Reds Pitching -- Let's promote the prospects

[pedro]

He figures out that he can't throw his fastball 67% of the time and starts throwing more curves and change ups in order to set up his fastball, and in turn develops the change and curve.

That's ludicrous. If he's walking 4 batters per 9 innings IN THE MINORS while throwing, as you said yourself, mostly fastballs, what on earth do you think is going to happen when he tries to throw less fastballs without an arsenal of secondary pitches that he can locate?

[dougdirt]

That's ludicrous. If he's walking 4 batters per 9 innings IN THE MINORS while throwing, as you said yourself, mostly fastballs, what on earth do you think is going to happen when he tries to throw less fastballs without an arsenal of secondary pitches that he can locate?

He throws his curveball for more strikes than his fastball. His changeup is what kills his location though, as he throw it for strikes merely 50% of the time in the majors last year.

He isn't walking 4/9ip in the minors when healthy.... at least not since he was 19.

[pedro]

He throws his curveball for more strikes than his fastball. His changeup is what kills his location though, as he throw it for strikes merely 50% of the time in the majors last year.

He isn't walking 4/9ip in the minors when healthy.... at least not since he was 19.

He walked 3.71 / 9 in AA in 2006 when he was 20. You can split hairs all you want but that sucks.

[M2]

I disagree with you. Bailey can get away going FB, FB, FB, FB, FB, FB, CB, FB, FB, FB, CB, CB, FB, FB, FB, FB in a minor league inning. He isn't going to get away with that in the majors. He isn't going to learn that he can't get away with that in the majors, when he is in the minors and its his pitch selection that I personally believe is his biggest hurdle in his development right now, followed by the development of his change up, followed by his control.

Except he won't get away with it because he'll be under strict orders that he's got to show his secondary stuff can get hitters out before he gets a major league promotion.

Plus, you don't go to the majors to learn pitch selection, learn a change and refine your control. You go after you've improved your pitch selection, solidified your secondary pitches and refined your control. You've got the cart a mile in front of the horse.

WOY, interesting list. Scary to see how little teams have gotten from the kiddie corps over the past 12 seasons (only 14 guys with 20+ RSAA). And that list doesn't even get into the really terrifying underbelly of the situation, the kids who couldn't even make the 10 start/100 IP threshold.

There's also a cautionary tale at the top of that list. If you take the most precocious kids from the past 12 years, 11 of the top 21 have suffered major injuries, major ineffectiveness or just flamed out.

Prior - injury
Liriano - injury
Perez - ineffective
Duke - ineffective
Ankiel - flameout
Rosado - injury
Johnson - injury
Sanchez - injury
Piniero - ineffective
Halladay - ineffective
Kerry Wood - injury

Perez and Halladay bounced back from ineffective bouts and Wood bounced back from injury, building real careers for themselves once they hit their mid-20s.

[pedro]

He throws his curveball for more strikes than his fastball. His changeup is what kills his location though, as he throw it for strikes merely 50% of the time in the majors last year.

He isn't walking 4/9ip in the minors when healthy.... at least not since he was 19.

I'd also just like to add that any pitcher who supposedly has a harder time throwing a fastball for a strike than a curve has no business pitching in the major leagues.

[mth123]

Kids at 21 and 22 are still developping physically which leads to an increased risk of injury. By the time they are 24 the risk dops substantially. I'd say if its my team I'd start my 24 year old in the rotation and let him establish himself and surround him with vets who can go that extra ining when the bullpen needs it. But for my 24 year old, I want him to be a guy I take out an inning too soon. Now if I throw a couple 22 years olds into the mix, I have 2 or 3 guys that need to be babied. One of those guys has never even pitched 145 innings in any minor league season. Throwing all these guys to the wolves is a bad plan. I'd rather have a journeyman vet that I can leave in there to get pounded if it allows me to protect my 24 year old. Next year, the 24 year old will be 25 and even more likely to be fully mature, with a full season in the rotation under his belt to boot. He can start to be the guy who gets pushed a little farther when one of the other kids, who also benefit from another year in age and in Bailey's case a full season of building his inning load, break-in.

