Mike Fiers - Your 2009, 22nd round pick

[FVBrewerFan]

Wouldn't it be funny if Fiers turned out to be out best pitcher? All this talk about Peralta, Jungmann, Thornburg and Bradley being the future of our rotation, and we may have a guy already up with the team that could be in their class. Mark Rogers had the kind of stuff that teams drool about, yet he could never stay healthy long enough with that stuff.

quote]

 

Burgos could be the next Fiers. Not a top prospect, but sure seems like he's figured out how to pitch.

[Fear The Chorizo]

If anything, Fiers has given the Brewers a fantastic rotation option they weren't expecting to have going into next season. It's to the point where he's practically penciled his name into the 2013 rotation barring injury or drastic performance regression.

 

IMO, you trade Greinke for the best package available if it's apparent that he won't be signing an extension now. There's always the chance you can get him resigned in the offseason (unlikely). Then, I think you see if/how Marcum comes back this season. If he ends it relatively healthy, offer him a 1-2 year deal that won't break the bank - his injury risk pretty much sets the market for him in that regard, anyway.

 

A rotation of:

 

Gallardo

Fiers

Marcum

and two of: Peralta/Thornburg/Estrada/Narveson/FA starting pitcher.

 

Not exactly terrible - I think they still need to try and find a quality starting pitcher in free agency to put towards the top of their rotation.

[bork]

At what point do you start to worry about his innings? He's at 114 2/3 now. He only pitched 128 innings last year and 125 the year before. So he can go maybe 160 this year? He'll hit that in another 7-8 starts. Do you just keep him starting and then shut him down in September and use Peralta, Thornburg, Rogers, etc then? Or do you try and skip him a few times?

[TooLiveBrew]

Can the Greg-Maddux-is-proof-Fiers-is-for-real posts stop? That's getting to be a bit much.

[Oxy]

Can the Greg-Maddux-is-proof-Fiers-is-for-real posts stop? That's getting to be a bit much.

 

I don't think anybody is claiming it as "proof," it's just evidence to suggest that a player can be extremely successful without overwhelming stuff. It also explains the lack of hype coming up through the minors and his low draft position. Outstanding control, deception, and other unquantifiable aspects of pitching are near impossible to scout for, yet can still result in an ace-level pitcher. Statistically, everything points to Fiers being a successful MLB pitcher, if not an "ace." That's fine with me. I'll take a 3.5-3.75 ERA any day of the week from my #3-#4 starter. The Crew has been due for a LONG time to have a pitcher seemingly come out of nowhere like that.

[TooLiveBrew]

Well Randy Johnson was a hard throwing lefty with electric stuff, let's not give up on Manny Parra just yet!

 

I have nothing but love for Fiers, but I have nothing but loathing for the Greg Maddux comp.

[logan82]

Maddux benefited from a very wide strike zone.

[danzig6767]

Maddux benefited from a very wide strike zone.

 

He also mastered that comeback fastball which started off the corner and at the last second tailed back over the plate. Countless batters just stood there frozen and took it for a called strike. Then he'd throw a straight fastball off the plate with no tail back and hitters would either swing and miss at it or hit a weak grounder.

 

In the end, for guys who don't throw hard, it's all about command. Being able to consistently locate pitches in spots they intended to and which are hard for hitters to drive. Hell, even hard throwers need command, look at Parra his who career and Axford this season.

 

Any pitcher can succeed in the majors if they avoid getting behind in the count a lot and have consistent quality command of multiple pitches. Obviously though in most cases it helps to also be able to throw in the 90's with good command.

[FVBrewerFan]

Maddux is always the name people bring up whenever you're talking about a successful RHP with an avg fastball. I don't think anyone said Fiers will be the next Maddux, the poster was just using him as an example that you can be successful in this league without a 95 MPH fastball. (People here used to use Moyer as the example, don't see that comparison anymore.)

[adambr2]

Any time on the MLB roster, Sept or otherwise, counts towards a player's service time.

