There is no such thing as a pitching prospect or at least that’s the old adage. The phrase speaks to the uncertainty of a pitcher’s development and health. Position players have a rather ubiquitous aging curve and while not everyone adheres to that aveage, the trajectory is generally accepted as true. Not so with pitching prospects. Additionally, the potential for career ending or significant surgery greatly out paces their position player counter parts.
Predicting pitching prospects is a game of probabilities with higher uncertainty or error bars. The truth is that there are such things as pitching prospects; they’re simply a far more volatile and risky proposition than a position player prospect. The Cardinals find themselves with a bevy of arms right now that can throw, regularly, over 95 mph. From Shelby Miller to Tyrell Jenkins with Carlos Martinez and Trevor Rosenthal wedged in between, the organization is flush with impressive arms.
One aspect of following the minors that I find intriguing is that set of pitchers right after those guys. The Joe Kelly’s of the world (who I’ve long been an on record fan of). Because even if the odds are that those big arms will blow out an elbow ligament or contract Rick Ankiel syndrome, there’s another set of guys who can, on occasion, perform in the reverse and start striking out 16 batters in a playoff game.
Right now, I’ve got two pitchers that might be borderline top 20 prospects. In AAA is the comeback kid of Scott Gorgen. After missing much of 2010 and all of 2011 to injury, Gorgen returned to Springfield this year and found success peddling a fastball, changeup combination that isn’t going to light up any radar guns. He’s struggling since his promotion to AAA as his walk rate has jumped but he maintains the look of someone who could be a back of the rotation pitcher someday. In some ways, he’s another Kyle McClellan with a varied repretoire which is more dependent on the breadth of the arsenal than any one pitch.
The other is Seth Maness. After a season of showing excellent command, Maness is showing incredible command. He’s leading AA starters in walk rate. If he were to pitch 200 innings, he’d walk around 11 & 12 batters based on his aggregate rate this year (split between Palm Beach and Springfield). Whether his stuff holds up remains to be seen but the command is nothing short of incredible.
Who am I missing? In the comments, brag on any of the prospects in the system not named Miller, Rosenthal, Martinez or Jenkins.
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Joe Kelly is still under the 50 innings limit and has looked awfully impressive this year.
I’m still a John gast fan…with the slight uptick in fastball velocity, his k rates have been adequate…and he pick everyone off
I’d like to brag about Boone Whiting if I could only figure out whatever happened to him?
Whiting also came to my mind. I think he is a good example of someone that could be a good 4-5 starter if he progresses. Maybe only 2-5 years in the bigs, but most likely those will be cost controlled right at league average. Very valuable. Whiting is currently on roster for Hi-A Palm Beach, he is also on the 60-day DL. Don’t remeber the reason for the DL, but he has been out all season.
Heard in ST he had a forearm flexor injury not sure if that is the same injury as now.
I thought he’d had Tommy John? But I’m quite possibly mistaken. Pretty sure he was set to miss the whole year at the outset.
Michael Wacha makes his GCL debut this week!
Any chance Tyler Lyons (no hitter!) makes it as a starter in the majors?
Victor De Leon has very good Fastball velocity sits 93-95 tops 97. He has improved his command and control this season other than last nights 5 walks. He shown better feel for his slider and curve-ball this season as well. Impressed in his first four starts this season 0.83 ERA 21 2/3 innings 9BB/19K has held opponents to a .184 AVG so far this season. His K rate has been above average has also cut down on his walks as well 0.84 WHIP. He’s an interesting raw pitching prospect would like to see more starts though.
Another name LH pitcher Kevin Siegrist. One thing holds him back and that’s his health he has good stuff. He’s projected at 6-foot-5 throws a low-to mid 90s fastball and heard reports that he has fringy off speed stuff. Just needs to stay healthy.
I like Siegrist, but I thought his velocity was very low 90′s – like 89-92.
Kevin Siegrist is an intriguing prospect. He seems to generally be underrated in terms of stuff; however, his issue has been getting on the field this year.
i am not all that excited about kyle hald, but he does have a 5+ K/BB rate at QC. it would be nice if somebody challenged him to find out if he’s a non-prospect who’s just too old for his league, or if he could perform at a higher level (ethan cole needs a challenge, too).
also down at QC, sam gaviglio and his 58% GB rate and his 4:1 K/B rate look interesting.
you didn’t mention tyler lyons, but i know he’s on your radar.
The thing that Maness also has in his favor is ridiculously high groundball rates as well.
Maness could probably pitch in the majors now. He must throw a good sinker right down central. If there is an injury in St Louis, why not give him a shot?
Because in the majors, throwing a good sinker right down central is a good way to have a HR/9 ratio of approximately 42.
