Jake Peavy

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Jake Peavy

San Diego Padres — No. 44
Starting Pitcher
Born: May 31, 1981 (1981-05-31) (age 26) Mobile, Alabama
Bats: Right	Throws: Right
Major League Baseball debut
June 22, 2002 for the San Diego Padres
Selected MLB statistics (through May 10, 2008)
Win-Loss	80-53
Earned Run Average	3.27
Strikeouts	1142
Teams
San Diego Padres (2002-present)

Jacob "Jake" Edward Peavy, (pronounced /ˈpʰiːvi/, born May 31, 1981, in Mobile, Alabama) is a Cy Young Award-winning starting pitcher in Major League Baseball who plays for the San Diego Padres. He bats and throws right-handed. Peavy stands 6'1" tall (1.85 m) and weighs 182 pounds (83 kg).

[edit] Career in baseball

Jake Peavy was developed by the San Diego Padres minor league system after being drafted out of high school, where he attended St. Paul's Episcopal School. Peavy declined an offer to pitch for Auburn University in order to accept the Padres' contract offer. In 2001, Jake was promoted to the Padres' Class Double-A team, the Mobile BayBears of Alabama. He spent parts of both the 2001 and 2002 seasons playing for the BayBears.

During his third year of major league experience in 2004, Peavy emerged as the Padres' ace starting pitcher and one of the best pitchers in baseball. He compiled a 15-6 record, struck out 173 in 166 innings and led the Major Leagues with a 2.27 ERA.

On February 28, 2005 Jake signed a four-year contract extension with San Diego Padres.

During the 2005 season, Peavy was selected for the National League All-Star team and ended the regular season leading the National League in strikeouts with 216 (in 203 innings). He was second in the Majors to Minnesota's Johan Santana who had 238 strikeouts. In addition he finished the season with a 13-7 record, 2.88 ERA, a strikeout-to-walk ratio of over 4:1 and WHIP of 1.044.

After the Padres won the National League West in 2005, Peavy was widely considered their key for upsetting the St. Louis Cardinals, whom they faced in the National League Division Series. However, Peavy gave up eight runs in the first game, and afterwards it was announced that he would miss the rest of the season with a broken rib, which he apparently suffered while celebrating the Padres clinching the NL West Championship ^[1].

Peavy was the captain of Team USA in the 2006 World Baseball Classic. He started the opening game for the U.S., a 2-0 win over Mexico, giving up just one hit and no runs over three innings. He did not factor in the decision in the second round game against Japan, as he gave up three runs in five innings in a game that the U.S. won, 4-3.

In 2006, Peavy got off to a rocky start, in part due to mechanical adjustments brought on by various offseason injuries. Although Peavy would go only 11-14 with a 4.09 ERA, he still managed to finish second in the National League in strikeouts with 215, one shy of both his 2005 league-leading total and of the 2006 NL strikeout leader, Aaron Harang who logged 32 more innings than Peavy. In the playoffs, the Padres again faced the St. Louis Cardinals in the first round As the game one starter, Peavy had a much stronger outing than his 2005 playoff game, but the Padres again lost to the Cardinals.

On July 1, 2007, for the second time in his career, Peavy was named to the 2007 NL All-Star Team (along with Trevor Hoffman and Chris Young). On July 9, he was named as the game's starting pitcher, along with Oakland's Dan Haren for the AL team.

On August 2, 2007 Peavy struck out Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder, Jeff DaVanon, for his 1000th career strikeout.

Peavy won the pitching Triple Crown in 2007, leading the National League with 19 wins, 240 strikeouts, and a 2.54 ERA. Since the divisional play era started in 1969, Peavy is only the 8th player to accomplish this feat [2]. On October 23, Peavy won the Players Choice Award for Outstanding NL Pitcher. ^[2] He added the NL Cy Young -- as a unanimous choice -- on November 15[3], becoming just the 10th National League player in history to win the Cy Young Award in a unanimous vote (Sandy Koufax was unanimously selected three times)[4].

On December 12, 2007, he signed a 4 year extension, worth $52 million with the Padres [5]. At the time the contract was the largest in Padres history. The contract includes a $22 million option for 2013.

On April 5, 2008, Peavy pitched a two-hit complete game over the Los Angeles Dodgers. The following day, still-images from FOX sports video feed from the game showed a dirty, brown substance on the index and middle fingers, along with his thumb. Manager Bud Black defended Peavy saying that "it was a mixture of dirt and rosin". Peavy seemed rather unaffected by the accusations. In the two games immediately following the report, Peavy posted a 1-0 record with a 1.92 ERA [6].

[edit] Scouting report

Peavy's repertoire includes the command of several different two-seam fastballs (88-90 mph) and a four-seam fastball (93-97 mph), a hard slider (83-88 mph), a changeup (80-84 mph), and sports an occasional curveball (74-76 mph).

In his most successful games, Peavy most comfortably uses his two-seam fastballs, throwing an occasional slider. With the idea of the two-seam fastball, Peavy can control and run his fastball to both sides of the plate, cut it in and away from hitters, and make the fastball sink or fade, all in the high 80s-low 90s and can keep the hitters honest by spotting a four-seam fastball at 95 mph.

If a player manages to make it to first base against Peavy, having posted the lowest WHIP of any major leaguer since 2005, he can seemingly induce double-play balls almost effortlessly at times [7]. Peavy's two-seam fastball acts primarily as a sinker and induces many ground balls [8]. Peavy likes to run fastballs in on lefties and make them break back into the zone a-la a power version of Greg Maddux's infamous technique.

The natural movement of Peavy's pitches creates a heavier ball which helps to limit the number of home runs Peavy gives up, having allowed only 13 in over 220 innings in 2007 [9].

[edit] See also

• List of Major League Baseball ERA champions
• List of Major League Baseball strikeout champions
• List of Major League Baseball wins champions
• List of Major League Baseball Cy Young Award winners
• Triple crown

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Career statistics and player information from MLB, or ESPN, or Baseball-Reference, or Fangraphs, or The Baseball Cube
• Jake Peavy videos, pictures, stats, and bio at ArmchairGM.com