With seven relief appearances under his belt, Philip Hughes has posted a pretty impressive array of stats in only 12 innings this season.  Of course this constitutes as a small sample and should be greeted with a slightly hesitant applause but his line of 5 hits, 3 walks, and 15 strikeouts has made him one of the more effective relievers this month.

Before his temporary role as a long reliever/7th inning specialist, Hughes posted 7 starts with 34.2 IP, 37 H, 15 BB, 31 K.  Most viewed Hughes young 2009 season as a starter with mixed yet (promising?) results.  The main problem with Hughes as an SP was his propensity to be hit hard and often.  His H/9 during those seven starts was at 9.61 while his BABIP calculated to a league average .290, in addition he allowed 6 home runs and 20 line drives.  Some would blame Hughes' troubles on his inability to establish the inside fastball, looking at Hughes on a per inning basis we can see that he was incredibly effective in the first inning along with a solid K/BB ratio of 2.67.

In the 2nd and 3rd innings pitched, Hughes would see a rapid decrease in K/BB from 1.60 to an ineffective 1.00.  His opponents SLG and OPS would also increase in later innings from a solid .217/.477 in the first inning to a horrendous .774/1.261 in the second; .417/.850 in the third; and .733/1.116 in the fourth.

Looking at his velocity with pitch/FX, one can see an increase in average velocity since assuming duties as a reliever.

Here's another chart (via FanGraphs) that show his average game velocity high and lows:

Since assuming bullpen duty, Hughes has greatly decreased his H/9 to 3.79 while only allowing 1 HR and 5 line drives iduring this brief time span.  His K/9 and K/BB ratio has also soared to 11.25 and 5.00, respectively.

Watching some recent video of Hughes in the reliever role, he still seems resistant to pitch inside (esp. to left-handed batters); this could pose a problem during high pressure innings but with better control of his fastball, curve and cutter along with an increase in velocity - the Yankee pen seems to have a new viable weapon and all the exhaustive speculation of if and when Joba will be reassuming 8th inning duties may finally be put to rest.

It has been my obsession for the past two weeks to finish up on my personal notes and project how the first few rounds of this month's Major League Baseball draft will carry out from June 9th until the 11th of this year.

To my estimation, this will probably be one of 55,000 mock drafts posted here on the international internets but, hopefully, my readers will taste the difference and deem my mocking as the best. Let's finally begin:

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