Porcello to the Show
Yesterday, the Detroit Tigers announced that 20-year-old Rick Porcello had won a spot in their starting rotation. He will open the season with the Tigers despite having never pitched above Single-A, as Dave Dombrowski and Jim Leyland are betting on talent being more important than experience.
Is Porcello ready to make a three level jump and hold his own in the big leagues before he’s legally allowed to drink? There are reasons to think so.
When most people look at his 2008 line, the 5.18 K/9 jumps out – that’s a remarkably low strikeout rate for a guy with top notch stuff in the minor leagues. Most elite pitching prospects strike out more than a batter per inning, especially in the lower levels. Porcello simply wasn’t missing bats all that often, and that is seen as a red flag by many.
However, there can be different ways of dominating minor league hitters, and while Porcello wasn’t racking up the strikeouts, he was among the most dominating groundball pitchers in the minors. 65% of his balls in play were hit on the ground, easily leading the league. Porcello got a ton of ground balls while also avoiding walks, posting a very good 2.38 BB/9. He showed excellent command of his sinker, which allowed him to succeed without racking up a lot of strikeouts.
The combination of no walks and lots of ground balls is a recipe for success in the majors. It might not be as flashy as racking up huge strikeout totals, but it’s still a good combination. If Porcello can continue to command his sinker, he has the tools to pitch in the major leagues right now. Chris Volstad had a very successful run last summer with a similar skillset, and Porcello has better stuff than Volstad.
It’s certainly possible that Porcello will struggle, as a lot of 20-year-old pitchers do when thrust into the majors. However, don’t make the mistake of assuming that just because he didn’t rack up a lot of strikeouts in the Florida State League, he doesn’t have what it takes to succeed in the majors. Strikeouts aren’t the only way a pitcher can dominate. Porcello has the strikes and ground balls skillset, and that combination works in the big leagues.
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Plus the Tigers told him to work on his 2-seamer and his command and pitch efficiency, rather than blowing away hitters with his 4-seamer and breaking balls
I haven’t read anything that says the Tigers had implored Porcello to use the 2-seamer, however, there was an interview from last summer with Porcello that said he prefers to use the 2-seamer and that scouting reports of him when he was in high school weren’t wrong, just a bit off as he was not a guy that threw a lot of 4-seamers. He likes getting the ground balls.
Says Goldstein:
Porcello wasn’t as dominant as many expected him to be as far as missing bats, but he was under a specific program that was designed to develop all of his offerings and get him to pitch efficiently, with one scout noting, “he was just toying with hitters really, as you could tell he could overpower them whenever he needed to.”
If that’s true, then he might still have the stuff to strike out batters and just wasn’t using it. But even if he’s not overpowering, the ground balls can make up for that. KG says some scouts have have been “throwing around Kevin Brown comps.” I’m excited to watch him pitch.
Oops. First paragraph is Goldstein. Second is my take.
I was going to post this but you beat me to it. At BP’s book signing in the Bay Area, Goldstein said that Porcello was basically “pitching with one arm tied behind his back last year” and still had the lowest ERA in the league (I know ERA is silly, but still).
Woo…Nate Robertson to the M’s!!! We need a left-handed flyball guy. Oh, wait…
fangraphs, post about brett anderson making oakland’s rotation.
Good call. All is remarkably quiet on Brett’s player page.
Haven’t seen any reports Anderson made the team. Rotoworld is reporting that Cahil has.
Beane is looking for division championship if both of these rumors are true.
Good take on Porcello. I have to wonder why the Tigers are making this decision, though? What benefit do they have in bringing him up right now instead of letting him pitch at AA this year (and possibly AAA if he does well in AA)? His service time starts earlier, and odds are he probably isn’t quite ready for the bigs, even if he ultimately ends up being very good. It just doesn’t seem there’s any reason for the Tigers to be making this move.
Concur. They made the exact same mistake with Bonderman.
Smacks of management desparate to salvage the season. Is Dombrowski at risk of getting fired?
I’m excited about this kid. Even if he puts up Chien-Ming Wang numbers, what’s wrong with low Ks and a ton of ground balls/GIDPs? I feel like he’s pretty underrated actually. Not everyone has Tim Lincecum talent, just let the kid pitch.
I think Porcello and Cahill can both be dominant ground ball pitchers. Maybe not fantasy superstars, but if I’m building an actual team, I’ll take either. Or preferably both.
