Is there any way to pry Marc Rzepczynski from the Blue Jays?

[cwolf2012]

The guy was a beast in the minors, and has a 3.67 ERA in 61.1 IP this year as a starter. For some reason, they pulled him from the rotation.

 

In my opinion, he is one of the most undervalued prospects in the major leagues, seeing as they don't even think he'll be in the rotation next year for Toronto. Any chance they will part with him? Who can we give up?

[Hate those Rodents]

Good name to look at. I wonder if Toronto, being that they need to compete in the AL East, might be a darkhorse for a Fielder trade. I'd take Overbay back as a stopgap for a couple years and maybe spend our top pick on a slugging 1B. I'd certainly take Rzepcyzinski, Overbay, McGowan, plus off their hands. I know McGowan's been hurt, but I liked him when healthy and would risk it if the price were okay. What else would have to be added to a Fielder deal with Toronto and does anyone feel they could be a darkhorse to landing Prince? They certainly have pitching to offer.

[yoshii8]

They shut him down to preserve his arm for next year.

[JohnBriggs12]

He started the year in AA where he spent most of the season. He wasn't really a "beast" there. His WHIP was 1.513. He was actually better in the majors. I can understand him not being a lock to be in their rotation next year if they get Marcum and McGowan back. But I wouldn't overpay for a guy based on 11 starts.

 

The Brewers figure to have 4-5 actual prospects in the Huntsville rotation at the start of 2010. It's not unreasonable for one or two of them to move through Huntsville quickly, and be pitching in Milwaukee by the end of next year.

[TooLiveBrew]

His strikeout numbers are certainly beastly, including his 8.8 K/9 in the bigs from this season. While his control is certainly still a work in progress, I have to agree with cwolf that this is exactly the type of pitching the Brewers need to identify this off-season.

 

Here are some takes on Rzepczynski:

 

FanGraphs:

"If you scan down [the then AA] leader board, you'll see that Rzepczynski's K/9 rate is far and above tops in all of double-A, so it's easy to understand why the southpaw is currently pitching (well) in Toronto. Along with his ability to miss bats, Rzepczynski is a ground-ball machine with his career ground-ball rate of 64.4%. If he improve his command a bit, watch out."

At the time of this piece (7/21/09), Rzep's FIP (2.64) also stood out as elite. He was filthy at AAA in a short stay, and also handled the bigs just fine last season.

 

 

 

FanGraphs again:

"Rzepczynski was a fifth round draft pick in 2007 out of the University of California-Riverside. He was also a college senior who had not even been drafted during his junior year. Less than three years later, Rzepczynski was a Major League Baseball player. The only players that have made it to the Majors who were taken between the second and fifth round of the 2007 draft are Rzepczynski, Jordan Zimmermann (2nd round, Washington), Jess Todd (2nd round, St. Louis) and Brad Mills (4th round, Toronto). Obviously, the Jays organization did a very good job in scouting and drafting Rzepczynski (not to mention Mills, who also debuted this year.

 

Rzepczynski's biggest plus as a professional pitcher has been his groundball rate, which is an impressive 64.4% throughout his minor league career. He also has a career strikeout rate of 9.5 K/9. His biggest weakness - and something that was evident in his debut against Tampa Bay - is his lack on control. Rzepczynski has a career walk rate of 3.33 BB/9 and it was at 4.23 BB/9 in 14 double-A starts in 2009. Prior to his call-up, the left-hander also started two triple-A games where he allowed seven hits and four walks (and 16 Ks) in 11.1 innings.

 

During his debut last night, Rzepczynski walked four batters in six innings, but he allowed just two hits and struck out seven batters. He also induced seven groundball outs. Tampa Bay hitters flew into just four outs. His sinker sat between 86-88 mph last night with excellent downward movement, whereas his scouting reports have had him between 87-92 mph. Rzepczynski got the majority of his strikeouts because he mixed his pitches well and most of his Ks came on sliders and changeups

 

There is no doubt that with just two starts above double-A - and just 16 starts above A-ball - Rzepczynski has been rushed out of necessity. If last night is any indication, though, he has a bright future, especially if he can tighten up his control. Right now, I would liken his potential to that of a left-handed version of Boston's Justin Masterson."

