“What’s that you say? Bring me in with 2 on and nobody out? Absolutely, please allow me to throw 10 straight balls – a catcher visit and a pitching coach visit – before yielding a 2 run single, then finally getting my act together and getting out of it with 0 of my own ER.” 46% of his inherited runners scored in ’09. 46%!

What I find most interesting about Heilman is that his slider hibernated from ’05 – ’07, which coincides with his 3 best seasons as a pro. In ’08, it reappeared, and his FIP was the big loser.

The slider seemed to come at the expense of his changeup. While his slider has proven to be a valuable pitch, the lack of a changeup seems to have turned his fastball into a steamy pile of dung (-7.7 and -2.2 runs in ’08 and ’09). That (to my untrained eye) has made him a pretty mediocre pitcher.