But why does he need to throw it outside the zone at all (or frequently enough to walk more batters than 1-2 per game) if these hitter are so overmatched.
Kopech has great stuff and K's a lot of batters. A lot of people here are high on him. Most would say his reasonable floor is a top setup guy, but he could be #1/#2 starter if he puts it all together. But you're just some guy that's infatuated with his heat and MAKING UP all this fancy stuff to justify how awesome the guy is guaranteed to be and how coveted he is all around baseball.
He's a nice prospect. Your mental gymnastics trying to hype him beyond belief are not medal worthy.
Throwing outside the zone is a good strategy for inducing weak contact. Fooling hitters into swinging when they should take is something that correlates well to reducing runs allowed.
I hope I'm not making up that Kopech has an ISO-against of .040 or a K-BB of 20%. Please check that if you think I am.
Pitchers with SPOT may not all have velocity, though it probably does help. Here's a list of pitchers sorted by ISO-against (from 2015), with their K-BB rates. It's some indication that low ISO-against correlates with pitcher quality. It's also an idea that
others have noticed.
Jake Arrieta 0.086 21.61%
Zack Greinke
0.089 18.98%
Clayton Kershaw
0.090 29.10%
Tyson Ross
0.093 15.55%
Dallas Keuchel
0.097 18.11%
Gerrit Cole
0.097 18.99%
Sonny Gray
0.099 13.24%
Jacob deGrom
0.103 22.24%
Gio Gonzalez
0.105 13.20%
A.J. Burnett
0.106 13.45%
Mike Pelfrey
0.109 5.74%
Francisco Liriano 0.109 17.46%
Chris Archer
0.111 21.43%
Alex Wood
0.117 9.98%
Carlos Martinez 0.117 16.03%
Shelby Miller 0.117 11.39%
David Price 0.120 20.05%
John Lackey 0.120 13.61%
Lance Lynn 0.120 13.19%
Edinson Volquez 0.121 9.77%
Matt Harvey 0.122 20.00%
Garrett Richards 0.123 11.56%
Brett Anderson 0.124 9.34%
Jeff Locke 0.124 9.38%
M. Bumgarner 0.127 22.44%
Collin McHugh 0.127 13.74%
Erasmo Ramirez 0.127 12.91%
Kyle Gibson 0.129 9.74%
J. Zimmermann 0.130 15.05%
Yordano Ventura 0.130 14.14%
Cole Hamels 0.131 17.38%
Yovani Gallardo 0.131 6.68%
J.A. Happ 0.132 14.78%
Jon Lester 0.133 19.32%
Chris Sale 0.135 27.16%
Jose Quintana 0.136 15.43%
Jimmy Nelson 0.136 11.04%
Kyle Hendricks 0.136 16.78%
Michael Wacha 0.137 12.47%
Scott Kazmir 0.137 12.58%
Corey Kluber 0.140 22.57%
Ubaldo Jimenez 0.140 12.64%
A. DeSclafani 0.141 12.23%
Carlos Carrasco 0.141 23.70%
Felix Hernandez 0.141 16.10%
Jonathon Niese 0.144 7.54%
Chris Heston 0.144 10.32%
Johnny Cueto 0.145 15.01%
Max Scherzer 0.150 26.92%
Mike Leake 0.150 9.00%
Andrew Cashner 0.151 12.31%
Wade Miley 0.151 9.99%
Tom Koehler 0.153 7.50%
Bartolo Colon 0.156 13.75%
Julio Teheran 0.159 11.62%
Marco Estrada 0.161 10.48%
Mark Buehrle 0.161 7.01%
Danny Salazar 0.161 18.76%
R.A. Dickey 0.161 7.35%
Trevor Bauer 0.162 12.23%
Chris Tillman 0.163 7.55%
Taijuan Walker 0.163 16.57%
Colby Lewis 0.164 11.61%
Jake Odorizzi 0.165 14.86%
Rick Porcello 0.168 15.06%
Mike Fiers 0.169 15.24%
Jeff Samardzija 0.173 12.53%
CC Sabathia 0.173 11.98%
Jason Hammel 0.183 18.60%
John Danks 0.185 8.86%
Hector Santiago 0.189 11.73%
Alfredo Simon 0.190 5.98%
Aaron Harang 0.192 7.62%
R. De La Rosa 0.192 10.75%
Wei-Yin Chen 0.194 14.14%
Dan Haren 0.199 12.24%
James Shields 0.202 15.70%
Ian Kennedy 0.239 17.11%