2009 is the harvest year IMO with 2010 and 2011 the years for the feast. Throwing all these guys to the wolves now likely only leads to another feast for Dr. Kremchek's medical practice.

[Highlifeman21]

He figures out that he can't throw his fastball 67% of the time and starts throwing more curves and change ups in order to set up his fastball, and in turn develops the change and curve.

You have to throw your curve and your change ups in or around the strikezone to set up your fastball.

Once Bailey figures that out, and then figures out how to execute that strategy, he might be ready for the MLB level.

Until then, we'll continue to see almost 7 out of every 10 pitches he throws is a fastball.

[Highlifeman21]

He throws his curveball for more strikes than his fastball. His changeup is what kills his location though, as he throw it for strikes merely 50% of the time in the majors last year.

He isn't walking 4/9ip in the minors when healthy.... at least not since he was 19.

Oh boy, here we go again with this again.

Time to break out and cherry pick the WH (when healthy) stats for Homer Bailey to prove a point.


Bottomline, if we want to set this organization back exponentially, then bring up all the kids for Opening Day 2008.

If we're lucky, some of them might actually see the ASB, much less the end of the season.

[RedsManRick]

Halladay - ineffective

Is there some other Halladay besides the one that won the 2003 Cy Young and finished 3rd and 5th in Cy Young voting the last two years?

[wheels]

I'd also just like to add that any pitcher who supposedly has a harder time throwing a fastball for a strike than a curve has no business pitching in the major leagues.

Bingo.

I'll add that expecting a guy to suddenly learn to pitch backwards at the age of 21 in the Major Leagues is pure folly.

[M2]

Is there some other Halladay besides the one that won the 2003 Cy Young and finished 3rd and 5th in Cy Young voting the last two years?

Take a look at what happened to him in 2000 - 10.64 ERA (no, that's not a misprint). Like I said, he bounced back afterward. He rope-a-doped his way through most of a season at age 22 (1.574 WHIP). Fell apart completely at age 23 and then returned as the pitcher we all now know for the latter half of the season at age 22.

He was making $2.6M by the time he pitched his first full and effective season at age 25.

Point being, Halladay wasn't actually a good pitcher until he turned 24. The upside is he still turned out just dandy instead of going the Jerome Williams route, but the Jays wasted years and millions with the early callups. I'd think that would be a valuable lesson to any club estimating when it can best leverage its young pitching talent.

[dougdirt]

Bingo.

I'll add that expecting a guy to suddenly learn to pitch backwards at the age of 21 in the Major Leagues is pure folly.

Learning to pitch backwards? No, you are right. Learning to mix in a few more offspeed pitches though surely isn't pure folly.

[Patrick Bateman]

BTW, for the Volquez fans, Roy Halladay had a similar road to the majors. Like Volquez, Halladay had to go back down to the start of the pipeline to do a complete overhaul on their pitching styles after failing in their early major league careers. Like Halladay, Volquez has taken a bunch of steps forwards to get back towards the major league level.

An interesting similarity. It does seem wierd to look back at Halladay's problems considering that as of now Halladay is known as one of the smarter pitchers in the big leagues. Usually those types of guys don't have such a back and fourth type of road to the majors.

[Kc61]

My ideal rotation would have Belisle and Affeldt in the 4th and 5th spot respectively

Then your ideal record is about 78 wins and 84 losses.

[Kc61]

it depends on how they do this spring, but I'd go Volquez and maybe Maloney or Cueto in bullpen, until they dominate and you can put them in the rotation. I'd cherry-pick who they face early, so that they'd succeed. I'd go Bailey at AAA for a few starts. If any major leaguer struggles, he goes down. If Bailey sizzles, he comes up and gets some bullpen time until he dominates.

Maybe, but if Homer has a good spring I'm confident he will open with the Reds. They brought him back late last year for a start or two once healthy. Whatever people think is right, I think the Reds view last season as Bailey's intro to the majors and plan on building on it at the major league level.

And since the Reds have plenty of room for him in the rotation, I'm ok with it as long as they limit his pitches. Dusty, you listening?