Positional Preview: Starting Pitching

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Players:

MLB: Cliff Lee – 35, Cole Hamels – 30, A.J. Burnett  – 37, Roberto Hernandez – 33, Kyle Kendrick – 29, Jeff Manship – 29
AAA: Jonathan Pettibone – 23, David Buchanan – 24, Barry Enright – 28, Greg Smith  – 30, Sean O’Sullivan – 26, Adam Morgan (20) – 24
AA: Jesse Biddle (2) – 22, Severino Gonzalez (19) – 21, Hoby Milner – 23, Luis Paulino – 24, Perci Garner – 25
A+: Nic Hanson – 21, Ethan Stewart – 23, Miguel Nunez – 21, Jon Prosinski – 23, Colin Kleven – 22
A-: Tyler Viza – 19, Shane Martin – 22, Mark Leiter Jr. – 23, Ranfi Casimiro – 21, Alejandro Arteaga – 19, Yoel Mecias (11) – 20, Shane Watson (21) – 20
SS/Rk: Lewis Alezones – 18, Denton Keys – 19, Mitch Gueller – 20, Drew Anderson – 20, Franklyn Vargas – 19

Positional Overview:  Starting pitching has rapidly gone from the strength of the system to one of its biggest weaknesses.  Trades, injuries, and ineffectiveness have ravaged much of the system.  In the major leagues a rotation headed by Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, and A.J. Burnett has some impact, but it becomes very shallow after that.  In the minor leagues only 6 starting pitchers made my Top 30 prospects, and only two of them, Jesse Biddle and Severino Gonzalez, will start the season healthy.  Overall the system is in desperate need of of pitching on all levels.

Near Impact: There isn’t any in the way of big time impact to the rotation for 2014, but there are players who can provide value.  Jon Pettibone is technically no longer a prospect, but he started to show last year that he can be a back of the rotation piece for a good club.  His stuff doesn’t blow you away, but once healthy he should be an innings eater with respectable numbers.  David Buchanan sprung onto the radar of casual fans this spring.  The right hander is probably best suited long term for a bullpen role, but with a low to mid 90s fastball with sink and a useable slider, Buchanan could be effective for a few starts.  While he may not be up until late in the season, Jesse Biddle still has the most upside of any pitcher close to the majors.  He is going to need to clean up his command and delivery, but he has the raw stuff to miss bats in the major leagues.

Future Relievers:  Saying a player is a reliever long term, does not necessarily mean a pitcher is bad, just that their skill set does not mesh well with the rigors of starting every five days.  At age 23 and still only 6′ 2″ 165lbs it is unlikely Hoby Milner is going to get any bigger, and his stuff with no projection left is fairly pedestrian.  Milner’s fastball was sitting 85-88 in the AA-AAA showcase,  he pairs that with a solid changeup and curveball.  The lack of fastball velocity and physicality mean that Milner is best served returning to his college role of reliever.  It is weird to say that a 25 year old is still learning to pitch, but Perci Garner is still finding out how to use all of his stuff as a starter.  The results have been a high walk rate, low strikeout rate, and low HR rate.  Garner sports a heavy fastball, power breaking ball, and in progress changeup, but time is running out for him to put it all together.  The Phillies likely give Garner one more year to figure it out before they let him just air it out in a bullpen.

The Broken: The Phillies will begin the year with three big name pitching prospects on the DL.  Yoel Mecias should be the first player back as he recovers from Tommy John surgery.  When on the lefty shows you a fastball up to 94 with room for more projection, a slider trending towards average, and a changeup that is just nasty.  If he is back healthy and continues to develop, there is at least mid-rotation upside there.  The Phillies top pick in 2012, Shane Watson, has been sidelined with injuries since last summer, finally subcuming to shoulder surgery this offseason to relieve inflammation.  There is no structural damage and he should be back throwing by the summer.  Watson has had the fastball as high as 96, and his curveball might have been the best of any high school pitcher in the 2012 draft, but the changeup needs work, and he was homer prone in his short taste of full season ball last year, much like Mecias there is #3 starter upside here if it all comes together.  A year ago Adam Morgan was in the conversation for the #1 prospect in the system, but shoulder injuries have knocked him far down prospect lists.  If Morgan loses some of his velocity and command he could be headed to middle relief, if it comes back he is another mid-rotation starter knocking on the door to the major leagues.

