A poor kid with a serious mental disorder thrown into the lion’s den of NY. Not a whole lot of venomous media in KC ready to tear you a knew one after a bad start.

That kid probably wouldn’t stand a chance.

but that’s different than saying his fastball is consistently in the mid-90s. It does say a lot about you and your credibility because you were knocking this kid way back in May of last season – before he ever had a chance to get his feet wet.

I know you don’t like the kids, but jeez, give him a chance to develop. Virtually every major scout thinks he’s going to be a big-time pitcher in this game. Jim Palmer, who knows a thing or two about pitching, was raving about him last night on the O’s broadcast.

Here’s what the Hardball Times said about Hughes in July of ‘07:

Hughes’ ace-like projections are based solely off of one pitch: an uber-strong fastball, typically a four-seamer but also with some two-seam stuff mixed in. It tops out at 96 mph and regularly sits in the 91-95 mph zone. Combine that with plus command and you have a top-draw strike out pitch. Let’s define plus command. Simply put, he can place the ball exactly where he wants when he wants while hurling 95 mph gas. This command and power combination will sit at the cornerstone of Hughes’ success or failure for years to come. If he becomes a Hall-of-Fame caliber pitcher it will be because of this, likewise if he sinks to obscurity. He launches the fastball around 60-70% of the time.

Hughes has a plus 12-6/1-7 curveball that supplements his fastball; he throws the curve 20-30% of the time. Incredibly when he was drafted Hughes didn’t have a curveball but Yankees minor league pitching coach, Nardi Contreras, made him swap his slider for a curve largely to reduce pressure on the arm that the slider imparts. You’d have thought it would have taken a while for Hughes to master the pitch wouldn’t you? No. Within a few months, and after a bit of help from Mike Mussina, Hughes had one of the finest curves in the minors. This ability to quickly learn new pitches is also why many suspect he’ll age well. What he’ll lose in velocity he should more than make up for in guile. Oh, and did I mentioned he has Zito-esque control of the pitch. Want it above the zone? Or prefer it in the dirt? Or want him to pain the top-left corner? Nine times out of 10, Hughes will hit the spot.

Obviously he still has his slider although he doesn’t use it all that much, if at all. He’ll probably keep it in his back pocket and throw it on the odd occasion when a hitter may have worked out his combinations.

The only pitch he hasn’t yet mastered is the change-up. The speed/change combo is one of the most devastating in baseball. Santana has got it down to a tee and it sat at the heart of Pedro’s historic seasons in the late 1990s. If Hughes wants to become a top draw pitcher he’ll need to acquire it. He can throw it but struggles to locate it properly and as such tends to launch his curve when in trouble, which can hang and get launched into the seats. That’s one of the reasons why the Yankees were reluctant to push him into their rotation this year: they were keen for him to develop the change into a plus pitch while serving time in AAA.

Let me repeat: This combination of power and command has the potential to underpin a Hall-of-Fame career. Many pitchers have the command; many pitchers have the power. But Hughes has both, and he is just 21 years old. If, and this is a big if for young pitchers, he can stay healthy, he should be established in the rotation by 2008 and the staff ace by 2009.