[TooLiveBrew]

Some more on Rezepczynski

 

 

Bleacher Report:

He was thought to be a decent prospect entering the year, as Baseball America ranked him the ninth-best prospect in the Toronto organization, but only the fourth-best lefthanded pitcher, behind Brett Cecil, Brad Mills, and Ricky Romero (all of whom have spent time in the majors in 2009). While Romero has dazzled, Cecil has emerged as a fifth starter, and Mills has made two big-league starts, Rzepczynski may wind up being the best of the four lefties.

...

Baseball America had two chief criticisms of Rzepczynski:

-"He's 23 and he has yet to pitch above low Class A, so he needs to stay healthy and get going."

-"Though he got plenty of swings and misses in low Class A, Rzepczynski lacks a true out pitch."

 

Well, let's see how he's doing on those two fronts three months into 2009:

- He's anchoring the Triple-A rotation at age 23. Twenty-three is about the average age for a Triple-A prospect, so he's facing mostly players his age and older.

- He blew away Double-A hitters with 88 K's in 76.7 innings, a career-high 10.33 K/9. He's upped that to 12.71 K/9 in two Triple-A starts.

 

Yes, Rzepczynski skipped High-A to begin 2009 and immediately was one of the best pitchers in Double-A. He had some command issues early on, but eventually got his walks down to a decent rate (4.23 BB/9). Again, Rzepczynski posted a stellar FIP (2.64). Called up to Triple-A, he's struck out 16 and walked four in 11 1/3 innings, with a ridiculous 1.44 FIP. He's clearly just about ready for the big leagues.

 

You're probably thinking: 'Okay, this guy's a nice prospect, maybe he'll be a third starter instead of a fifth starter. He's got nice numbers. What's the big deal?' Here's the big deal. The strikeouts aren't Rzepczynski's most outstanding stat. What is? He's only allowed five homers in 254 2/3 minor league innings. That's one homer per 51 innings. And it's no fluke.

 

Rzepcyznksi's career minor league groundball percentage is 64.4 percent. To put in perspective how incredible that is, consider that this year's leader (for qualified pitchers) in GB% is Joel Pineiro, at 61.9 percent. Among all pitchers with at least 20 innings pitched, seven have GB% figures higher than 64.4 percent: three sidearmers (Brad Ziegler, Cla Meredith, Peter Moylan), two sinker-only, ground ball-oriented, low-strikeout guys (Alberto Arias, Brian Bass), one fluke (Jeremy Affeldt), and one excellent pitcher (Chad Qualls).

 

Other than Qualls, all of these pitchers use strategies that basically are designed to produce nothing but grounders. Rzepczynski, on the other hand, gets a ton of strikeouts as well as the grounders. Rzepczynski has managed to post a strikeout rate and a ground ball rate higher than any starter in the majors. Of course, he's doing it against Double-A and Triple-A competition, but this sort of dominance in those two categories at any level hasn't been seen since Felix Hernandez's first big league season.

 

Even more incredibly, Rzepczynski gets a good number of pop-ups (7.4 percent career) and 71.8 percent of balls hit off of the lefthander are grounders or pop-ups. This leads to a very low line-drive rate (12.7 percent career) which suppresses batters' ability to hit for average, and a very low flyball rate (20.2 percent career), which suppresses their ability to hit for power.

 

Rzepczynski's nearly unprecedented dominance of batted-ball numbers and strikeout numbers obviously doesn't match his lack of fanfare. If you've never heard of him before, you probably think I'm about to open up the "actually, he throws an 81 mph fastball" line on you. You might think this is another Mark DiFelice/Danny Ray Herrera/R.J. Swindle story. But it's not. Rzepczynski isn't exactly Tim Lincecum when it comes to stuff, but he's no slouch. He throws an 88-92 mph fastball with good sink (what a surprise), a plus slider, an average-plus changeup, and an average curveball.

..."

The only thing I see that stands out in terms of Rzepczynski is that his pro career average of IP/Start to date is about 5.6. He's only played professionally since 2007, so perhaps he's still stretching out to some extent.

[dadofandrew]

Considering TOR would have no chance to sign Fielder long-term, would JP trade 3-4 players for him?

 

I would say no. BAL might, though unlikely. TOR? Can't believe they would even return that call.

[trwi7]

Considering TOR would have no chance to sign Fielder long-term, would JP trade 3-4 players for him?

Well the players listed would be either redundant with Fielder (Overbay), still hurt (McGowan) and probably a bullpen guy depending on what happens with Halladay and if Marcum can come back.