Al Doyle at Baseball Analysts writes What Good is an 83-MPH Fastball, a piece on Byrd and how pitchers like him maybe deserve more opportunities. Doyle went to the May 25 game at Comerica and spends a few lines detailing the particulars of Byrd's performance and poses the following:

So how do Byrd and his fellow finesse types survive in a time when radar guns and numbers like 98 have a slavish, cult-like following? The desperate need for even semi-competent pitching and depth in the rotation means teams have to tame their one-track quest for power arms and settle for other options.