrors to a large extent this year, mostly by virtue of a low BABIP (.269) and in-play ISO (.059), and with only one runner reaching base on an error despite a heavy diet of ground balls against him. Those patterns aren't likely to repeat in the future.

-- MWE

6. Justin T is expanding the aperture of awareness Posted: September 26, 2012 at 05:45 PM (#4246623)

I do actually think that SB Nation redesign works pretty nicely on a tablet. I had heard and read a little bit about its upcoming launch but what I read didn't really make much of an impression on me. I may actually spend more time there. Now it's a matter of whether I can find other places there with good enough content that I actually care about.

7. DL from MN Posted: September 26, 2012 at 06:09 PM (#4246643)

Not a good guy to have as a reliever in my opinion. He really can't come into the middle of an inning because you never know if he'll walk the next 3 batters.

Deduno has a LOT of movement on his fastball. I don't think it's mirrors, at least according to the batters I've seen shaking their head. It's a knuckling fastball. The low BABIP and ISO are because the batters don't know how to get the head of the bat on the ball. xFIP is going to do a terrible job with Deduno because it will regress his line drive rates to league average when nobody makes solid contact at league average.

8. puck Posted: September 26, 2012 at 06:32 PM (#4246666)

Interesting, a knuckling fastball.

9. Craig in MN Posted: September 26, 2012 at 09:36 PM (#4246788)

Not a good guy to have as a reliever in my opinion. He really can't come into the middle of an inning because you never know if he'll walk the next 3 batters.

True, but he's not exactly a great guy to have as a starter either when you don't know if he's going to walk 6 guys a game or zero. Oddly, his best position might be as a closer, since he'd almost always enter the game with no one on and often with a lead of 2 or 3 runs, so a couple walks don't matter, as long as the hitters don't make decent contact the rest of the time. Get him some Coke bottle glasses and call him Wild Thing. It would be an awfully fun expirement.

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Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Sickels: The Long Journey of Sam Deduno

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