Pitching Thread 2017.

We need a little luck this year too. Every minor leaguer called up to the pen sucked. These 3 guys are all spring invites. All 3 are from an entirely different talent pool than dead weight we called up last season. Give em a look.

www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.cgi?id=chacin001ale

Chacin is at AA and took a big step forward in performance. Always had K ability.


www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.cgi?id=guillo001ism

He had a year off after surgery and looks to me like he needed it and most of his wildness was in between the ears. Dominated A+.

www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.cgi?id=herget000jim

This guy is drafted as and is being groomed solely as a reliever.

2 last things about these guys. Bullpen arms more than anything are on the fast track. There is no innings building or developing other tools as with starters and position players. With all double digit K9's any or all of these guys could contribute at the MLB level in 2017.

2017 Rotation

Even with Straily there are a lot of question marks. Without it gets muddier.

Right now the top 3 are

Desclafani

Bailey

Finnegan

From there it gets dicey to say the least and you might say with Bailey's health questions even dicier. We only have 4 potential starters from the minor league crop IMO-Reed-Stephenson-Garrett-Adelman. Of those 4 I would not count on Stephenson at all. Despite his top pick status he has been mediocre everywhere posting a 4.41 ERA at AAA with a 1.36 WHIP and 7.92 K9. His struggles up here were almost a given. The same cannot be said for Reed and Adelman. While Reed did get torched up here he did struggle with some minor physical issues. Adelman was at least serviceable in his big league time posting a 4.00 ERA, a 1.21 WHIP, and 6.07 K9. So don't laugh at that prospect of him starting to begin the year. I think he deserves it. What both he and Reed did at AAA is noteworthy. Their talent level speaks through their numbers;

Reed-3.08 ERA--1.25 WHIP--20 BB-65 K--8.01 K9

Adelman-2.38 ERA--1.09 WHIP--10 BB-38 K--6.03 K9


Adelman also had a 2.64 ERA at AA in 2015. As Brad pointed out in another thread, protecting Garrett for a few weeks to get him to super 2 status is a good idea and that makes Adelman very useful. If he struggles we have Garrett and could use Adelman as a swing man or if Adelman doesn't there is no need to do anything. Garrett had a solid 1.75 ERA at AA with a 1.03 WHIP and 9.11 K9 but struggled at AAA with a 3.46 ERA and 1.17 WHIP, 7.18 K9.

With so many contrasts between major and minor league performances and health issues for Bailey and to a lesser extent Reed and Desclafani, and also stretchout issues I think it's imperative to get some veteran help if only to protect young arms from either innings, injury, or the psychological damage if they get destroyed. All real possibilities. Have barely looked at free agent starters but it's usually a mediocre pool at this point in the offseason. I would hope another brilliant trade is in the works.

Where you at with the rotation?

Brad as always your work fills in the big picture. Was wholly unaware of Weiss! That gives us a quartet of minor league power arms that could give the big league club a boost this season. Eventually we are going to get lucky where a mix of young talent that's here(Iglesias and Lorenzen) and coming up and the FA's acquired all coalesce together and give us a solid shut down pen. Looking at the landscape of bullpen importance assuming a large role in the majors I think it will be imperative to produce power arms specifically pen oriented coming up through the system at all times.

Anyway you got any ideas of starters outside the organization to target?

So we start the year with these 4-Desclafani, Bailey, Finnegan, and Feldman. With Reed, Garrett, Stephenson, and Adelman as depth.

I like having 4 penciled in. And don't laugh at it. I doubt we will ever see the historical 2012-13 rotation ever again. Remember in 2010 we only had 3 starters with an ERA under 4.00(Arroyo, Cueto, and Wood) and none of them were under 3.50. 2012 there were 4 but only Cueto had an ERA under 3.48 but that was his ace year of a 2.78 ERA. In 13 we actually had 6 starters under 4.00. We just need competent out of the rotation to be decent. But I will be holding my breath the first few weeks of April! LOL!

Hey Red good to see ya. You can see that Feldman is a serviceable, not great, not disastrous pitcher, and last year til the Toronto debacle had a 2.90 ERA. Expect that to get a boost from the AL to NL move. I think he has plenty in the tank for our needs. If the kids beat him out and he is bumped to the pen that is fantastic news for us!

Williams has moved slowly but smartly. Winning and winning fans over will take time especially with the latter. With you admitting being excited about the upcoming season says a lot! I am too. I am counting wins this year!

Have a big slate this weekend between the Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Saturday then grandpa duties on Sunday. But drop me a PM about the details for Sunday and perhaps we can hook up. If not we will for sure at games this season brother!

If they bring back Arroyo. I'm not sure if I will watch many games. That's stupid.

I personally think there is a good chance that we see Lorenzen in the rotation. I have mixed feelings about this too. I love the idea of no completely set closer, and using a few of the guys for two innings or more in the bullpen. Price did this last year, and we saw it in the post season. And yes Rod, I'd certainly like to see this team take a look at Wood and Holland, but only if they are steals and with the mindset of moving them at the deadline.