Sinkerball pitchers are always walking a fine line. Because a sinker is slower than a 4 seam fastball, the movement and location is much more important. Sinkers that don't move or are not on the corners get hit. That's why we've seen so many sinkerballers have a good season here and there but cannot sustain over the course of a career. Scott Erickson was a great example: when he first came up he threw a hard sinker that moved all over the place. He was nearly unhittable. Then he had the dreaded "elbow cleanout" and that sinker never had the same life and he became an average pitcher for the remainder of his career.

 

Gibson has nice movement on his sinker: if he maintains that, commands it a little better and adds better secondary pitches, he could be a very fine pitcher. Only time will tell.

 

I made this comp on another Kyle Gibson thread. But he is similar to Brandon Webb, albeit not quite as good.

 

Typical sinker pitchers like Carlos Silva or Pelfrey have very low K rates, 4 per 9 and 5.2 per 9 for their careers. Brandon Webb was a guy that kept the ball down and was still able to K 7.2 batters per nine in his career. Here are his career numbers:

 

Webb - 3.27 ERA, 7.2 K per 9, 64.2% career ground ball rate. .63 HR per 9.

 

In the minors, Gibson had 337 IP and 337 K. His last year at AAA he had 7.75 K per 9 and allowed only .44 HR per 9. I can't find minor league ground ball/fly ball ratios, but so far Gibson has a ground ball rate of 58.8% this year versus 50.3% last year. That is one of the reasons why he has been better this year.

 

If Gibson can keep his 58.8% ground ball rate or improve it and get his K rate up over 6, he will be a good #2 or #3 starter in this league. I think the K rate is low because of the ump's, as others have pointed out.

I am excited about Gibson thus far.

 

It might be ump related but I will really get excited when his WHIP comes down.