Time Isn't Up on Jorge Alcala

[Cody Pirkl]

Jorge Alcala had steadily built up status after being acquired for Ryan Pressly and transitioning to the bullpen. Heading into 2021, he was expected to be one of the better relievers in the Twins bullpen. Unfortunately, it hasn’t worked out that way at all.

The 6-foot-2 Jorge Alcala has fared reasonably well in his career in terms of results as he’s sporting a 3.70 ERA. Indicators don’t paint nearly as kind a picture, however, as his FIP is nearly a full run higher, signaling a bit of luck along the way.

2021 has been far from lucky as Alcala has been worth -0.4 Wins Above Replacement per Fangraphs. Despite his high-90s fastball and highly-touted slider, Alcala’s strikeout rate has dropped from 28.7% in 2020 to 22.4% in 2021 which has led to his indicators spiraling out of control.

So what’s happened to the high-upside arm the Twins received in the Ryan Pressly trade?

As is the case with all pitchers who come up, the league has likely put together a book on what Alcala has to offer. In his case, this includes largely a fastball-slider combo. Relievers in particular can sometimes get by with two pitches but doing so typically requires both of the pitches performing at an elite level. 

When it comes to Alcala, his slider is effective enough weighing in at a 2.8 pitch value per Fangraphs and garnering a 34.7% whiff rate. His fastball, however, has been a net negative on the season with a -0.6 pitch value. The pitch has allowed a 91 mph exit velocity on the 2021 season and has allowed four home runs. (five if you count what shows up as a two seamer on Baseball Savant). 

Fastball command seems to be a factor in Alcala’s fastball turning in negative value, as even though he’s decreased his walk rate in 2021, his heater clearly still finds the heart of the plate too often.

The other factor at play is that his mistake pitches down the middle of the plate could possibly skate by more often if he had another offering. Luckily, Alcala has started showing a change up a bit more.

Alcala’s used the pitch 13% of the time so far this year as he looks to add it as a regular part of his repertoire. Early returns aren’t too shabby. The pitch has only allowed a .200 batting average and .400 slugging percentage. Not only would further development of the pitch be big to throw any given batter off the trail of his struggling fastball, but it would be an equalizer against left handed hitters, who have an OPS of .839 against him on the year.

2021 has been a huge step back for Alcala as he’s had plenty of opportunity but failed to capitalize. That said, he’s still 25 years old and likely to get plenty of innings this season to build for 2022 and beyond. He's already showing some adjustments that could pay dividends with just a bit more exposure. Alcala was an arm the Twins thought of highly at the time of his acquisition, and he still has plenty of time to make good on their initial assessment.

 

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[operation mindcrime]

Nice article! I think he has a very bright future! I'll be rooting for him!

[mike8791]

Interesting take!  Alcala to date has been a big disappointment.  As you mention, his proclivity for the HR ball has been his downfall.

But my real question is:  why hadn't the Twins' minor league pitching gurus realize early on that his two pitch repertoire would not translate to big league success?  Why is he just learning the importance of a changeup now?  Falvey brought in new pitching instructors to revamp previous administration's failures in developing pitchers, along with  the whiz kid from college ranks to be the pitching coach at the ML level.  Lots of stirring the pot, but the results to date are about the same as under Ryan.  While you can't entirely write off Alcala yet, his lack of progress is either a failure of minor league instruction  or a big swing and miss by the FO in acquiring less talent than they thought they were getting for an all star reliever who would certainly have helped this year.   Until this FO develops some real major league pitching talent, their regime for now has to be rated a colossal failure.  The clock is ticking.

[Tim]

I think he will be fine. Alcala is probably the only young pitcher on the staff this season where I’ve thought you need to trust what you see. If you forget the numbers for a second, which I rarely want to do, his stuff is just too good to ignore. Clean delivery, simple mechanics, easy to repeat. Command will be refined as he develops. The change up will come, he’s too talented. He’s going to figure it out and be a good reliever for years to come.

[Mike Sixel]

30 minutes ago, mike8791 said:

Interesting take!  Alcala to date has been a big disappointment.  As you mention, his proclivity for the HR ball has been his downfall.

But my real question is:  why hadn't the Twins' minor league pitching gurus realize early on that his two pitch repertoire would not translate to big league success?  Why is he just learning the importance of a changeup now?  Falvey brought in new pitching instructors to revamp previous administration's failures in developing pitchers, along with  the whiz kid from college ranks to be the pitching coach at the ML level.  Lots of stirring the pot, but the results to date are about the same as under Ryan.  While you can't entirely write off Alcala yet, his lack of progress is either a failure of minor league instruction  or a big swing and miss by the FO in acquiring less talent than they thought they were getting for an all star reliever who would certainly have helped this year.   Until this FO develops some real major league pitching talent, their regime for now has to be rated a colossal failure.  The clock is ticking.

