Starting Pitching So Far

[Trov]

We are just starting the 4th trip through our rotation, and so far everyone has looked good.  I am very happy with this, but I want to give some pause to saying we will be great all year.  Many of the guys have either not pitched a full season, new to AL, or coming off of bad years with injuries.  I have long said that does not mean they cannot do well, but we have seen in the past new additions that make changes to approach have early results, only to have the league adjust later in the year and the pitchers regress.  

Now of course Bundy will not have a sub 1 ERA all year, and each guy will have a dud of a start, all pitchers do.  To me, we need to see how they do around trip 6 through 9 of the rotation to get a gage of what we have.  Take Paddack for instance.  He has really added a third pitch, he talked about as such.  Does this added pitch help him long term, or is the league just not scouted it, and after they do they will start rocking him?  I believe other guys have changed up their pitch usages as well.  If the league starts to see the new usage and adjusts to it, will the pitchers adjust to that or will they fail? 

Lets enjoy the run they are getting off to, but I will not assume they will be like this all year.  Baseball is a game of adjusting and readjusting.  If we can stay ahead of the other teams I have high hopes for the team.  Our offense will get better, and if our starters can start getting into 7th on the regular with 1 to 3 runs allowed we should put up a lot of wins. 

[gunnarthor]

My take is that this pitching staff is pitching out of their minds. If the staff finishes the season with a 117 ERA+, we're a lock for the playoffs. I think Bundy and Ryan are real pitchers and Bundy's success isn't a surprise to me - I called it! But Paddack is the only pitcher who is pitching like I expected. 

So, eventually, we're going to see some starters knocked out pretty early, the pen start to get taxed, AAA arms get rotated into the pen. And how they make those adjustments will probably define the pitching this year.

[Dave The Dastardly]

Joe Ryan  3-1   ERA  1.17   Whip .70

Bundy  3-0  ERA .59  Whip .72

Ober  1-1  ERA 2.81  Whip 1.0

My cup runneth over.

[LA VIkes Fan]

Love he idea of those 3 in the rotation all year, but we probably won't get more than 150 innings apiece out of them and probably a little less.  I actually like what we've seen of Paddock so far - he could be a solid #3/#4 type for the next 3 years we have control of him. Add in Gray and it actually looks like a MLB rotation. Who would have thought?  The big issue is that none of these guys look like 180 plus inning guys based on their past so we will need depth. I'm actually kind of bullish on Winder, less so on Archer. Looking at AAA, the only starter going well is Smeltzer. We're starting guys like Jake Faria, JC Ramirez, Chi Chi Gonzalez,  and Derek Rodriguez, with the kind of predictable mediocre AAA results. Be interesting to see what we do when we need to go beyond the 7 guys we have on the MLB roster. 

[stringer bell]

2 minutes ago, LA VIkes Fan said:

Love he idea of those 3 in the rotation all year, but we probably won't get more than 150 innings apiece out of them and probably a little less.  I actually like what we've seen of Paddock so far - he could be a solid #3/#4 type for the next 3 years we have control of him. Add in Gray and it actually looks like a MLB rotation. Who would have thought?  The big issue is that none of these guys look like 180 plus inning guys based on their past so we will need depth. I'm actually kind of bullish on Winder, less so on Archer. Looking at AAA, the only starter going well is Smeltzer. We're starting guys like Jake Faria, JC Ramirez, Chi Chi Gonzalez,  and Derek Rodriguez, with the kind of predictable mediocre AAA results. Be interesting to see what we do when we need to go beyond the 7 guys we have on the MLB roster. 

I just read that Jordie Blaze (Jordan Balazovic) will be doing a rehab start soon. I've always thought that he profiled better than Winder. Last year, he missed the start of the season because of a back injury (IIRC) and this year, it has been his knee. At least, it hasn't been arm issues to set him back. Simeon Woods-Richardson is starting tonight for Wichita. He has been lights out so far for the Wind Surge. Canterino has pitched a couple of times for Wichita, but only short starts. He also has great stuff if he can stay healthy.

[Doctor Gast]

Trov I agree with you. There was a lot of ?s in the beginning of ST and a lot of disappointments. This rotation has exceeded my expectations. It'll be very interesting how Ryan & Ober will shake out throughout the season to see what they really have and how they adjust. 

Gray was our greatest hope but there is some doubt about his condition. Bundy & Archer I have high hopes, Bundy has been spectaclar and Archer has progressed further than I expected with much more upside left. 

If Paddack continue to progress, we'll have an interesting problem of going with a 6 man rotation (which I'm not in favor of) or a 5 man. It's a great problem to have, also have Winder (who has sufficient experience now) and Smeltzer (who has done well from the beginning & a vet).  With other prospects like SWR coming up we'll have pretty good depth.

If this rotation remains fresh & strong, I expect great things. I believe the offense is starting to heat up so this team will surprise a lot people. 

[chpettit19]

I think it's all playing out perfectly. Everyone who's been asked to start has been good in almost every start. They won't all make it through the entire season and reach 150+ innings. But there's currently 7 starters on the major league roster. Those 7 should get the majority of the starter innings during the season and "the pipeline" will fill in the gaps. That's how you draw it up.

We've seen Gray go down already, but he'll be back soon. The rest of them will likely miss 10 days here, 10 days there. That's to be expected. That's why it's good to have 7 guys who look like legit MLB pitchers to this point already on the roster with someone like Smeltzer dominating in AAA and SWR absolutely shredding AA. Dobnak comes back at some point this season. As @stringer bell noted, Balazovic is set to make a rehab start this weekend before joining a rotation somewhere in the system. Henriquez is set to start today in St Paul I believe. Cole Sands is making starts in AAA. This is how you draw it up. Have a rotation in the bigs doing the job while you buildup their support in the system. As openings come in Minneapolis you fill them with the 7 guys you already have there and move the current minor leaguers into the spots in the majors to get their feet wet. Now we just need to hope the entire rotation doesn't collapse. Much harder to replace all 7 guys than just 1 here and there.

[mk]

Let's Go! 

The biggest problem will be moving to the 8-man rotation when Maeda and Dobnak come back later this year (joking)

But you're right. For example, J.A. Happ had a 1.91 ERA after 5 starts last year.