 

However, from a service standpoint DHonks is correct, it doesn't matter because he won't have accrued a full year of service time by year's end regardless if he stays up, so the only concern here is the extra cost of arby.

 

He's also not young, in fact he's rather old to be in his first professional season. As such, I'm fine with him staying up and potentially being a Super 2, this is one case where I'm not going to quibble over $2-3M in a 4th arby year because the truth is we need Mike next season and I'm fine with him getting all the experience he can this season. Thornburg should go back down immediately, he has work to do with his command, but I'm cool with Fiers staying up.

 

That's simply not true. For one, there is a window in a player's first season that he must be called up after in order to not have that first year count as a full season, I believe it's 20 days but that most definitely matters. That's the whole reason behind the JJ Hardy controversy in 2009, they gained a full extra year service from that.

 

Unfortunately you are confused and are rolling a couple of different issues into service time. Fiers had .02 of a year of service time coming into the season, he didn't get called up until the end of May appearing for the first time on May 29th. He's likely right on the border of being a super 2, but that's the only concern. You should probably go back and do some more research as I'm unsure where you got mixed up but Hardy actually started 2005 on the opening day roster, which is why the 20 days gipped him out of a year of service time. Since Fiers spent the first 2 months of the season in AAA, there's no parallel at all between the situations.

 

No, you misunderstood what I was saying. As I said and you reiterated, 20 days is the cutoff for earlier free agency. I am well aware of the fact that Hardy started 2005 on the opening day roster, but the 20 days down in AAA in August of 2009 is what cost him hitting free agency a year earlier.

 

I wasn't "paralleling" Fiers to Hardy, simply pointing out that service time does matter. I was the first one to mention 20 days, and I mentioned it was in 2009 when he was sent down -- I am well aware that Fiers was called up after that mark and thus that particular situation wouldn't come into play with him.

 

The only think I definitely should have worded better is saying " a window in a players first season", when it doesn't need to be the first season.

[markedman5]

What an interesting article.....thanks for posting it.

Beyond the Box score had a great writeup on Fiers, and how he does an amazing job of keeping hitters off balance (and why he gets so many fly balls).

 

Question for the everyone: When is he "For real" in your opinion?

 

I am hopeful he keeps this up, I really think he could be a solid #3 or an average #2 going forward... but I still think the league will adjust.

[slappzilla]

who would have thought that Fiers would have a sub 2.00 ERA and a record of 3-4. 2012 Brewers right there for ya

Ben Sheets would have.

 

Wolf took it in the shorts last night in the same manner. He's been bad this year but better lately.

 

Seriously though, your post that I quoted torts, it reminded me of old (bad) brewer teams and watching Sheets throw his glove and become irate in the dugout after the brewers bullpen would blow a win on him.

 

I remember one game I was in Vegas. Sheets vs. the Rockies. Sheets left in the 7th with a 6-0 lead. Brewers lost that game 8-6. I put $300 on the crew in that game. I don't know who was more ticked off, myself or Sheets.

[torts]

who would have thought that Fiers would have a sub 2.00 ERA and a record of 3-4. 2012 Brewers right there for ya

Ben Sheets would have.

 

Wolf took it in the shorts last night in the same manner. He's been bad this year but better lately.

 

Seriously though, your post that I quoted torts, it reminded me of old (bad) brewer teams and watching Sheets throw his glove and become irate in the dugout after the brewers bullpen would blow a win on him.

 

I remember one game I was in Vegas. Sheets vs. the Rockies. Sheets left in the 7th with a 6-0 lead. Brewers lost that game 8-6. I put $300 on the crew in that game. I don't know who was more ticked off, myself or Sheets.

 

thats exactly who I was comparing Fiers to in my mind, i just didnt want to say it/jinx him. nothing was more frustrating than watch sheets pitch a great game only to lose it by a run thanks to the bullpen.

[slappzilla]

Turnnnnnnnbow and Gagne days, amongst others.