It's not even one year......I think we have to realize that no human knows everything, and that they need to adjust to success and failure. I think saying they've failed with this player this soon is jumping the gun. Or do we expect perfection in the first two months of new MLB players now?

[Mike Sixel]

To be clear, I'm not in love with the FO and pitching development either......but I think we can't judge their work on one player this fast.

[old nurse]

3 hours ago, mike8791 said:

Interesting take!  Alcala to date has been a big disappointment.  As you mention, his proclivity for the HR ball has been his downfall.

But my real question is:  why hadn't the Twins' minor league pitching gurus realize early on that his two pitch repertoire would not translate to big league success?  Why is he just learning the importance of a changeup now?  Falvey brought in new pitching instructors to revamp previous administration's failures in developing pitchers, along with  the whiz kid from college ranks to be the pitching coach at the ML level.  Lots of stirring the pot, but the results to date are about the same as under Ryan.  While you can't entirely write off Alcala yet, his lack of progress is either a failure of minor league instruction  or a big swing and miss by the FO in acquiring less talent than they thought they were getting for an all star reliever who would certainly have helped this year.   Until this FO develops some real major league pitching talent, their regime for now has to be rated a colossal failure.  The clock is ticking.

Alcala was not in the Twins minor league system that long.  1 full season, 1 month of another season. The trouble with Alcala is consistency. There is no trade for Alcala if he didn't have issues. Houston would have kept him if they were easily fixable. 

The All Star reliever was not an all star reliever with the Twins. Whatever he does in Houston has produced different results than whatever he did when with the Twins. Yes, a reliever with a 3.75 ERA would be a nice addition, which is what Pressley was as a Twin. That generally isn't an All Star. Austudillo has an ERA of 3.00. Not an All Star. Duffey, 3.58. Not an All Star. Taylor Rodgers, not an All Star. 

Yes the e was put in there to irritate you

[USAFChief]

5 hours ago, old nurse said:

Alcala was not in the Twins minor league system that long.  1 full season, 1 month of another season. The trouble with Alcala is consistency. There is no trade for Alcala if he didn't have issues. Houston would have kept him if they were easily fixable. 

The All Star reliever was not an all star reliever with the Twins. Whatever he does in Houston has produced different results than whatever he did when with the Twins. Yes, a reliever with a 3.75 ERA would be a nice addition, which is what Pressley was as a Twin. That generally isn't an All Star. Austudillo has an ERA of 3.00. Not an All Star. Duffey, 3.58. Not an All Star. Taylor Rodgers, not an All Star. 

Yes the e was put in there to irritate you

So ... Houston was able to instantly fix Pressly, but wouldn't be able to fix Alcala?

 

 

 

 

[jorgenswest]

The Twins had control of Pressly in 2018-2019. He could have made a difference to that 2019 team and the Twins will need Alcala or Celestino to have that one season where they are a difference maker on a contending team. 

Of course it isn’t time to give up on a pitcher with 59 career major league innings. I hope the Twins are not even looking at a FIP for a reliever to make this decision. FIP uses home run rate as part of its calculation. Pitcher home run rate needs a very large sample size before it stabilizes. It takes a reliever several years to get there. As a single season measure for a reliever it is pretty useless and the data cited above was for a partial season. xFIP uses strikeout and walk rates which stabilize in a much smaller sample and give a better picture over a full season for a reliever. At this point Alcala’s xFIP is 4.23 on a team with a xFIP of 4.37. His xFIP is better than that of Duffey(4.50), Colome(4.46) or Robles(4.58). 

We didn’t trade a Robles or Colome to get Alcala. We traded Pressly who had an xFIP of 2.21 in the control season of 2019. At the time of the trade in 2018 he had an xFIP of 2.85 for the Twins. Little fixing was needed. We need that kind of performance from Alcala in his prime seasons.

Note: xFIP uses strikeout and walk rates which stabilize at 70 and 170 batters faced respectively. The four Twin relievers above have a range of 131(Alcala) to 163(Robles) batters faced.

[USNMCPO]

I know I am not a pitching savant but watching Alcala last night was interesting. It looked to me (from the camera angles we had) that there was hardly any movement on his fastball. Big league hitters will feast if that is the case.

