Comments on: Porcello to the Show

By: Matt B.

Matt B. — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 15:34:52 +0000

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.

By: Eric Cioe

Eric Cioe — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:00:19 +0000

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.

By: sen-baldacci

sen-baldacci — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 03:29:44 +0000

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.

By: Big Oil

Big Oil — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 03:07:19 +0000

Has this website ceased to operate? Last entry I can see is from 7/27/08.

By: Omar

Omar — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 02:27:58 +0000

Anyways as stupid as this sounds this has to be an April Fools joke.

By: Omar

Omar — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 02:27:31 +0000

I’m sure just about every team would love another CMW on the team.

By: Mike R

Mike R — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 20:42:49 +0000

This was more harsh sounding than I had originally intended for it to be.

By: Mike R

Mike R — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 20:40:57 +0000

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.

By: highrent

highrent — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 20:29:25 +0000

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.

By: Mike R

Mike R — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 19:58:00 +0000

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?