Don’t look now, but Phil Hughes isn’t half bad

Not as bad as you think.

If it seems like Phil Hughes has been on the cusp of breaking out for years now, that’s because he has. Hughes has been a hot Yankee commodity since 2006. Over that time we’ve seen flashes of brilliance from Hughes, overshadowed by bad-to-mediocre pitching. 2010 is often cited as the one season Phil managed to put it all together, but that isn’t really true. That season Hughes pitched 176.1 innings of 4.19/4.25/4.13 baseball, which is a decent line for a back end starter, but the total performance hid the fact that Hughes never posted a FIP below 4.30 in the second half, and had FIPs near 6.00 in July and September. That uneven performance is far from dominance.

Hughes followed up his uneven 2010 with an abominable 2011. Most Yankee fans and baseball analysts had pretty much written him off at that point. Surprisingly, Hughes may have gotten it together this season. Don’t get me wrong. Hughes has managed a 4.13/4.75/4.45 split over 167.2 innings this season, which is hardly Cy Young caliber, but it will get the job done and is a tremendous improvement over 2011.

More importantly, Hughes has been consistent. Granted, he’s been consistently mediocre, posting a FIP between 4.49 and 4.93 every month save April this season, but that’s a stronger contribution than his erratic 2010 performance. Hughes can be counted on to give the Yankees between five and six innings in 2012, while allowing between two and three runs. A manager can plan around that. It’s more difficult to manage Hughes’ games if he’s A.J. Burnett redux, as he has been in the past.

This restored effectiveness and newly discovered consistency make Hughes the Yankees’ third best pitcher down the stretch. While that may not speak wonders for the Yankee rotation, it does say a lot about Hughes. What’s changed this year?

For starters, Hughes is striking out more batters while allowing fewer walks. That’s always a recipe for success. Hughes K% is now 19.8%, right on par with the 20.0% he posted in 2010. His BB%, however, is down to 5.5%, which is the best in his career and far better than 2010′s 8.0%. Hughes has most certainly given up too many homers (1.77 per nine innings, by far the worst of his career) but he is limiting the damage, in part because he’s allowing fewer free passes.

While Hughes is often criticized for lacking an out-pitch, that may actually not be true this season. According to PitchFX Hughes’ slider and changeup have both been above average pitches this year, with his slider as his best offering (worth 7.54 runs per 100 thrown, versus 0.54 for his change). His fastball, on the other hand, has been slightly below average (-0.14 per 100). In all his previous seasons Hughes has done his damage with his fastball. That he is finally mixing in secondary pitches effectively represents a major improvement in Hughes’ development, especially if he can improve his fastball next season.

Phil Hughes may never live up to the hype that once surrounded him, but thus far in 2012 he’s been better than anyone wants to admit. While a league average fourth starter is never something to celebrate, it should mean a lot for Hughes and the Yankees. This is a pitcher who was all but left for dead last season who has now come back to help his team consistently. Furthermore, in two of the past three seasons Hughes has managed to be an average starter. If he can do more of the same in 2013 then we’ll have a legitimate trend on our hands.