[twinfan]

Weirdo stats that may not make sense. Pressley had a high side and potential that Houston wanted. I don't think many here were happy with that deal at the time. Alcala had not yet had much experience. I don't know what everyone wants from him but I think he still has an upside that can help. He won't be a closer that saves 30 games a season but could obtain 20+ holds when needed. And if the changeup make his other 2 pitches better then look out.

[puckstopper1]

I know that people were not pleased when Elvis left the building, errr, ummm, Pressly was traded, and the trade certainly paid quick dividends for the Astros.

I still have some hope, however, that Alcala can be a successful fixture in the Twins BP.  Only time will tell.

[bean5302]

Opponents are swinging at Alcala's pitches more and they're barreling them up quite a bit. That said, it's not like they've been ripping the cover off the ball against him. I don't expect him to become a dominant closer or something, but I think he'll steady out with some regression away from what seems like some bad luck this year. I am a bit concerned about the K rate drop and corresponding BB rate drop. PTSD from the pitch to contact and avoid walks at all costs years.

[Major League Ready]

3 hours ago, jorgenswest said:

The Twins had control of Pressly in 2018-2019. He could have made a difference to that 2019 team and the Twins will need Alcala or Celestino to have that one season where they are a difference maker on a contending team. 

Of course it isn’t time to give up on a pitcher with 59 career major league innings. I hope the Twins are not even looking at a FIP for a reliever to make this decision. FIP uses home run rate as part of its calculation. Pitcher home run rate needs a very large sample size before it stabilizes. It takes a reliever several years to get there. As a single season measure for a reliever it is pretty useless and the data cited above was for a partial season. xFIP uses strikeout and walk rates which stabilize in a much smaller sample and give a better picture over a full season for a reliever. At this point Alcala’s xFIP is 4.23 on a team with a xFIP of 4.37. His xFIP is better than that of Duffey(4.50), Colome(4.46) or Robles(4.58). 

You make a good point about Alcala having less than 60 innings at the MLB level.  I am not sur how it makes any sense to expect he is anything like Pressly at this point.  Pressly did not produced more than 1 WAR in a given year until his 6th season.

I am curious is to how you believe Pressly would have made a difference in 2019.  They won over 100 games and won the division comfortably.  They got blown out in the first round and the BP had little to do with the loss.  Frankly, I don't think it would have mattered if we would have had Mariano Riveria.  We still don't win a game in that series.  What am I missing?

[jorgenswest]

This is silliness but if they had Pressly 2019…

Would they have had home field advantage with Pressly over the Blake Parker failure as a closer? Would it have made a difference?

The Twins tied things up in the top of the 5th of game 1 and Berrios is taken out. The best they have to bring in is Zach Littell who doesn’t get an out. If the bullpen is deeper can they bring in Duffey? Pressly? If Pressly is the closer do they use Rogers in that spot? If the Twins win in game 1 at home does that change the direction of the series?

There was also collateral damage…

The reality is that the Twins needed bullpen help when they traded Pressly For 2019. In order to fill the hole they signed Blake Parker and released him before the deadline and traded for Sam Dyson. Dyson was a disaster. He also cost them Davis, Berroa and Ting. Davis has an OPS of 1172 in AAA at 26 this year. Berroa is in San Jose with 57 K’s in 41 innings and a 3.24 ERA. Ting is struggling mightily with command but has 59 K’s in 40 innings.

For the trade to be a success it should be judged do we need to factor in the performance of the trio we lost trying to fill the hole created with the Pressly trade?

 

[bean5302]

The Twins' playoff struggles are epic and it's not related to one thing in particular. From the best closer in the game blowing saves to loaded lineups unable to drive in runs. Honestly, I think the biggest issue has been an anemic offense, even when it's loaded with regular season results. Since 2004, in 15 straight playoff losses, the Twins have never scored more than 4 runs and have only scored 4 runs on 3 occasions. Say what you want about the pitching, but 1-3 runs doesn't get you a lot of wins against playoff teams.

 

[old nurse]

8 hours ago, USAFChief said:

So ... Houston was able to instantly fix Pressly, but wouldn't be able to fix Alcala?

 

 

 

 

I thought I was pretty clear in the post. How could I have stated it any simpler for you?

[DocBauer]

I am not going to argue numbers that are present. We can debate number metrics, and often do, and there are so many that they can be skewed slightly to argue different points. But not all of Alcala's numbers are great. There. Done.

