Minor league Pitching

[CheezWizHed]

I'll second Crew's opinion on Heckathorn. Anundsen I see as a McClendon type BP arm (granted, I haven't paid much attention to him this year, so old opinion there).

 

I don't think its much of a stretch to project Arnett into the MLB BP. I wouldn't rush him to AA, however. He really isn't dominating at Brevard (which is a pitcher's league anyway) and I'm sure he could use the confidence boost of succeeding for a bit.

[JohnBriggs12]

If you wanted to see a good example of "pitching to contact" we saw it last night with Fiers. He moved the ball all over but mostly within or close to the zone where if hitters swung at it, they could generally hit it but not center it. He varied speed on all his pitches. Hence he got a lot of quick outs and let batters get themselves out. It was a pleasure to watch and I wasn't dozing off watching the constant nibbling a lot of guys do these days.

 

Dare I say, it was very "old school" pitching.

[Oldcity]

Apologize if this is being discussed somewhere else, but why on Earth haven't they moved Mark Rogers to the bullpen yet? After this year he's out of options, and he is just struggling mightily with walks as a starter. He clearly isn't going to be a starter next year with the Brewers; the only shot he'll have is as a reliever. Doesn't his stuff translate very well as a reliever? What am I missing?

[TheCrew07]

he gets more innings to work on his control as a starter.

[DHonks]

oldcity, if we foolishly let Marcum, Wolf, and Greinke all walk, then Rogers might be part of the rotation next year. It's possible him, Fiers, and Peralta could all be in the rotation.

[jmeks23]

Alright, I'm a relative noob when it comes to our minor league system. Can someone please enlighten me on Jimmy Nelson? I keep hearing very good things but I know almost nothing on him and there's not many (free) scouting reports available out there. Can those who are far more knowledgeable help me out? Thanks

[TooLiveBrew]

I'd suggest starting here... but there's probably a bit more detail available on him now, since we're a decent chunk into the season.

 

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=27856

[Oldcity]

oldcity, if we foolishly let Marcum, Wolf, and Greinke all walk, then Rogers might be part of the rotation next year. It's possible him, Fiers, and Peralta could all be in the rotation.

Yikes. Do you really see any way Melvin (more specifically, Attanasio) lets that happen? Only way is if they go into full-on sell mode this year. Even if the record calls for it, I'd be surprised if the Brewers actually do it. Plus, if Fiers, Peralta, and Rogers are all in the rotation, the team will be terrible, anyway, so I'd still be worried about putting Rogers in a situation where he is most likely to succeed.

 

I see he had a better start yesterday, but his overall numbers are still terrible.

 

More time to work on his control? That sounds like something they should be doing with a young prospect, not a guy who's on his very last big league shot with the team.

[DHonks]

Oldcity, I wasn't trying to advocate that. I think that's a 60 win rotation at best. I was just saying that it doesn't hurt to keep working him as a starter for now. He's also a candidate where he could do a 1-2 year bullpen stint, refine mechanics, gain success, and be healthy. Then make the rotation transition. I like that for guys that struggle with command at times and lesser prospects. It's also happened with some serious talent recently--Feliz, Wilson, Santana, Liriano, Wainwright, etc

[brewmann04]

I can without a doubt the Brewers moving Wolf and Marcum but have to believe MA will keep Grienke to team with YO

[TooLiveBrew]

I know he's actually a big leaguer, but I wanted to see what MiLB forum readers thought of Thornburg's debut. He really hit the wall after 5 or so, and if that's where some people don't see him as a SP then I get the doubts. For his first five innings, I thought he just looked so comfortable that it was hard to believe.

[Oldcity]

I was at the game, but from my vantage point it seemed like his fastball is a nice pitch velocity-wise, but he was struggling to throw off-speed stuff for strikes. Eventually, they just sat on his fastball and crushed it.

 

Certainly not a discouraging outing in my opinion.

[Tedaldtada]

They hit mistake pitches, plain and simple. I am pretty confident Tyler will minimize those as he matures as a pitcher. It was also 80-90 degrees with a very gusty wind. Those are premier hitting conditions at MP.

 

His velocity was down his final 1-2 innings, but I know he can still be effective at 89-91 because he has a good change up and some built in deception.

 

In the 3rd, I saw him run quite a few 94's and 95's out there. That is what excites you.

