2019 Minor Leagues/Prospect Discussion Thread

[Lateral Quicks]

Can't blame Ramirez for electing free agency. There's a lot of guys ahead of him in this organization.

I do have a soft spot for guys that hit for average, but he's never done anything else well enough - like walk, hit for power, or steal bases - to get terribly excited about.

[Lateral Quicks]

thoughts?

Heck of a first post. Welcome aboard.

There's definitely a lot to like about Young's performance - 10% BB%, decent SB%, nice power for a CF. His low prospect value is likely a combination of his low draft position (Round 39) and his age. He'll be a 22-year-old in Dunedin next summer - not old for the level, but not young either for a hot shot prospect. Maybe he moves fast and ends the year in New Hampshire.

[Cyrus]

Can't blame Ramirez for electing free agency. There's a lot of guys ahead of him in this organization.

I do have a soft spot for guys that hit for average, but he's never done anything else well enough - like walk, hit for power, or steal bases - to get terribly excited about.

I think he was ranked in 25th range at the end of the last year on our prospect list.

[phillipmike]

https://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/toronto-blue-jays-top-10-prospects-updated/

[bartron_44]

I don't want Nate Pearson wasting one more 103 mph fastball in the minor leagues. I don't care how many innings he has thrown in the minors. His stuff plays anywhere. He threw it pretty effortlessly (...for 103 mph) in the future stars game. That is actually pretty unbelievable considering he was coming off a broken right arm. After getting an off season to keep rehabbing his arm, there is no telling how hard he may throw next year. I want him with MLB coaches and MLB trainers flying around on MLB planes and eating MLB food. Not down in A ball or NH driving around on buses and eating fast food.

He could be special out of the bullpen for the next year or two while he develops his command and off speed pitches. Guys that throw that hard are normally on a clock until something gives even without the arm history he already has at age 22. If you keep him in the bullpen you minimize not only the number of pitches that he throws, but also how much the team will depend on his arm.


Do you really want him to throw another 400+ innings over the next 3 years where it doesn't matter before coming to the majors at age 25? Or if he gets hurt and needs TJ like age 27? Power pitchers have early "primes". Why not get like 200 innings out of him in the majors for the next 3 years and then graduate him into the rotation?

Starting pitchers aren't being asked to throw 200+ innings anymore. If teams keep going more and more analytical moving from the bullpen into the rotation in 2-3 years likely isn't going to be that big of an innings bump.

Control pitchers need time in the minors, but not guys with velocity like Pearson.

[Schad]

If you stick Pearson in the bullpen, the likelihood of him transitioning to the rotation is basically nil. The bullpen is no place to work on your secondary stuff; a fastball-heavy reliever will throw very few breaking pitches over the course of a season.

Take Jordan Hicks, another flamethrower with questionable control who was rushed to the bigs. He played a full season in the majors, and threw about 280 offspeed pitches in a competitive environment over six months. There's a reason that most relievers see everything but their core pitches atrophy over time.

And like Hicks, he is also is unlikely to be particularly special if all he has is a big fastball, fringy secondary stuff, and questionable control. The risk/reward just doesn't make sense.

[Al_Oliver]

“I had a really good mix going,” Pearson said. “Slider and curveball were both there. I threw one pretty good change up, but I kept throwing it just to show hitters, and obviously my fastball was great.”

And his fastball velocity began to climb the longer he pitched.

“I definitely felt that way,” he said. “As I got into more of a groove, I was just letting it eat, just going after guys. I like to say I’m stronger toward the end of my outings.”

https://theathletic.com/650536/2018/11/13/blue-jays-prospect-nate-pearson-makes-up-for-lost-time-in-arizona-fall-league/

[bartron_44]

If you stick Pearson in the bullpen, the likelihood of him transitioning to the rotation is basically nil. The bullpen is no place to work on your secondary stuff; a fastball-heavy reliever will throw very few breaking pitches over the course of a season.

Take Jordan Hicks, another flamethrower with questionable control who was rushed to the bigs. He played a full season in the majors, and threw about 280 offspeed pitches in a competitive environment over six months. There's a reason that most relievers see everything but their core pitches atrophy over time.

And like Hicks, he is also is unlikely to be particularly special if all he has is a big fastball, fringy secondary stuff, and questionable control. The risk/reward just doesn't make sense.

It worked ok for Chris Sale. He spent a full season in the bullpen before transitioning to the rotation. He was drafted in June of 2010 and was in the big leagues by Aug 6th. He threw a total of 11 innings in the minor leagues.

The Jays used Sanchez as an 8th inning guy in 2015 down the stretch. Then he won the ERA title in 2016. Failing at starting and being promoted because you can help the team now are 2 different things.

It isn't common, but neither are 103 mph fastballs with a mid 90's slider.

[Schad]

It worked ok for Chris Sale. He spent a full season in the bullpen before transitioning to the rotation. He was drafted in June of 2010 and was in the big leagues by Aug 6th. He threw a total of 11 innings in the minor leagues.

The Jays used Sanchez as an 8th inning guy in 2015 down the stretch. Then he won the ERA title in 2016. Failing at starting and being promoted because you can help the team now are 2 different things.

It isn't common, but neither are 103 mph fastballs with a mid 90's slider.

There are pitchers who have transitioned back from the bullpen. You can count on one hand the number that have done so after multiple years, and it's worth noting that the ones who succeeded generally had a lot more seasoning than Pearson, and came to the majors with a fully developed pitch mix. Sale barely touched the minors, absolutely; that's because he was one of the best college pitchers of the previous decade and was generally regarded as being MLB-ready from day one, and the only reason he began in the 'pen was that his delivery was believed to be a possible impediment. Pearson has one year of JuCo and 21.2 IP of professional baseball to his name. Sale was already a fully-refined pitcher; Pearson is just a blob of unworked clay.