But analysis and projection are simply NOT the only way to evaluate a player, especially a young player still developing. I still believe there is room for they proverbial "eye test" when examing a young ballplayer. And while I haven't watched every game....and have been rather absent of late from game discussions...I've watched Alcala a lot. 

What I see is an outstanding FB that is nasty, though he misses at times, and an outstanding slider that also misses at times. Yes, he gets a little wild at times. Nobody wants to admit it, as we all want a big, young arm to dominate, but it does take a little while to learn control and just "how to pitch". Any kind of decent 3rd offering should only increase his potential. But IMO, other than a bit more consistency, what I see is a young guy just learning how to finish off batters and an inning at times.

I've seen Alcala lay an egg to the first hitter, and then set the opponent down. I've seen him, a few times, get 2 outs and look dominate and then allow a big hit with those 2 outs. The NUMBERS don't show a talented arm really close to dominating, but the EYE shows you that a little more time and consistency you might have a really good arm in the pen.

I have a lot of faith he's going to be good to great in the very near future.

[joefish]

I trust the eyes. Eventually they will tell you all we need to know. 

[Major League Ready]

17 hours ago, jorgenswest said:

This is silliness but if they had Pressly 2019…

Would they have had home field advantage with Pressly over the Blake Parker failure as a closer? Would it have made a difference?

The Twins tied things up in the top of the 5th of game 1 and Berrios is taken out. The best they have to bring in is Zach Littell who doesn’t get an out. If the bullpen is deeper can they bring in Duffey? Pressly? If Pressly is the closer do they use Rogers in that spot? If the Twins win in game 1 at home does that change the direction of the series?

There was also collateral damage…

The reality is that the Twins needed bullpen help when they traded Pressly For 2019. In order to fill the hole they signed Blake Parker and released him before the deadline and traded for Sam Dyson. Dyson was a disaster. He also cost them Davis, Berroa and Ting. Davis has an OPS of 1172 in AAA at 26 this year. Berroa is in San Jose with 57 K’s in 41 innings and a 3.24 ERA. Ting is struggling mightily with command but has 59 K’s in 40 innings.

For the trade to be a success it should be judged do we need to factor in the performance of the trio we lost trying to fill the hole created with the Pressly trade?

 

Good lord that is one huge stretch.  I will grant you it's possible they could have gotten home field advantage but its a stretch.  They did not have the hitting or pitching to contend with the Yankees and would have gotten beat regardless of where they played, IMO.  Using these prospects is an even bigger stretch.  Do you honestly believe Davis is going to turn into a player of any impact?  He has been crushing AAA pitching since we had him.  He is 26 and gotten a crack at the MLB level in each of the last 3 years and failed in what is granted a SSS.  However, if he was a good prospect he would stick.  Teng has a 1.54 whip in high A at age 22.  Berroa is still in A ball.  In summary, I think you are really reaching.  The Twins got damaged goods in the Dyson trade.  I am not sure of the cause of that failure but it was the source of the problem, not trading Pressly and to say the Twins would have beat the Yankees that year with Pressly is silliness as you put it.  

[jorgenswest]

My apologies to the thread for going down this path. I should have not taken the bait.

Quote

I am curious is to how you believe Pressly would have made a difference in 2019. 

I gave an honest response and of course it is a stretch. A mid to small market team isn’t ever going to have the best roster. A whole bunch of things need to go their way to be successful in the playoffs. The reality will be a stretch. You give yourself a much better shot with Pressly in the pen as opposed to cheap alternatives in Parker and Dyson. Pressly was already performing at a high level at the time of the trade. The margins for any team but particularly one without the assets of a large market.

Now in a desperate attempt to get this back on track which was the point of my original post. It is way too early to say Alcala’s time is up. The sample is too small (particularly FIP) to support conclusions about his future and there is enoug in his pitch mix to offer encouragement for the future.

[wabene]

On 7/10/2021 at 2:23 AM, old nurse said:

Alcala was not in the Twins minor league system that long.  1 full season, 1 month of another season. The trouble with Alcala is consistency. There is no trade for Alcala if he didn't have issues. Houston would have kept him if they were easily fixable. 

The All Star reliever was not an all star reliever with the Twins. Whatever he does in Houston has produced different results than whatever he did when with the Twins. Yes, a reliever with a 3.75 ERA would be a nice addition, which is what Pressley was as a Twin. That generally isn't an All Star. Austudillo has an ERA of 3.00. Not an All Star. Duffey, 3.58. Not an All Star. Taylor Rodgers, not an All Star. 

Yes the e was put in there to irritate you

It's a d ?