Make no mistake: I am very interested to see just exactly what we have in Maness. If the answer is “Brad Thompson with two extra ticks on his fastball,” he has a real chance to be a major-league pitcher. Without those two extra ticks, he’s a break-glass-in-emergency guy, as Wonder Brad was, and in a system where there are superior alternatives that didn’t exist when Thompson was there. We just don’t know yet — but I would love to see a comprehensive, well informed scouting report. Until we have that, caution must be the order of the day with a guy who lives on extraordinary command rather than stuff.
Low HR rate would be a nice pairing to go along with his command. Only 8 in 105 innings in the minors so far…
I’m not over concerned about Maness’ velo so long as his FB cracks 90. Lohse has fashioned a fine career with Thompsonesque velo. I think the key is whether Maness keeps the ball in the park and has a solid change up. Awesome control with a solid change up can equal cost controlled 4/5 MLB starter. That is a valuable commodity. Look at what we are paying Lohse and Westbrook. I’ll be curious to see how Maness handles AAA.
He had another excellent, if short, start tonight, so it’s getting about time to do the experiment. His ERA at Springfield is now below 2. A Lohse upside would be very tasty, although it remains to be seen whether that’s realistic.
In less happy news, Jenkins got rocked (although QC still got the win) and Bryan Martinez got positively devastated. Can’t win ‘em all.
Actually Maness and Lohse are kinda of similar. Good control, and command, won’t over power hitters but pounds low 90s sinker in the zone producing high groundball rates, both have solid change-ups and have low Walk Rates, and both are innings eaters. A Lohse upside would be very tasty.
Lohse does not produce high ground ball rates, FYI.
Well, Lohse and Westbrook haven’t been 4/5 starters this year. More like 2/3s.
The best way to get a scouting report on Maness is to promote him to the majors. Can he be worse than Romero or Cleto or Tallet? Doubtful.
He could definitely do worse than Cleto, he of the 36% K rate.
A little surprised at all the interest in Seigrist. He’s a soft-tossing lefty, 23yo and only just in AA, whose peripherals have basically sucked for the majority of the last 18 months. Just because he’s put up a couple of lucky low ERAs doesn’t make the guy a prospect IMO.
Even though he’s out all year and the loss of one more year of development probably means he’s a reliever rather than a starter, I’m still a big Jordan Swagerty fan. For me I’d have had him ahead of some bigger names last year in our system (Matt Adams and Zack Cox) until he got hurt, and I still think he’s a borderline top-10 guy for us.
Sam Gaviglio looks interesting, ditto Maness.
I’ve always been a big fan of Cleto but he’s really got to do something about his gopheritis at the top level. He’s got time, however, and you could see him making the sort of adjustments down the line that fernando Rodney’s made (finally) this year to turn into a dominant bullpen arm.
FWIW I’ve never been a massive fan of Joe Kelly as a starter, and I don’t think his secondary offerings are going to make up for his spotty fastball command. Walking the pitcher in his last start, whilst trying to float 90mph fastballs over the middle of the plate, was borderline laughable. He’s a useful #5 starter but I think he’d be better served in the bullpen, when he won’t have to face batters more than once and concentrate on dialling up his heater to the high-90s and not try to be so precise with it. I’ll be watching him with interest the rest of the year, though.
Of course, one of the reasons why he was “trying to float 90mph fastballs over the middle of the plate” was that he was getting absolutely zero, zilch, squat, nada, nichevo called in his favor on the black. There are some umps with pronounced “rookie strike zones” — rookies don’t get borderline pitches that veterans get. It was incredibly obvious that Kelly was up against one of those. I wanted to throw something through the monitor on some of those calls. He was also sitting well above 90, more like 92 or 93, and amped it up to 95 on occasion.
I’ve actually been quite impressed with Kelly so far, much more so than I expected to be. Kid has some stuff. Command is still not what it could be (which contributes to not getting some of those calls), but it isn’t bad, and part of it is that the fast ball has a lot of movement to it sometimes but not always, which is a recipe for command issues but also for getting guys out with it. Contrary to my expectations, I think this could be a pitcher.
His breaking ball is much improved over the last couples of starts that is probably due to being around Wainwright.
What? Wainwright throws a big hammer curve, Kelly throws a slurvey slider. I don’t think it’s likely in any way that we can attribute Kelly’s better breaking ball (I still think it’s a fringey MLB pitch) to Wainwright…
I’d think Swag still has time to develop as a SP and it should be that way until it is obvious he can’t.
Your right about Swagerty still has time to develop as a starter but only to work on his secondary offerings. I still see him as a back end of the bullpen kind of guy because of that plus fastball.
What happened to Seth Blair?
Think he got injured during the spring. I’m assuming he’s quite likely to retire if he can’t make it back this year.
He had an operation on his finger. Nothing to indicate any long term arm problem. If he’s not back this year he’ll be back next year. Absolutely zero reason to think he would retire.