Phil Hughes and Kyle Gibson were the Twins best starters last year, but they are almost opposite pitchers, with Hughes being a fly ball pitcher and Gibson being a ground ball pitcher, and Hughes walking less and striking out more.

First we will look at Phil Hughes, who as a fly ball pitcher allowed just .69 home runs per nine and 23.2% line drives, 36.5% ground balls, 40.2% fly balls (10.5% in the infield,) and threw 822 balls to 2224 strikes while Kyle Gibson allowed .60 home runs per nine and 19% line drives, 54.4% ground balls, 26.6% fly balls (13.6% in the infield) and threw 1086 balls and 1714 strikes.

From the spray charts below you can see Kyle Gibson’s ground balls went more towards second and short while Hughes’ were more evenly distributed throughout the whole infield, and that Gibson’s fly balls had less hang time, giving the outfielders less time to catch them.

https://scontent-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtp1/v/l/t1.0-9/1975054_1401994720122729_2895196675858088149_n.jpg?oh=125a3fc7789f5aec023102b003740029&oe=559F495E

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xap1/v/t1.0-9/1012919_1401994796789388_8093152344695583303_n.jpg?oh=e6889b78b0cc9736b0510c8150e3078a&oe=55DAAD73&__gda__=1441022895_934f4c0cad18032702345a9aa12d410d

Another interesting stat is that Phil Hughes had a Fielding Independent Pitching of 3.01 while at home and a 2.28 FIP on the road, but Gibson had a 3.33 FIP at home and a 4.16 FIP on the road, showing that Hughes pitched better on the road but was still better than Gibson at home, despite being squared up more.

Since neither is a big strikeout pitcher I will look at the Twins defense, which would be a very important factor. The Twins infield defense was average (16th at first, 27th at second, 7th at shortstop, and 10th at third which would rank them at 14.75), and be right in the middle of the pack, but the outfield was horrible (26th in left, 18th in center, and dead last in right which would average them at 24.67). Since Gibson is a ground ball pitcher he would have benefited from his defense better than Hughes who is a fly ball pitcher.

So why was Hughes better than Gibson when he got less run support (96) than Gibson (106) and was squared up more? It seems the only possible reasons are because he stayed in the zone more, (which would allow him to be squared up more) or because he was a fly ball pitcher. The only other pitcher with a top twenty Wins Above Replacement who was a fly ball pitcher was Max Scherzer, who actually had a worse outfield than Phil Hughes, and the only pitchers whose defense came anywhere near the negative effect of Phil Hughes’ on their pitching were Nathan Eovaldi (ground ball), Justin Verlander (fly ball), Drew Hutchison (fly ball), Ervin Santana (ground ball), and Kyle Gibson.

It seems that Phil Hughes was successful last year because of his ability to generate fly balls that had a fair amount of hang time, which actually gave the Twins outfielders time to get under and catch the ball, and his ability to throw strikes despite having the worst catcher in baseball at framing pitches. Phil Hughes was a pitcher who had a spectacular year despite all the odds against him, not mentioning the fact that he had been horrible the year before.