While turning over the top bullpen role to a mostly untested (21 mostly low-leverage appearances last year) 23-year-old near-rookie with a history of massive control problems is perhaps not unpredecented, it is nonetheless unusual. He has ridiculous stuff, a near-100-MPH fastball and a vicious breaking pitch, and he gets ground balls. There’s just one little fly in the ointment. I described Kimbrel’s control before last season as “Dalkowski bad” and while he made some strides and it was perhaps an exaggeration, he still doesn’t always have a good idea of where the ball is going once he lets go of it.

Out of Huntsville (the real one, not the one in Texas), Kimbrel was a third round pick from a junior college in 2008. The Braves assigned him to rookie ball, which was perhaps over-cautious for a 20-year-old, and he terrorized the Appalachian League for a few weeks before getting promoted to Rome. He pretty much had the Sally League in hand too, and earned a promotion to Myrtle Beach for a couple of games at the end of the season. They had him start 2009 in Rome anyway and he did the same stuff, so they promoted him to MB again, and they finally got him for a little while. He finished his time there with a 5.47 ERA, but he was starting to dominate again so he got promoted to Mississippi, where he was again virtually unhittable, then got a brief trial, a couple of games, in Gwinnett.

Kimbrel pitched for the big club in spring training of 2010 and was impressive, but started in Gwinnett anyway, where he was again dominant. He had a couple of callups to the majors, posting a 0.44 ERA in 20 2/3 innings and a 4-0 record. He picked up a loss in the Division Series, forced into late duty due in part to the injury to Billy Wagner.

Kimbrel, in his three-year minor league career, has a 1.85 ERA and 51 saves. 19 of the 40 runs he’s allowed in his minor league career came in Myrtle Beach in 2009; take that away and his ERA would be below one. He’s struck out 241 men in 151 innings, which is, like, a lot. He’s only allowed five homers.

Ah, but the walks. He’s walked 95 men in his career, which is a lot, and makes his strikeout/walk ratio pretty pedestrian. (The pun is unintentional, I assure you.) Last year, against the most experienced men he’d faced, in AAA, he walked 35 in 52 2/3 innings, which is also a lot. In the majors, he walked 16 men in 20 innings, which is a whole heck of a lot. He can get away with it because he is, after all, practically unhittable. But in a closer role, that can bite you, because if you’re walking nearly a man an inning, sometimes you’re going to walk two or three in an inning and they won’t even need a hit to beat you. On the other hand, you don’t want a guy with severe control problems coming in with men on base, and closers are the least likely relievers to come in with runners on.

Craig Kimbrel Statistics