[TheCrew07]

Copied from my post in the game thread.

 

As far as Thornburg goes, his performance was about what I expected given his AA work.

 

He's been wildish for well over a month, and his location wasn't good all night, he was all over place high and low, spending way too much time up in the zone and he managed to bounce some breaking pitch about 12 feet in front of home plate. He needs time to iron out his command and he'll be fine. Every home run was a horribly located pitch, he just got burned throwing hitters' pitches.

 

I'm not going to make any judgements on his longevity or velocity as a starter based on 1 appearance. For all I know he was overthrowing early because every FB was 95-96 and gassed himself. While I've been covering Huntsville until recently, I only listened to 3 Stars games all year and none were Thornburg starts. I'm sure I'll catch some in Nashville, but I was under the impression he worked 93-95 on a regular basis.

[TooLiveBrew]

I didn't see many at 95 or 96, but that was on the TV broadcast. I'm not suggesting that everyone should agree & label him a RP -- I sure won't. But if this is where the RP comments are coming from in prospect reporting, I just see why now. There's no reason he can't be a big leaguer; like Tedaldtada mentions the changeup was a strong looking pitch.

 

If it matters, I felt the meatballs TT laid over the plate tonight were a result of him being spent more than simply that he missed his spots. I understand you don't pull the guy after 5 solid innings & just 85 pitches or whatever he was at. But he looked spent to me by the 6th. Nothing to be ashamed of in your MLB debut.

[TheCrew07]

In the first he was lighting up the gun pretty good, regardless the 2 88 MPH pitches that were getting too much run in the game thread were so obviously aimed because he was struggling that I wouldn't draw any conclusions about his velocity from 1 start. He may have been just trying to be too fine which would have caused his velocity to dip significantly, he looked the same as he had all game in 6th until he gave up that first HR.

 

Here's the BA scouting report from this season:

Compared to Tim Lincecum because of his slight frame and pinwheeling delivery, Thornburg has had little difficulty in the lower minors, compiling a 2.48 ERA and 198 strikeouts in 160 innings since signing as a 2010 third-round pick. In his first full pro season, he allowed 12 runs in 12 starts at low Class A Wisconsin and appeared in the Futures Game and held high Class A hitters to a .186 average. Thornburg has been clocked as high as 98 mph when used in relief, but as a starter he usually pitches at 89-92 mph and peaks at 94. His changeup can be his best pitch at times, confounding hitters because it has good fade and he throws it with deceptive arm speed. His 11-to-5 curveball has the potential to be a solid third offering, though his unorthodox mechanics make it difficult to finish the pitch. His delivery is funky but it also leads scouts to wonder if he'll have enough command and durability to remain a starter. The Brewers have no plans to take Thornburg out of the rotation, though his stuff and aggressive nature would play well in a late-inning relief role if needed. A likely No. 3 starter, he'll step up to Double-A to begin 2012 and could surface in Milwaukee at some point in 2013.

 

I've read nothing about this supposedly dip in velocity late in games that has scouts worried, and his start seemed to be pretty consistent with his scouting report. I'm not saying that concern isn't valid, I'm just saying there's no way to make that judgement off of 1 MLB start. I will say from what I saw that his biggest issue is his command and once again that lines up with his scouting report.

[igor67]

It's also possible to wear out in your debut just from the excitement/stress. It is not like established pitchers haven't been clobbered by this line-up either. The flipside is that other than HRs then never really got much going against him.

[CheezWizHed]

It was quite obvious that lots of balls were flying out of the park that day also... But he really lost his control that last inning. All three of those HRs were belt high FBs right over the plate.

 

But I saw nothing that said he couldn't be a SP at the MLB level.

[brewmann04]

I thought they would have taken out after five but guess the Reason the Bullpen issues.

[biedergb]

I don't see a separate post about this, and I don't want to hijack this thread but most of my thoughts are about pitching...

Am I the only one incredibly disappointed with our scouting, drafting, and development of prospects, namely pitching prospects.

Kyle Heckathorn, Mark Rogers are major disappointments. Arnett is trying the shed his bust label as a short reliever (isn't that still a bust for a 1st rounder?)

Bradley and Jungmann are ok in the FSL where pitching stats are skewed.

Thornburg looks like he will be a pitcher in the bigs, but he is not a ace or ace like pitcher.