I'd also dispute the notion that Pearson would actually be good out of the bullpen at this juncture. His fastball is big, and his slider is still very much a work in progress. A 95 mph slider is very enticing, but only if it consistently moves, and Pearson's sometimes is essentially a 95 mph fastball up in the zone, because he's a long way from mastering the pitch.

Beyond that: if we call him up, we start his service clock. Burn three years of him in the bullpen, at least one (and probably two) will be on non-competitive teams, add in a transitional year, and by the time you build him back into a starter (which is unlikely to actually happen) he's approaching free agency. If we call him up and it doesn't work we start his option clock and burn a 40 man spot, and by age 24 we'll lose the ability to develop him in the minors.

I know that he's the new shiny object, but we've been down this road and it's not a good idea. We called up Miguel Castro in similar circumstances; he threw really hard, had no consistent command of his secondary stuff, got tagged and it really screwed up his career. Osuna is the 'success' from that experiment (he also had the more refined pitch mix of the two), in that he became a good reliever, but there's no expectation of him ever transitioning back to the rotation.

[polo007]

Read on Twitter

[Myth11111]

Osuna never wanted to start after his TJ so I would not include him in the discussion.

[Schad]

Osuna never wanted to start after his TJ so I would not include him in the discussion.

Going to need a citation on that one, given that he was starting after returning from TJ.

[Skin Blues]

Osuna didn't want to start because he was so good in relief. He was risk averse, much more so than any team should be. A team has spread out it's risk over hundreds of players, but Osuna had a sample size of 1 to work with. Therefore he had no interest in taking a chance at being a poor starting pitcher or injuring himself by throwing 3x as many innings every year. This was despite the fact that his average projected salary and value to his team would be higher as a starter, because there is increased risk. He wanted a sure $50M instead of gambling on $200M, the latter of which comes with an increased chance of being a bust. This is why elite relievers almost never want to become starters. Osuna is no exception, he's more of the rule. Pearson may eventually be sent to relief, but he should definitely be given a chance to succeed as a starter first, if only to help polish his secondary pitches. If we were in a position to need a bullpen arm to make a playoff run in 2019, maybe you put him in the bullpen. But we're not at that point. Everybody here is pretty pissed that we missed out on the career of Noah Syndergaard, but this is a potential chance to add a similar arm to the rotation a couple years down the line.

[Tanner]

There was an interview prior to 2016 where Osuna said the team wanted him to start but he wanted to be a reliever. He also mentioned being unsure about how many innings he would be able to throw as a starter. Sounded like someone who liked to pitch out of the pen and didn't want to get injured again.

[Schad]

That was after he'd already excelled as a reliever, though. As Skin Blues says, at that point there's a clearer financial path given the extent to which closers benefit in arbitration. He'd been starting in the minors after TJ, so the Jays decision doesn't appear to have been driven by that...had he not jumped straight into the closer role, the calculus for both parties would have been quite a bit different.

Pearson has no such certainty; being a reliever, even an eighth-inning guy, isn't terribly lucrative, and there's zero guarantee that he'd be good enough in that role to get paid.

[dagger]

That was after he'd already excelled as a reliever, though. As Skin Blues says, at that point there's a clearer financial path given the extent to which closers benefit in arbitration. He'd been starting in the minors after TJ, so the Jays decision doesn't appear to have been driven by that...had he not jumped straight into the closer role, the calculus for both parties would have been quite a bit different.

Pearson has no such certainty; being a reliever, even an eighth-inning guy, isn't terribly lucrative, and there's zero guarantee that he'd be good enough in that role to get paid.

If the Pearson comp is between Dellin Betances and Randy Johnson, I'll always go for the latter first.

[Schad]

If the Pearson comp is between Dellin Betances and Randy Johnson, I'll always go for the latter first.

And Betances is a good example of why no one's rushing to be in the bullpen. He's been one of the elite relievers in the league (mostly) from 2014-2018, and after this season he'll hit free agency having earned about $18m while posting 11.6 fWAR. Jake Odorizzi, a member of the same FA class who has posted 9.8 fWAR over that span (and a far worse rate per inning), will earn a shade more than Betances through the end of arbitration.

You're better off being a mostly-average starter than an elite reliever, unless you're racking up saves.

[bluerap23]

If the Pearson comp is between Dellin Betances and Randy Johnson, I'll always go for the latter first.

And Betances is a good example of why no one's rushing to be in the bullpen. He's been one of the elite relievers in the league (mostly) from 2014-2018, and after this season he'll hit free agency having earned about $18m while posting 11.6 fWAR. Jake Odorizzi, a member of the same FA class who has posted 9.8 fWAR over that span (and a far worse rate per inning), will earn a shade more than Betances through the end of arbitration.

You're better off being a mostly-average starter than an elite reliever, unless you're racking up saves.

I suspect this will start to change in a couple of years.

[Schad]

I suspect this will start to change in a couple of years.

It'll have to, or salaries for players will get seriously depressed as teams lean on their bullpens.

The flip side is that, if middle reliever arb salaries get too high, it'll end up creating even more incentive for teams to fill their bullpens with guys in their first couple seasons. Baseball's economics as a whole need an overhaul.

[Ado05]

What are the odds Pearson needs TJ before he gets to the majors?