HoRam is well under 4 K’s per game this year in the AL. You won’t find many MLB pitchers who can live like that for very long- and the ones that do don’t have BB = or > K like HoRam.

Even Bill “Spaceman” Lee, who was probably a good archetype for this (no stuff at all, ground balls) had career numbers of 2.5 BB/3.3 K. Horacio is at 3.5/4.19… but Lee pitched more innings in a league with the DH and in leagues where K numbers were a skosh lower. And Lee’s also one of the few guys who had any decent career doing this.

The bottom line is if you want to live on groundballs and can’t strike guys out because your stuff won’t break a pane of glass, you can’t walk people. Period. HoRam has lousy command of the zone, and that’s why he’s a poor candidate for future success. If he stops walking guys, period, and gets lots of GBs, he MIGHT have a shot, but it’s a marginal one at best.

So does HoRam. Just ask Nick Punto

Like I said, if he could do that routinely against teams with actual, detectable offenses, he’d be a valuable guy. But he can’t, and he won’t; nevertheless, a W is a W and if they can get something similar from him against say Oakland and Tampa, well… those Ws would count too. But his next start is going to be in Texas, and I don’t have a lot of faith in him there or when he’s facing NY, LAA, or DET either.

Honestly, sometimes I feel like this team is Wile E Coyote running across the canyon on a cloud of Anaheim Roadrunner dust, and they’ll keep gaining just as long as nobody looks down…

Anyway, what I meant by over-rated was that Ks get disproportionate attention. They’re the sexy stat, just like HRs are for hitters. But there’s more than one way to get an out. Groundballs in play do not frequently result in runs; if they do, then you need to upgrade your infield. And Ks are often the most expensive way to get an out in terms of pitchcount. You can get 3 outs in 3 pitches with groundballs with little chance of giving up a run. You can’t get 3 Ks with 3 pitches. Now, if you don’t trust your infield defense then yeah, you definitely want to see Ks. And if you’ve got a good bullpen and you’re not worried about a long roadtrip with no rest days, that pitchcount certainly is nothing to worry about. But if not, a guy who can get through a lot of innings without giving up a lot of flyballs is a very valuable addition to your rotation.

The reason Felix is so highly regarded, of course, is that he’s both a high-K pitcher and a groundball guy.

Looking at the stats, you’ll notice that the guys you listed there also strike out the occasional batter.

That said, Ks aren’t overrated; they’re the one kind of out that (excepting the occasional dropped third strike) aren’t subject to the vagaries of chance and the limitations of your fielders. The more Ks, the fewer balls in play; the fewer balls in play, the fewer hits; the fewer hits, the fewer runs. The more Ks, the greater your margin of error; the fewer Ks, the more you have to do everything else right in order to succeed.

HoRam 1K in 7.1 IP

Jeff Cirillo 2BB in 1 IP
HoRam 0BB in 7.1 IP

Anyway, Ks are overrated. HoRam had 16 GB outs (IIRC). According to Fangraphs, on balls in play he had 7 FB, 20 GB, and 3 LD (a 2.85 GB/FB ratio). If he could do that routinely, particularly against Teams That Matter, he’d be an ace. Top five (qualified) pitchers in baseball by GB/FB:
Derek Lowe…………… 3.47
Tim Hudson…………… 3.13
Fausto Carmona… 3.05
Felix Hernandez… 2.82
Brandon Webb………… 2.80

(And that, incidentally, is also the answer to the question “Why should you never play Vidro at 2nd behind Felix?”)

And I was living in St. Louis when Rick Ankiel had his famous meltdown and it was hard to watch. Trust me, Ankiel’s problems weren’t physical. His story has nothing to do with a couple of OF drops by Adam Jones, though.

Either way, the point is: please don’t use the career of a single starting pitcher to not-so-subtly imply that a certain outfielder could play poor defense. They really, really aren’t related.