Nelson did well in the FSL and we will see how he handles AA (see my argument for taking FSL stats with a grain of salt as above).

Who else is there? Lopez is in low rookie ball. Gagnon is. 23-24 yo just promoted to high A ball.

We traded away probably our best pitching prospect in Odorizzi.

 

I am sorry for the vent. For the past few seasons we had hope in the big club level, and before that when the big club was bad 1994-2005 we had many years with great prospects in the minors to follow especially the 2001-2005 years with mostly position/hitting prospects. And we are so bare in those prospects right now.

[narwhalattack]

You're not the only one. I too am disappointed in the scouting department. So far Seid hasn't been successful in the first round of drafts. Arnett has been a disaster, Covet could have neen a disaster, Jungmann and Bradley are okay, but considering that the 2011 draft was extremely deep, it was pretty disappointing. Of course it may be a little too early to question his scouting abilities, but I certainly have my doubts about him.

[paul253]

Well you forgot about Peralta, Fiers, and Burgos. Peralta started well and has been better of late with a lot of horribleness in between. I'm not ready to give up on him though. I think Fiers can be a solid contributor. Not an all-star but a solid 4 or 5. And Burgos, I don't know what to think of him. He has been very good this season, even once he was moved up to AA but sputtered every season before that. He'll be one to follow next season to see if he can keep it up. Thornburg has obviously taken the reigns of top prospect and run with them. I think Thornburg has the chance to be a 2 and Peralta a 3 so that's not terrible. But it just goes to show how important resigning Greinke or getting a #1 or #2 potential pitcher in return for him is.

 

I think Melvin's biggest problem is that he seems to focus on a type of pitcher instead of looking at each pitcher individually. It's just my opinion of course, but he seems to have such a strong favortism of the taller, bigger type pitchers and he puts too much emphasis on that. Now that we have some legit prospects, I'd like to see him take more chances on high risk high reward pitchers instead of settling for the safer #3 to #4 ceiling pitchers. I'd like to see more early round high school pitchers taken.

 

I think it is very important for Gagnon, Bradley, Nelson, and Jungmann to step it up next season. Our system depends on it.

 

Oh, Brooks Hall is another name some people are high on.

[Tedaldtada]

Sometimes I think people really do not understand the immense amount of failed prospects every system experiences.

 

That said, I am rather frustrated about last years draft at this point. All around our 1st round picks are guys who are absolutely dominating. The latest is the tremendous buzz Taylor Guerrieri has generated after his first few starts. His numbers are fantastic but the scouting reports on his stuff are more impressive. He went nine picks after Bradley.

 

Jose Fernandez, Matt Barnes, Guerrieri, Alex Meyer...we could have had any of them.

[narwhalattack]

Sometimes I think people really do not understand the immense amount of failed prospects every system experiences.

 

That said, I am rather frustrated about last years draft at this point. All around our 1st round picks are guys who are absolutely dominating. The latest is the tremendous buzz Taylor Guerrieri has generated after his first few starts. His numbers are fantastic but the scouting reports on his stuff are more impressive. He went nine picks after Bradley.

 

Jose Fernandez, Matt Barnes, Guerrieri, Alex Meyer...we could have had any of them.

 

That's the thing. They could have had guys with tremendous ceilings, but they settled for a #3/4 starter in Jungmann because he's very tall and is a safe pick.

[biedergb]

Exactly, when was the last time we had a prospect with that much buzz. Gallardo, Braun back in 2006. Gamel in 2007. Then really the three we traded (Escobar, Lawrie, Odorizzi). Nice depth prospects. But very little in pitching, and recently even hitting. Fiers is a nice pick up, great for how low he was drafted, but guys like these come along every now and then. I would not count on him being a long term solution for our rotation. Peralta is a good prospect, but has been way to inconsistant, and I was also looking more at the draft. The international FA scene is way to unpredictable, more so than the 1st or 2nd rounds.

In the past 15 years, we have drafted and developed Sheets and Gallardo. Otherwise that's it. I am not asking for Cy Young candidates, but at least 2-3 quality starters (with ace potential) every several years, or decade. The guys who project as 3-4-5 rotation guys in the minors rarely pan out. Think about how many projected aces turn into aces. Those that don't wind up being the 3-4-5 guys.