Kyle Drabek. Time to send him back to the minors?

[darth_federer]

Drabek threw 38 pitches before getting pulled with two outs in the top of the first. Of those 38 pitches, only 15 were strikes. And more troubling is that this isn't an isolated incident. Well the start lasting two-thirds of an inning is an isolated incident, but the lousy control is very much not.

Drabek has now thrown 1,180 pitches on the season. Of those, only 647 have been strikes, for a rate of 55%. His best strike rate in any individual start so far is 62%, and that's still below the league average. And in ten of his 12 starts, he's failed to reach 60%.

Drabek - who's thrown 63-1/3 innings - has a strike rate of 54.8%. Meaning that Drabek is on pace to post the lowest strike rate of any regular starter over at least the past 12 years.

Let's forget the individual starts and go back to the full-season numbers. Baseball-Reference allows us to go back to 2000 and sort pitcher seasons by strike rate. Here are the ten lowest strike rates posted since 2000 by pitchers who threw at least 100 innings:

http://mlb.sbnation.com/2011/6/1/220209 ... jays-stats

People probably expected too much from the pitching staff. Cecil is in the minors. Drabek will probably go there soon if he has another bad start and Morrow has a 5.11 era. Kid has stuff but his control is pretty bad right now.

[Randle McMurphy]

Morrow is fine. His FIP is actually 2nd in the majors and his xFIP is in the top 15. He shouldn't be tied with Cecil/Drabek, nor should his ERA be cited as meaningful. The guy's good...very good.

Drabek certainly isn't right now. He can't throw strikes and he hasn't been all year with his nibbling. They don't exactly have the depth to send him down right now with Litsch's injury, but something has to be done if this keeps up much longer. Not sure a move down to the PCL will help much at all at this point, though.

[spykelee]

He had a bad start, and deserved to get pulled. But no, we shouldn't be sending him to the minors just yet. He's been in and out of trouble all year. With out of trouble being the operative part. So long as he continues battiling and getting out of trouble more often than not. He can stay here. If we get more starts like we saw yesterday, then I think you can start to have that conversation.

[torontoaces04]

Better question, if Farrell had left Drabek in to fight through it, would we have won that game if we had still scored 9 runs?

I think Drabek could have figured it out, and kept them under 7 or 8 for the game.

Just a thought.

[rtcaino]

I would have been more happy with starting him in the minors this season.

His delivery is very inconsistent right now, and I'd be happy with him figuring it out away from major league hitters.
Drabek is a hot head and could probably use a slice of humble pie. He'd be pissed getting sent down, but might allow him a opportunity to get him emotions in check and just execute.

[LLJ]

He's really not quite ready yet, it seems like he's treading water and just keeping his head alive at the best of times. In fact, I don't recall anytime you could say he really put it together for at least 1 game. Romero, Morrow and even Cecil had a few games in their first few months as a starter where you could say "Wow, he really has it going tonight!" I haven't seen that from Drabek yet, even going back to last year's final few weeks.

[rtcaino]

Apparently Farrel said that they were not yet considering sending him down.

I'm fine either way: but starting him in the minors would have been my preference.

[silverhill27]

I'd like to give Mills a fair look. I believe he's out of options next year so it's now or never for him.

[Mike Hunt]

I don't think Drabek needs to go to the minors. I think Arencibia needs to plant himself right in the middle of the plate (or at least closer to it). Some guys need to barely graze the corners to get buy. Drabek can get away with catching a bit more of it. He tends to get himself in trouble with near misses and them miss badly when he has to make a pitch.

[Homer Jay]

Well tonight Buck mentioned that the wind was blowing in pretty hard from home plate to the mound on Wednesday and that amplified Drabek's movement even more than usual. His poor command was working even more against him.

He's got a lot of movement on his pitches, and I don't think he will ever be much of a painter of corners. He needs to work on fooling hitters like his Dad did so well. He can't be Jimmy Key, he's got to try to be Dave Stieb.

[darth_federer]

Its time?

[Leolovinliberal]

Yes, if Cecil went, Drabek must go. I wanna see what RZep can do back in the rotation.

[BigLeagueChew]

Drabek needs more work in the minors. I'm not comparing his abilities to Halladay or anything but remember what happened to Halladay when he was sent to the minors to work with Mel Queen.

Does he even throw a 4 seam fastball? Every fast ball he throws tails off the plate, missing the zone.He needs more work.

[BigLeagueChew]

Drabek needs more work in the minors. I'm not comparing his abilities to Halladay or anything but remember what happened to Halladay when he was sent to the minors to work with Mel Queen.

Does he even throw a 4 seam fastball? Every fast ball he throws tails off the plate, missing the zone.He needs more work.

[RocLaFamilia]

Drabek needs more work in the minors. I'm not comparing his abilities to Halladay or anything but remember what happened to Halladay when he was sent to the minors to work with Mel Queen.

Does he even throw a 4 seam fastball? Every fast ball he throws tails off the plate, missing the zone.He needs more work.

Went to the game today and said the exact same thing to my buddy. Hallady was TERRIBLE coming up

During the 2000 season, Halladay sported a 10.64 earned run average (ERA) in 19 games, 13 of which he started, making his 2000 season the worst in history for any pitcher with at least 50 innings pitched.[11] At the beginning of the 2001 season, Halladay was optioned to Class A Dunedin Blue Jays to rebuild his delivery.

[kavan]

If he cant turn it around we have to change it up. We have to give some of the other guys a shot and send him back down if we are doing that to our hitters we can do that to our pitches as well.

[flatjacket1]

I was a fan of him not being in the Majors this year. It was too early. AA to MLB is hard for anybody, especially in the AL East.

Now everybody will say he needs time in AAA and turn around and try and rush Lawrie type prospects to the Majors (Lawrie is in his first year of AAA)

[luenell]

They already said their not sending him down.

[dagger]

They already said their not sending him down.

They just did.

Stewart being promoted

http://sports.nationalpost.com/2011/06/ ... p-stewart/

[kavan]

I just noticed we are quick to DEMOTE not PROMOTE as a club. This may bite us.