I’m sure just about every team would love another CMW on the team.
I’m curious to see his changeup. It’s supposed to be very good, with the curveball a little behind that and the slider probably on the shelf for now. James Shields but with a better fastball? Who knows. I’m very curious, though.
I don’t think it’s a bad move from a development standpoint. I would be inclined to keep him in AA for a few weeks to delay his arbitration clock and limit his innings. He’ll be able to pitch about 155 this season. He was also on a pretty strict 75 pitch limit last season, so he might be on a 90 pitch limit or so this season. He’ll likely require someone to pick up a lot of long relief work. Nate Robertson or Zach Miner fill that role.
How many times do you guys plan to write up on Porcello and fail to address the fact that he was not using his curveball — by far his best strikeout pitch — and that it was likely due to the Tigers trying to get him to be comfortable with 2 breaking balls as they loved the potential of his slider as well?
http://saberscouting.com/2008/04/04/rickporcelloreport/
“Curveball – Ranged from 71-74; this was his signature hammer in high school and he threw less than 5 tonight. It had excellent depth, spin, and 12-to-6 tilt but lacked late bite. You give him a pass on that because everything else was so good and he only threw a few and didn’t have feel for it yet. Not sure if he shied away from it due to preference, mandate, or lack of feel, but I can put a future 60 on it, reports out of HS said it could easily be north of that. I’m sure I’ll get a better look in future starts.”
Seems like a very important piece of information for readers who probably aren’t as familiar with Porcello as Tigers or general prospect fans are. This is the 3rd time I’ve read something on him with no mention of this. I’m not saying that his lack of a curveball is entirely responsible for his lack of K’s in High-A ball, but I’d bet it’s a large, large chunk of the reason. He’s very much a Brandon Webb-Doc Halladay type that gets a lot of GB’s and still K’s at an above-average rate.
But, that obviously probably doesn’t happen in the majors. Thanks Dave Dumbo. Jeremy Bonderman, Andrew Miller, and now Rick Porcello. Who needs to develop young pitchers when you can just throw them to the wolves because you’ve wasted your excess funds on long term contracts that have now hamstrung your budget?
This was more harsh sounding than I had originally intended for it to be.
Has this website ceased to operate? Last entry I can see is from 7/27/08.
I’d wait on the Brandon Webb/Roy Halladay comps. Two of the best pitchers in all of baseball and have been for a long long time. Chien-Ming Wang is probably more accurate at this point.
Webb averaged nearly a K per inning in his minor league career. Halladay’s #s don’t really hold much water because he was completely transformed into the pitcher he is now after beginning as a straight over the top pitcher mechanically speaking.
I’m not saying Porcello doesn’t have a chance to be good, but Webb’s and Halladay’s don’t grow on trees. They are once in a lifetime talents.
I also agree he should be in the minors for atleast 1 to 1.5 more seasons.
I agree with Cameron’s analysis that there are reasons to think he can stick I don’t think its good for his overall development. Dominating A ballers with his sinker is a bit harder than doing it against MLB hitters. Command and location needs to be finer against most major leaguers. None of his albiet brief spring training stats show that he was particularly fooling people. He doesn’t need to dominate in strikeouts but development of location and command is also important and I don’t know if he has done that. I think he is talented enough to stick even if he is unspectacular but there is the rub I think he could develop to be a dominating pitcher given the chance. Combine that sinker with his four seam and excellent command and he’ll be a pitcher for the ages. i just don’t see it happening very well on the major league level. I hope he gets some seasoning and is sent down perhaps to double A. Porcello is supposed to be an Ace pitcher if not in the Roger Clemens mode he certainly could be in the Brandon Webb mode but rushing him to the majors isn’t going to help that.
Anyways as stupid as this sounds this has to be an April Fools joke.
If his mechanics resemble John Smoltz as Kiley said in the Saberscouting link, does that mean he has the dreaded inverted W in his delivery mechanics? I wish I knew more about who had the inverted W.
Porcello throwing: http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb123/fyrftrjim39/TigersvsNationals022.jpg
Looks more like Halladay than Smoltz to me. The inverted W thing is overblown on a lot of borderline cases like Smoltz. O’Leary admits it himself. Plus, you shouldn’t get all of your pitching information from O’Leary.