I figured it would be a reasonable way to spot check if  repeated looks are a problem  for Lowry. If they are I would expect to see a higher ratio of players above his mean line ( career SLG for each side of the plate).

There are 13 such LHB with that many P.A.'s   5 have over 500 SLG. 5 have over 400 SLG as well. So Lowry ( career 390 SLG vs. LHB) is probably still considered tough on LHB or I would expect to see more players with 8 or more P.A's against him.  If he is still a Giant and his SLG vs. LHB goes back up ( after a couple months in '08) or the ratio of over 400 SLG LHB goes up significantly I would be take that as conformation he does not continue to disrupt timing after repeated exposure but after a 544 SLG vs. LHB year in 06 I expected  worse.

And a list of  RHB with 8 or more career P.A's

http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/p-pvb.cgi?n1=lowryno01#choice=&throws=R&minPA2=8&mi nPA=8&orderbydir=DESC&orderbydirb=DESC&n1=lowryno01&as=pitcher&year_game=career& amp;opp_id=&orderby=SLG&orderbyb=SLG

There are 102 such RHB with that many PA.`s.   39 have over 500 SLG. 43 batters over 450 SLG. 52 over 400Slg.  Lowry has a career  409 SLG for RHB so it does not seem  number is being depressed too much by batters just getting their first couple looks at him because about half ( 47 %) are above his career result.  To me that would seem to argue against repeated looks being a ban of Lowry's starter existence.

As usual any rational counter point eagerly  read.

Scroll way down to "Times Facing Opp. in Game".  Lowry was pretty level, around .750-.760 OPS in 2007.  Looking at his other years, he has actually been around that mid-700 level every year, but he would just blow up against the other hitters, like in their second AB, certain years (or do very well), else mid-700 somewhere.  

The conclusion you come to is that Lowry is probably the best trade option.  Um...  If we need to address our deficiencies, and we're probably not getting value back in return for Lowry, how is that our best choice for a trade?  If we don't get value, we're probably not really addressing our needs, are we?

If I were GM, he'd pretty much be off the table.

Lowry had 172 K's when he was 24.  Rueter broke 100 twice, 115 when he was 26 and 102 when he was 27.  His K/9 was 5.4 at 26, and when downhill from there, never touching 5 again.  Lowry was over 7 his first year and a half, then after that oblique injury, has hovered around 5.0.

Clearly, Lowry is better skilled pitcher than Rueter ever was, but appears to be able to wring success using whatever pitching tricks he uses to keep his ERA low.  Of course, you use sabermetric methods to keep your eye out for performances that don't make sense per certain rules, but I think that's also where people who are strictly follow such rules are missing things.  Other researchers (like Tom Tippett) have shown that there are pitchers - particularly crafty lefties - who are able to pitch well in terms of low ERA despite poor peripherals.  

This is an area where the Giants have been going against the grain of accepted baseball wisdom, first with Rueter, now with Lowry, thinking differently and benefiting from good players otherwise overlooked.

When does luck end and skill begin?  Nobody has given me a satisfactory answer to this.  DIPS holds for most pitchers but there are pitchers who don't fit the DIPS mode.  

FIP regularly said that Rueter's ERA should be 5+ and he only had 2 seasons out of all those seasons where he had an ERA over 5.  Was FIP wrong or can you accept that FIP does not work for every pitcher?  Lowry's FIP has also been higher than what he has accomplished.  

I see no use in dumping on their success - much like Rueter's success was pooh-pooh by many Giants fans too - because a pitcher who can keep the opposition under 4 runs a game is valuable today, no matter how he does it.

It seems to me that Lowry is often criticised for being "lucky" and keeping a low ERA but not "unlucky" for having poorer peripherals.

His career BB/9 was 3.15 coming into the year, and was relatively consistent.

Last year his BB/9 was over 5, which is a large jump & is why his peripherals (WHIP, K/BB) got a lot worse.

Unless there's a reason for him having a much higher walk rate in future (which i don't see, unlike the pattern in his K rate decrease) i find it a poor assumption that he'll continue with his poor peripherals.

There are statistical fluctuations to everything (hence the lucky & unlucky comments) but it seems that these are often accepted in positive cases (He's just having a career year, he was lucky, etc) but not as often accepted in the negative cases (He's past it, lost it, etc)

I just don't get what is wrong with a pitcher who has the pitching smarts to keep his ERA under 4, which he has basically done his whole career, except for his September 2006 blemish.  

Why is that not good?  There was only 20 NL starters with ERA under 4 and he was tied for 18th best.  He was one (22nd) of 27 NL starters in 2005 with an ERA under 4.  Keeping runs from scoring is a good thing.

Yes, peripherals suggest otherwise.  But it has been suggesting otherwise for 4 seasons now.  When is it OK to say it is a skill?

OK, this is unscientific but I decided to look up Lowry's stats by bases occupied (or base-states) because Rob Neyer previously had studied Rueter and found that he is able to pitch differently depending on the situation on the bases.  He found that once there was a runner on base, Rueter apparently dinked the corner continuously and would rather walk the batter than give up a hit, or worse, a homer.  

For Lowry, I don't remember exactly how Neyer did his Rueter analysis, but for Lowry I noticed that when runners are on base, Lowry was able to reduce the hitters' OPS, particularly by reducing the BABIP significantly.

I assumed that this would be what other pitchers did, but after checking Brandon Webb, Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux, and Jake Peavy, most had BABIP's basically about the same no matter the base situation, and in fact, the OPS was higher when runners were on base.  Again, not scientific (because I'm not going to spend a lot of time going through a lot of pitchers), but given that BABIP is suppose to be about .300 for all pitchers, I think it is significant that Lowry can reduce his BABIP from .304 when there is nobody on base, to .271 when there are runners, and drop the OPS from .762 to .707, which is about the range of other great pitchers; Brandon Webb, for comparison, in his career, has an OPS of .657 and BABIP of .296 when bases empty and OPS of .673 and BABIP of .282 when runners on, Randy Johnson, in his career, has an OPS of .628 and BABIP of .286 when bases empty and OPS of .664 and BABIP of .305 when runners on, Greg Maddux, in his career, has an OPS of .618 and BABIP of .281 when bases empty and OPS of .682 and BABIP of .295 when runners on, and Jake Peavy, in his career, has an OPS of .673 and BABIP of .285 when bases empty and OPS of .679 and BABIP of .292 when runners on.

From what I can tell from the stats, he apparently don't go for the strikeout as much, and works at getting the batter to make contact, as his strikeout rate goes down with runners, usually a bad thing, but he gets contact and a much reduced number of them end up as hits.