Q&A with Eric Pettis discussion

Little birdie told me that this would be a topic of interest.

Hi Eric. From your book it seems like you relied a lot on pitching savvy as compared to pure stuff. I'm just wondering if you could talk about pitchers past and present whom you admire, especially those with smarts.

Bird

Jon wrote: "Hi Eric. From your book it seems like you relied a lot on pitching savvy as compared to pure stuff. I'm just wondering if you could talk about pitchers past and present whom you admire, especially ..."

Even though I would consider myself to be a crafty pitcher I always admired the flamethrowers growing up. My all-time favorite was Pedro Martinez. And, while he did have a great array of pitches to fool the hitters, he still had that 95 mph fastball in his back pocket whenever he needed it.

As far as smart hurlers, no one comes close to Greg Maddux.

Maddux sure did a lot without flame. But watching him on TV in his heyday, I felt that it was unfair for the hitters. Watching from the centerfield camera, it seemed that he was getting strikes on pitches four or more inches outside. He was clever enough to stretch it out an inch or so early in the game, and keep stretching it out `til it was absurd.

Are you a lefty or right btw? I didn't pick up on that. Somehow there's that old saw about the "crafty lefty" -- Whitey Ford, Jamie Moyer, Tom Glavine, Billy Pierce, and so on.

Maddux definitely took advantage of what was given. But, then again, the umpires won't give you that little extra off the plate if you don't first prove that you can hit the black. And hitters at the major league level are so good that a pitch few inches off the plate is still very hittable if it isn't set up properly. More than anything, Maddux was a master at executing his plan for each hitter.

And no, I am not a lefty, wish I was. I would more than likely still be playing and on the fast track to the bigs if I had just learned to use my other hand. I think a big reason you see so many "crafty lefties" is because "crafty righties" aren't given the same opportunities. For some reason or another, being left-handed has been given a disproportionate value in respect to it's actual worth. I am not convinced that, especially at the big league level, being a left-handed pitcher is any advantage. Sure, some hitters struggle to hit same-sided pitchers but it evens itself out in the end. Perhaps the overvaluation of lefties is because there are just less of them, but that is not a good enough reason for me.

I think a big reason you see so many "crafty lefties" is because "crafty righties" aren't given the same opportunities. ...

That's always seemed so weird to me! We've got LOOGie's, "lefty one-out guys" (like Javy Lopez of my Giants), so why not righty one-out guys (though the awesome Sergio Romo of the Giants is sort of that) ... is it partly because lefties of any kind are more scarce?

Different topic. Are you planning to add an epilogue (or a sequel, maybe)? I think a lot of readers would like to know the story of the end of your career, beyond the end of the season you wrote about; I know I would.

While there is nothing in the works as of now (in the physical form), there is certainly a lot more that I would like to say. I absolutely would like to critique the system of baseball as it is now and I think the story of the end of my career could do a very good job setting the stage for that. I don't know whether that would take the form of another memoir, or a work of fiction based in reality, or something completely different, but there is absolutely something there.