Next!

Bradley Holt's second pro start, versus Aberdeen: 5 IP, no hits, 1 walk, 6 strikeouts. Short-season A ball? Next!

All I really look at for pitchers are the peripherals: strikeout rate, strikeout-to-walk ratio, and home runs allowed ratio. These peripherals are very consistent from year to year, and predict success (high wins, low ERA) much better than any other measures (such as past W-L record or past ERA). In short, there's a lot of luck in baseball, and as a pitcher, walks hurt you, and home runs kill you, but every ball put into play historically has about a 30% chance of turning into a hit, and this doesn't vary much from pitcher to pitcher. So...if you don't walk a lot of guys, and can keep the ball in the park, when you strike a lot of guys out you just aren't going to give up very many hits, or very many runs.

Holt's peripherals after 2 starts are a 5:1 K:BB, 12.7 K:9IP, and 0 HR:9IP. These are better than the best peripherals of any major leaguer. Holt is off to a very good start.