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Kent Bonham and Jeff Sackmann founded College Splits in 2006. We've been collecting, analyzing, and distributing cutting-edge college baseball data ever since.

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Danny Ray Herrera

 

Step 1: Add Sinker. Step 2: Add Cutter. Step 3: PROFIT!

March 29, 2010

While prospect hounds are still reeling over Bryce Harper's four home run weekend, we’ll turn our attention a much lesser-known guy, Tennessee senior RHP Stephen McCray.

It seems a funny thing for a pitcher to decide to try and strike fewer guys out, but that’s exactly the decision McCray made heading into this, his senior, season.

In 2009, McCray struggled, posting an ERA over 5 and well under one strikeout per inning. Right-handed batters in particular feasted on him, slugging over .600. But still, there was a glimmer of something there, as the Tampa Bay Rays took a chance on him out of high school in the 34th round of the ’06 draft, and his fastball reached 93-94 MPH.

It wouldn’t have been crazy to assume a guy like that would just be OK with seeing where another season of experience and growth would have taken him. Instead, he decided to start all over from scratch.

Working with Tennessee pitching coach Jason Beverlin (yep, that Jason Beverlin), he decided to take a few notches off of his fastball, work on getting more sink off of the pitch, and add a cutter to his arsenal.

So, how’s it going so far?

Groundouts/Air Outs:
2009: 44/59 (49 IP)
2010: 49/31 (35.1 IP)

K/9
2009: 7.16
2010: 5.60

Slugging Against:
2009: .550
2010: .331

ERA:
2009: 5.16
2010: 2.04

In short, about as well as could be expected. He is, in fact, trading away strikeouts for more groundball outs, resulting in fewer hard hit balls and fewer runs scored. Maybe not the sexiest route to success, but he's getting the job done.