An Enigma:  The feel good story of 2013 was 20 year old Panamanian right hander Severino Gonzalez.  There has been much debate about his upside, but even the most optimistic experts peg his upside as a #4 starter.  There are many questions about the frame, and whether it can handle a starter’s workload going forward.  Severino is going to need to answer a lot of those questions in AA where his lack of overpowering stuff will be put to the test.

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About Matt Winkelman

Matt is originally from Mt. Holly, NJ, but after a 4 year side track to Cleveland for college he now resides in Madison, WI. His work has previously appeared on Phuture Phillies and The Good Phight. You can read his work at Phillies Minor Thoughts

13 thoughts on “Positional Preview: Starting Pitching”

  1. Probably gotta list MAG with The Broken, although at this juncture if you’re waiting for him to help out you might be waiting for Godot.

    “At least we only wasted $12 Million and not more.”

    Maybe. I’m certainly not holding my breath. “Found money” at some point, perhaps.

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  2. This is depressing. Hopefully they figure out a way to address this, starting with the #7 pick in the draft. Also, maybe there’s a chance that Cliff Lee brings back one top flight pitching prospect in a trade–not counting on it, but if we a college pitcher at #7 and good AA level prospect back in a trade, then those two guys plus Hamels, Biddle and Pettibone could have the makings of a rotation come 2016 or so.

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  3. So MLB.com has S Gonzalez as a higher pitcher than a 4 and I think they downplay his control a bit aswell

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    1. I completely throw out mlb.com rankings because I find them puzzling at best, and often completely wrong. Here are how they grade Sev vs Martin

      Scouting Grades: Fastball: 60 | Slider: 55 | Curve: 50 | Changeup: 45 | Control: 60 | Overall: 50
      Scouting Grades: Fastball: 60 | Slider: 55 | Curve: 45 | Changeup: 45 | Control: 45 | Overall: 50

      No one in their right mind things that they have the same fastball. Martin is 94-96 and Sev is 89-91.

      As for the control, it is spot on to a bit high. As I have written before when you start breaking down Severino last year statistically, he actually had a 2.75 BB/9 in Clearwater as a starting pitcher. On the same level Pettibone was 1.9/9, and no one is saying his control is precise.

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  4. Holby Miller is a future trainer or what ever it is outside of baseball he wants to do, an 85 mph fastball at 23 is not gonna work in the MLB maybe Japan or if they come up with a Euro league, but lets be honest his future lies elsewhere. He would need some 80 control or and 80 slider /curve to get that pedestrian fastball to play in the league. The only person recently Ive seen do it with some success was Sergio Romo and that slider is devastating. This is Brad Ziegler territory and his funky all the way side arm delivery only fooled people for what half a season

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  5. According to Ruben and Jim Salisbury, Ethan Martin is being stretched out again this spring to start.

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    1. That was before the injury (and with the starting pitcher depth being shallow at the beginning of camp). I have and will continue to classify him as a reliever, because I don’t think he is a starter

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      1. he is not a starter , I thought they established that when after 2 innings his FB velocity dropped a good 3-5mph

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        1. anon…like I referred above…..in March Ruben said he was stretching Martin out to start. And Jim Salisbury told me the same thing.

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          1. At best, Martin deserves a mention among the “walking wounded.” I argued that Martin should be the #4 prospect this offseason, saying he looked like a better prospect than MAG and was more of a sure thing than any of the other possibilities at #4. I guess I was 50 percent right!

            But that said, so long as he doesn’t end up in surgery, I think the Phillies will let Martin keep starting at AAA, don’t you Matt? I mean, it seems like starting pitching depth is one area where they are terribly deficient at the moment.

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            1. I don’t think they will have him start. With the injury risk and the prior issues with command and velocity I think they put him in the bullpen given the issues they are having with the bullpen.

              Is he real starting pitching depth at this point? I don’t know how much difference there is in him starting vs Buchanan starting.

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            2. Sorry, we’re indented too far for me to reply directly, Matt, but I’d be interested to know more about how the wear-and-tear on the shoulder from starting every five days compares to use in the bullpen in a high-leverage role. I mean–seems like as a starter you can keep to a routine, monitor the wear and tear, etc, versus a bullpen role where you might warm up 3 times a night, or have to throw an inning at max effort on short notice, or … whatever. You get the idea. It seems like a lot of stress. But maybe fewer pitches overall, so I don’t know.

              Anyway, I guess it’s all neither here nor there until we hear more about the extent of his injury (which I feel like we haven’t heard a lot about).

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          2. I dont doubt what you say , Im just surprised that the phillies are going down that road again

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