[homer]

Fiers bad!!!!! Er, uh, good!!!

 

http://www.marywshelley.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/frankenstein.jpg

[Team Canada]

It's getting to the point where I'm shocked when Fiers gives up a run. Wow.

[gregmag]

I completely forgot that the Brewers were actually playing a baseball game. It's trade night, for goodness' sake.

 

Man, Fiers is good. I keep hearing people talk about Zach Duke in 2005. Fiers is a little less than three starts short of matching Duke's IP that year, and at this point he has a nearly identical ERA, 1.77 to Duke's 1.81. They're similar by a lot of other measures too (I have no idea how to do charts):

 

DUKE: BB/9 = 2.44; HR/9 = 0.32; BABIP = .298; FIP = 3.00; xFIP = 3.61.

 

FIERS: BB/9 = 2.18; HR/9 = 0.27; BABIP = .291; FIP = 2.20; xFIP = 3.50.

 

Fiers is a little bit better across the board, a lot better on FIP.

 

There are two predictors that looked a lot better for Duke. He had a 47.2% GB rate, compared to 30.5% for Fiers; and he had an absurd 4.5% HR/FB rate, compared to a completely ludicrous 2.6% rate for Fiers. We have to expect that more of the fly balls Fiers allows will land in the seats.

 

But here's the obvious punchline. K/9: 9.14 for Fiers, 6.17 for Duke. Duke's first-year K rate gave him no margin for regression, and when he did fall off a bit (4.64 career rate), he basically fell off a cliff. If Fiers loses 1.5 K/9, he's still at 7.6, and depending on the longballs, he's still a 2 or 3 starter.

 

Home runs are a real concern going forward, but I see no reason not to count on Fiers as a midrotation guy, and it's realistic to hope that he sticks as a #2.

[The stache]

Star in the making. Mike just gets it.

[adambr2]

I'm not doubting Fiers' success, but can anyone explain why he was doing just so-so down at AAA this year and all of the sudden just comes up and lights it up?

 

Is it just hitters seeing him for the first time? Or is the PCL just really that loaded with hitters parks that it inflates pitchers ERA's?

 

Love what Fiers is doing, but in perspective, I would be happy if he turns out to be a career 4.00 ERA type of starter. Would be thrilled if he turns out to be a healthier version of Marcum.

[trwi7]

I had a whole post on this but it didn't post because of an internal server error. Basically the gist of it was Fiers gave up half of his homers in one start in Las Vegas and his only truly bad start was against New Orleans when he walked 5 in 2.1 innings and gave up 6 runs. He had some other starts where his ERA was high but he didn't get crushed around the ballpark (probably around a hit per inning with low walk totals) and he still had good strikeout numbers in those games.

[logan82]

I don't know how you call what Fiers did in AAA this year so-so. The ERA wasn't great but given the sample size the results could easily not match up with his actual pitching. All the secondary stuff looks pretty good.

[3and2Fastball]

I am cautiously optimistic in my thinking that Fiers could be a legit #1 or #2 pitcher someday....

[TURBO]

I am thinking #3 to be honest, #1 = Ace, #2 is close to an ACE!

 

Once he makes it around the league a couple of times, then we will know what we have in him, but to expect #1 or #2 numbers from him is a bit more than cautiosly optimistic.

[3and2Fastball]

I am thinking #3 to be honest, #1 = Ace, #2 is close to an ACE!

 

Once he makes it around the league a couple of times, then we will know what we have in him, but to expect #1 or #2 numbers from him is a bit more than cautiosly optimistic.

 

 

Is a 3.79 ERA and 115 ERA+ the numbers of a #1 or #2 pitcher? I could see Fiers being at least that good

[TURBO]

115 ERA+ ?

 

Again, we need him to make a second trip around the league to see what he has. I love the guy, I'm just not ready to dub him an ace, and neither should anyone else just yet.

 

Enjoy it while it lasts, and hopefully we can enjoy if gor years to come.