State of the Farm: Starting Pitching

[MikeS21]

I agree about Stoudt. Let him start in 2023. Thing about TJ surgery is that it takes 12-15 months for the elbow to heal enough to get back to pitching, and another 2-3 months to regain command and control (and confidence).

[lollipopcurve]

They’ve done a good job adding to the stock of SP prospects. If they get 2 legit starters out of this group, that would be good. Any more than that, tremendous. For me, Williamson, Petty and Phillips are the top 3. Really like what Petty showed this year, but he’s so young that it’s hard to feel real confident things will work out.

If nothing else, they’ll get a nice boost to the bullpen in a year or two. Really hoping Boyle can throw more strikes. He could take high leverage innings for the Reds next year, I think, if he shows better control. Boom or bust.

[Bourgeois Zee]

If nothing else, they’ll get a nice boost to the bullpen in a year or two.

I suspect this is the thought process for Red management. Draft/ Sign/ Develop/ Trade for big-time arms with lots and lots of stuff and depend on high floors as they mature.

This is largely what the Reds did under Bowden, fwiw-- and it worked in developing a strong bullpen year in year out. (The Red 'pens under Bowden were fantastic-- the starting rotations, often notsomuch.) I'm hoping they recognize that if this is their plan moving forward, they're going to have to spend relatively large sums of money on starters.

(Of course, what do I know? The Reds develped three league average-ish starters and a closer this season. In a typical season with typical players around them, that'd be a massively successful happening. It gets lost a bit because of the situation in which they developed.)

[mth123]

I like Boyle the best, as a reliever. Petty is pretty young, so he's wait and see. Acuna and Hubbart are too low in the minors to even have an opinion of. I hope the others can be decent bullpen guys. I don't expect any to be mainstays in the rotation. Some may be back-end filler in a Sal Romano kind of way, but that's the most I expect out of this group as far as starting pitching goes. I think a few of these guys might end up as major cogs in a solid future bullpen. Boyle is the one I like the best, but Williamson might be a decent lefty and the others could be solid middle guys. I like Roa as a multi-inning relief arm and he might be the guy with the best chance at being a rotation guy.

These guys aren't throw-aways by any means. I think there could be several solid big-league pitchers out there, but I'd be looking elsewhere for starting pitching and if any develop, it would be a nice problem to have.

[Kc61]

I like Boyle the best, as a reliever. Petty is pretty young, so he's wait and see. Acuna and Hubbart are too low in the minors to even have an opinion of. I hope the others can be decent bullpen guys. I don't expect any to be mainstays in the rotation. Some may be back-end filler in a Sal Romano kind of way, but that's the most I expect out of this group as far as starting pitching goes. I think a few of these guys might end up as major cogs in a solid future bullpen. Boyle is the one I like the best, but Williamson might be a decent lefty and the others could be solid middle guys. I like Roa as a multi-inning relief arm and he might be the guy with the best chance at being a rotation guy.

These guys aren't throw-aways by any means. I think there could be several solid big-league pitchers out there, but I'd be looking elsewhere for starting pitching and if any develop, it would be a nice problem to have.

Seems to me developing high caliber starting pitching internally is pretty difficult. Almost every contender has one or two guys acquired from the veteran market, trade or free agent. Some more.

So many pitching prospects wind up in the bullpen, or wash out, or get hurt.

Even if you could develop enough starters, by the time you get them all together, healthy, in their prime, you could lose your window of opportunity in other areas.

I hope the Reds recognize this. They did see it with Bauer and Gray of late, and we may have to wait another (lost) season before they’ll spend. But they need to set reasonable achievable goals, not long shots, and in SP that usually requires going into the market.