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Bill James was good enough to answer a question about KKKarns.  Here's the link to the Hey Bill.  The full Q and A was on Dec. 29th and the 25 most recent questions are always in front of the paywall.

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Karns' 75-pitch "drop your release point" syndrome was important enough that the M's TV crew, driven by their stats department, emphasized it a lot.  As did Servais.  

James himself put an asterisk in front of his answer, well, I'd have to know a lot more.  But the essence of his reaction was "be careful about magic numbers" like 75-pitch threshholds.  This has always made sense to me too.  The industry takes it as a given that pitch #101 is dangerous to the public's health, but ... what a coinkydink that the most dangerous pitch matches up perfectly with a number system based on our ten fingers.  Heh.

For two years Karns *has* seemed to manifest fatigue, or something, at around the 70, 80, 90 pitch mark, but:

• 2 years isn't a long time for a pitcher, not a large data set, especially when they're partial years
• Neither I nor James could think of any comparable situation in which a guy like Karns had an inherent 75-pitch "wall"
• Personally I would call it an 8:1, 10:1, 12:1 shot against the idea Karns has some weird inability to pitch six innings

But, as always in these cases, it won't FEEL like Karns is in the clear until he strings three long outings.  Me personally, if I'm running the Portland Parkrioters I'll take Karns off your hands REAL quick.  And install him as my #3 pitcher no problemo.

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Just for fun, we'll notice that  Nate Karns' 9.2 strikeout rate is 8th in the American League, past two years.  Just ahead of him

• Archer
• Sale
• McCullers
• Carrasco and his best-of-Taijuan 95-MPH four pitch mix
• Salazar
• Corey Kluber (yep, the Indians have the 4-5-6 strikeout wizards
• Michael Pineda

And just behind Karns are

• Verlander
• Carlos Rodon
• Smyly
• David Price
• Cole Hamels

That is my idea of a valuable roto sticky note, when you got 15 stars and a blank slot "who's this guy?" on a leaderboard as important as, um, strikeouts.  By the way notice that Drew Smyly would be the other candidate for a 2017 bustout, based on this list.  Would love to have Smyly.  That's the kinda guy you bet your roto cred on.

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Hey, here's another interesting little stat.  It says that Karns' "perceived speed" is +1.00 MPH faster than his actual speed, which is already 92-95 MPH.  Some guys are shorter than they look; Karns is actually a good bit longer.

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It's a cold winter.  Here's a bit of baseball from the video archives.  KKKarns mowing down his old pals the Rays.

Pitch 1 = hook that starts in the zone, breaks out of it (woo hoo)

Pitch 2 = see above

Pitch 3 = 95 MPH that woulda broke INTO the zone if it had been a curve

Pitch 4 = see pitches 1 and 2

Pitch 5 = see pitches 1, 2, and 4  (also see: velocity leaderboards on overhand curve balls)

Pitch 6 = 94 MPH whipsaw up in the zone (snake-tongue path against the dropping curve)

Pitch 7 = "Here it is, hit it"  (take about a million more of these next year, Nate, spare us the 1-1 pitches two feet outside)

Pitch 8 = Ladder fastball gets on a LH much quicker than expected

Other things being equal, it's always wiser to "see if you can build on what you've invested in," as opposed to giving this guy and that a few starts, to see if they happen to be Michael Pineda.  Dr. D's enthusiasm for Nate Karns is completely undiminished.  But it's also cool that they're making him THINK he's just another guy coming to camp.  :- )

Enjoy,

Jeff