Graham Ashcraft

[Ron Madden]

The Cincinnati Reds started the season with highly-touted prospects Hunter Greene and Nick Lodolo in their Opening Day rotation, and now they’re adding another highly-touted rookie.

Graham Ashcraft was called up to start Friday’s game against the San Francisco Giants and he’s expected to remain in the rotation moving forward. David Bell said "We feel like he’s ready for the challenge.”

story here:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/cincinnat...204321408.html

[SomeCallMeTim]

“Ready for the challenge”.

Translation: We gotta have someone ready once we trade Castilllo and Mahle for castoffs.

[RED VAN HOT]

I thought he looked good in his only start. FB touched 100 and remained in the high 90's throughout his outing. Good speed differential with breaking ball. Worked around the zone with good movement. I expect that command will improve with experience against ML batters. If he stays healthy, he looks like a solid mid-rotation starter to me.

[JFLegal]

might have something here

[mth123]

might have something here

Tonight was very encouraging. Pitched into the 7th inning, didn't try to strike everyone out and the result was solid control and command. I just moved him up a couple of notches with tonight's game. Obviously. it will be a long time before we know much, but so far so good.

[Ron Madden]

Charlie Goldsmith
@CharlieG__

Graham Ashcraft was impressive in his MLB debut. He has been even better tonight.

[Ron Madden]

Graham Ashcraft may not have received the same hype as fellow rookie starting pitchers Hunter Greene and Nick Lodolo, but that doesn’t diminish his talent.

Ashcraft broke into a smile and a laugh when manager David Bell walked to the mound to remove him in the seventh inning.

It was the only time all night he wasn’t in complete control.

Ashcraft twirled a gem for 6 1/3 innings to lead the Cincinnati Reds to a 5-1 victory against the San Francisco Giants. He permitted four hits, two walks and zero runs, allowing only two baserunners to reach scoring position.

He didn’t look like a guy who was making his home debut in his second career start. He wasn’t bothered by a two-hour, eight-minute rain delay. He didn’t pitch around any hitters in the Giants’ lineup. With his family in the crowd at Great American Ball Park, he just looked ready to attack.

Consider Ashcraft’s eight-pitch first inning. He didn’t throw a pitch below 99 mph. He threw two cutters above 101 mph.
he was constantly in control all night. He threw a first-pitch strike to each of his first 12 batters. After the third inning, he had thrown 36 pitches and 27 strikes.

He kept his pitch count low to receive the opportunity to pitch into the seventh inning, something he hadn’t done since July 24, 2021 at Double-A Chattanooga. He had only two innings when he threw more than 13 pitches, content with inducing weak contact.

story here:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/mlb...BingNewsSearch

[redsfan9988]

Fun fact: the Reds are 12-8 in their last 20 games. If they maintain that pace through the end of the year, they’ll win 85 games. Ashcraft has looked good. Greene is beating the bad teams. Lodolo might come back at some point. Things are happening. I’m here for it.

[GAC]

“Ready for the challenge”.

Translation: We gotta have someone ready once we trade Castilllo and Mahle for castoffs.

If they can get something for Mahle they better jump on it IMO!

The Reds, IMO, seem to be in the samed position with Castillo as they were with Cueto. What have you done for me lately Louis (since that solid '19 season)?

Looking at the young arms they have? I have no issues with using them for trade deadline bait if they can get a sound return (Castillo). The issue has always been about the return - what are you getting? Does it address a need?

Or are you just clearing payroll? Castillo, IMO, should fetch you something. And the return should be greater if he has a solid '22.

Castillo turns 30 in the off-season.

[Bourgeois Zee]

A few observations about Ashcraft as a whole and last night's game in particular"

1. Noticed that he got tired a bit, his stuff got less sharp, and he ended up giving up fly balls and a few line drives. Many of those were caught, obviously, and very few of them were actually stung. If that's the case moving forward, it goes to show just how valuable a ground ball pitcher could be. It felt like Ashcraft was pitching similarly to Mahle after he got tired. If that's him tired, that means he has extra upside when he's strong. Which is, y'know, awesome.

2. Were that to continue, it'd be an easy indicator that he just wasn't quite ready and needed to come out. I suspect he'd make his manager pretty happy, though again, it's not like the Giants were killing him late.

