Right-hander Dakota Hudson and catcher Jacob Stallings signed one-year contracts with the Rockies. Thomas Harding of MLB.com initially reported on the signings. Additionally, the Rockies announced two equivalent moves. The Cubs claimed catcher Brian Serven off waivers, and outrighted infielder Alan Trejo to Triple-A.
A first-round selection by the Cardinals in the 2016 draft, Hudson was a quick riser who made his big league debut with the club back in 2018. Early in his career, the groundballer significantly outdid his peripheral stats to perform at a mid-rotation level for the Cardinals. From his big league debut until the end of the shortened 2020 campaign, Hudson impressed with a sterling 3.17 ERA in 241 innings of work despite a concerning 4.74 FIP.
The main cause of that high FIP was a poor 18.1% strikeout rate compared to a high 11.6% walk rate. Among pitchers with at least 200 innings pitched, only Andrew Cashner, Antonio Senzatela, and Clayton Richard had worse K-BB ratios than Hudson during that period. That being said, throughout the same span, Hudson led all pitchers with a stunning 57.3% grounder rate.
Due to Tommy John surgery, Hudson missed almost the whole 2021 season. The next season, he started to perform badly. Hudson’s strikeout percentage dropped to just 13.1% in 139 2/3 innings of work across 27 appearances (26 starts) that year, while his walk rate remained largely same at 10.2%. With a career-worst 4.45 ERA, Hudson had given up just 7.2% of fly balls that left the park for home runs, yet still having a respectable 53% groundball rate. This extreme lack of swing-and-miss ability hurt him.
The warning flags in Hudson’s profile contributed to an even more challenging 2023 season for the right-hander, who laboured to a 4.98 ERA with a 5.06 FIP in 81 1/3 innings of work while spending the most of the season in the minor leagues. Hudson’s figures become much more alarming when considering only the time he spent in the Cardinals rotation after Jordan Montgomery and Jack Flaherty were traded at the trade deadline. In 62 innings across 11 starts, Hudson recorded a 5.45 FIP and 5.23 ERA. Hudson’s strikeout percentage dropped to 12.7%, his groundball rate plummeted to 51.5%, and his fastball velocity plummeted to 91.3 mph, all of which were major declines in his peripheral statistics. Every one of those numbers was the
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