ESPN Hands Out Best Tools In Baseball To Puig And Clayton Kershaw
Baseball America came out with their best tools list last week and it looks like the trio of Jim Bowden, Manny Acta and Keith Law of ESPN are doing the same.
While Clayton Kershaw was voted best pitcher with the second best curveball by Baseball America, Yasiel Puig was also voted the third best outfield arm in the National League.
However, according to ESPN, Kershaw does in fact have the best curveball in the game:
Kershaw’s curve is one of the majors’ toughest pitches for hitters to square up, made more difficult because he commands it so well. — Keith Law
It’s no surprise since Kershaw has two versions of the curveball and he gets a 15.5 swinging strike rate on the pitch, which his third behind A.J. Burnett and Cliff Lee.
About two weeks ago, ESPN’s Buster Olney tweeted that Kershaw has thrown over 800 curveballs since he allowed his last home run, which was to Allen Craig in 2011.
As for Puig, he’s thrown the ability to get the ball in quickly to the infield, but has issues hitting the cut off man. Still, he introduced himself by throwing out Chris Denorfia from right field and Bowden believes he can be one of the games best in the field:
Puig has an absolute cannon that is strong and accurate. Once he learns how to consistently hit the cutoff man, he will be one of baseball’s best. — Jim Bowden
While there have been some mistakes in the field, there’s no denying that Puig has the strongest arm as he’s put it on display several times already.
Behind the left arm of Kershaw and right of Puig, the Dodgers have won 38 of their last 46 games and are just 3.5 games behind the Braves for the best record in baseball.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
In case you missed it, be sure to find out the latest on Matt Kemp’s ankle injury.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg0AP5LACzc