It doesn’t take a scout to know why Volquez has struggled for most of his career; it’s the walks and the fact he doesn’t know where the ball is going the majority of time. That said, there is room for optimism as he does have electric stuff and he showed signs of increased control last year as the walk rate decreased a little more than three percentage points. The decreased walk rate is great, but it came at the expense of the strikeout rate as it decreased three percentage points.
He also performs much better in pitcher friendly parks (as most pitchers do). The table below provides a breakdown of his performance in favorable ballparks (i.e. pitcher friendly) versus non-favorable ballparks. Favorable ballparks are defined as: San Francisco, Oakland, San Diego, Houston, Miami, Tampa Bay, Los Angeles (both AL & NL) and last, but not least Pittsburgh.
| Splits | ERA | WHIP | AVG | K% | BB% |
| Favorable | 4.03 | 1.43 | .242 | 21.4% | 11.9% |
| Non-Favorable | 5.27 | 1.56 | .266 | 20.8% | 11.8% |
The guy we saw in 2008 who posted a 3.21 ERA and 24.6 percent strikeout rate is not coming back, but I believe Volquez does have fantasy value as a streaming option when he pitches at home. That said, every time you start him you’re playing with fire, but last year the Pirates turned around another similar pitcher with electric stuff and control issues (Francisco Liriano). Why can’t they do the same for Volquez?
If you are looking for his statistical projections please go here and download my latest projections.