3. The stuff he has is just ridiculous. Triple digits early, then sitting 96 - 98 with a cutter and a sinker? Yikes. Love that ESPN's pitch recognition software sees two distinct pitches there-- the sinker that drops and the cutter that has horizontal movement in and out. Love that he can throw it to lefties and righties too. The slider wasn't even on last night-- it was largely ignored-- and that's supposed to be a plus pitch. LOVE his stuff.

4. Ashcraft's stuff moves. A lot. That's going to result in some games where he can't buy a strike. It'll also mean some games where he can't escape the 4th inning. To have someone like him on the staff, you're going to need workhorses around him. Guys who can log innings. That's probably not guys who are just starting out. (Aside from perhaps Greene, who looks like he was factory-made to go 200 innings.) Castillo, Mahle, and Greene are great guys to have with Ashcraft, as they can go deep. It helps to have 14 pitchers on the staff too. If either of those go away-- and both soon will-- the Reds will have to add guys who can log innings. One way to combat that is to have a multi-inning guy ready each time Ashcraft pitches. Gutierrez may be an interesting relief option for that.

5. I noticed how often he pitched up in the zone yesterday. I found that interesting. It allowed him to get some called strikes on pitches that drop substantially. But the Giants still beat his pitches into the ground. I wonder if that's because his pitches break late-- and down. That'd be fun to see-- how late breaking are Ashcraft's pitches as compared to the rest of the league (and other Reds).

6. I'd mentioned this in an earlier Minor League Forum Thread on why I liked Ashcraft so much. The elite ground ball tendencies mean that when opposing batsmen square up a ball, more often than not, they square it up only to see it skip across the ground. That robs those would-be hits of velocity which mean even if they do manage to find a hole, they aren't going to do as much damage as fly balls or line drives. That puts extra pressure on hitters to run well, to string together long PAs, and to find success just to score runs. In short, Ashcraft is a rare pitcher who makes hitters work harder to score runs.

7. So far in his young major league career, Ashcraft hasn't struck out much of anyone. That might well be cause for concern. With the stuff he has, he should be K'ing more than double his current MLB rate. It's probably a small sample, but that should rise before we get too excited.

8. Even if this is largely a mirage, the early stuff indicates this kid can be a late-inning relief pitcher at his floor. (Assuming health.) He reminds me, in an odd way, of Tejay Antone and Diaz. Elite stuff out of nowhere, questions about his role, but he just keeps on keeping on. Maybe that's what the modern pitcher can be. Maybe that's what development looks like. (It's been so long since the Reds did any real development for lots and lots of pitchers...) Regardless, they now have three guys in similar molds to go along with Greene and Lodolo. Santillan and Warren are a couple more, IMO, who are pretty solid. If they can find a couple more this year-- Solomon looks good to me, as does Kuhnel-- it could go a long way to seeing Cincinnati as very successful moving forward. (At least their pitching. The offense is a whole different story.)

[JCM11]

I could see Ashcraft being a Tanner Roark type solid back end innings eater who occasionally puts up a great season. I'm not concerned about the lack of strike outs yet. The Giants are the second highest scoring team in MLB and Ashcraft just casually mowed them down like he'd been doing it for 10 years. I like that the fastball plays well both up and down in the zone. Moving forward he'll have to get better command of the breaking stuff, and perhaps get to where he can maintain the 99mph longer if he needs to.

[Kingspoint]

All of these Minor Leaguers who missed the entire 2020 season because of COVID created a new area of study regarding the development of players. There's no data to back it up, so there's really lots of guessing going on.

All the more reason not to put as much stock into numbers from last season when judging these players. It really takes more of an ability to judge these players on what the professional evaluators see and not what the results were on the field.

[Ron Madden]

David Bell said Graham Ashcraft will start Thursday and Mike Minor will start Friday vs Washington.

[M2]

Welcome to the World of Ashcraft.

[JFLegal]

as far as years controlled by the reds, how does this work? ashcraft will still have 6 years of team control after this one, and then greene/lodolo will have 5 after this one? (or might lodolo also have 6 since he's been on the shelf so long?)

either way, very nice trio of rookie pitchers right there. and the reds have williamson and abbott who could be ready by next season ... then phillips not far behind them. boyle too, perhaps.