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OT: The Toronto Blue Jays

You'll be in tough to find many (any?) top pitchers with a comparable control history to sanchez and norris.
 
Kyle Crick right off the top of my head, walking nearly 6 per 9. Guys with outstanding stuff that moves a lot will have control problem often when they're developing because they don't always know where their pitches are going. Once they harness it, watch out. Alex Meyer is walking 4.4 per 9. Robert Stephenson is walking 4.95 per 9. Those are all top pitching prospects who profile out as 1/2 guys.
 
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Taking a quick look through the top 20 pitchers in the league right now and seeing Scherzer, Lester, Sanchez, and Kershaw have significant control problems early in their career.

That of course was just a really quick look, like 2 minutes. Sanchez I can see the issue with his control profile (he was always about projection because of how lanky he was/is and how much action there is on everything he throws), but Norris? His control got a bit dodgy as 20 yr old in A ball, and again this year in AA after the promotion...but his BB rate and K/BB definitely fit in with a fairly large chunk of top pitchers in MLB.
 
Mike Wilner
This is not the real Ken Rosenthal. @TheKennyM: Lester to the Pirates is imminent. Hearing 2 other Red Sox involved.
 
Deckie007 said:
Kyle Crick right off the top of my head, walking nearly 6 per 9. Guys with outstanding stuff that moves a lot will have control problem often when they're developing because they don't always know where their pitches are going. Once they harness it, watch out. Alex Meyer is walking 4.4 per 9. Robert Stephenson is walking 4.95 per 9. Those are all top pitching prospects who profile out as 1/2 guys.
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Not to be a jerk, but i'm looking for guys who have translated that successfully to mlb, not prospects who may be overrated in the same way.

Its easy to be seduced by the stuff, and just wait for them to "harness" it....but in reality, that doesn't happen very often.

And for the record, Meyer never had control problems at the lower levels, and his K numbers have always been through the roof, unlike sanchez. But even then, his steadily increasing BB rate at his last two stops is starting to become a worry.
 
zeke said:
Not to be a jerk, but i'm looking for guys who have translated that successfully to mlb, not prospects who may be overrated in the same way.

Its easy to be seduced by the stuff, and just wait for them to "harness" it....but in reality, that doesn't happen very often.

And for the record, Meyer never had control problems at the lower levels, and his K numbers have always been through the roof, unlike sanchez. But even then, his steadily increasing BB rate at his last two stops is starting to become a worry.
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Fair enough, misread the statement. As for "harnessing it", if a pitcher Ks at a high rate in AA/AAA and has a reasonable ERA/FIP because he's giving up weak contact, I tend not to worry much about the BB rate as opposed to a guy that's giving up lots of hits and not as many BB.
 
I think you're over stating this. A lot of pitchers spend their time in the minor leagues having their mechanics tweaked and being encouraged to throw a lot of their secondary pitches instead of working from plus to plus-plus fastballs. Even sabremetrics guys tell you to take minor league numbers with a grain of salt, within reason.
 
MindzEye said:
Taking a quick look through the top 20 pitchers in the league right now and seeing Scherzer, Lester, Sanchez, and Kershaw have significant control problems early in their career.

That of course was just a really quick look, like 2 minutes. Sanchez I can see the issue with his control profile (he was always about projection because of how lanky he was/is and how much action there is on everything he throws), but Norris? His control got a bit dodgy as 20 yr old in A ball, and again this year in AA after the promotion...but his BB rate and K/BB definitely fit in with a fairly large chunk of top pitchers in MLB.
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Goddammit wrote up a post and then lost it.

Short version:

1) you're right that norris' numbers aren't as worrisome as Sanchez'. Sanchez 4.8bb/9 with only 8.8k/9 is pretty much impossible to find successful comparables to. Norris problem is that in addition to still valid control issues, his run prevention hasn't been very good either.

2) Lester is a good comparable for poor peripherals. His milb 3.8 / 8.3 line wasn't pretty. Scherzer had some control issues (3.7bb/9) though all his other numbers were through the roof to make up for it. Anibal never had any control issues, while Kershaw had a one year blip in bb/9 but has otherwise never had control issues. Probably related to practicing a new pitch.

You may have convinced me that norris has a decent chance butbi have to note that his bb/9 (3.9) was still worse than all those names you mentioned, while none of his other numbers are anywhere as good.

Except for lester i guess.

Goddamn those red sox. All these studs pedroia, lester, ortiz, youkilis that never had the track record to predict that kind of success. I suspect heavy steroid usage in boston.
 
Deckie007 said:
Fair enough, misread the statement. As for "harnessing it", if a pitcher Ks at a high rate in AA/AAA and has a reasonable ERA/FIP because he's giving up weak contact, I tend not to worry much about the BB rate as opposed to a guy that's giving up lots of hits and not as many BB.
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those ifs don't really apply to sanchez and norris unfortunately. Sanchez doesn't have the K numbers and norris doesn't have the era/fip numbers outside of his stint in A+ this year.
 
zeke said:
Goddammit wrote up a post and then lost it.

Short version:

1) you're right that norris' numbers aren't as worrisome as Sanchez'. Sanchez 4.8bb/9 with only 8.8k/9 is pretty much impossible to find successful comparables to. Norris problem is that in addition to still valid control issues, his run prevention hasn't been very good either.

2) Lester is a good comparable for poor peripherals. His milb 3.8 / 8.3 line wasn't pretty. Scherzer had some control issues (3.7bb/9) though all his other numbers were through the roof to make up for it. Anibal never had any control issues, while Kershaw had a one year blip in bb/9 but has otherwise never had control issues. Probably related to practicing a new pitch.

You may have convinced me that norris has a decent chance butbi have to note that his bb/9 (3.9) was still worse than all those names you mentioned, while none of his other numbers are anywhere as good.

Except for lester i guess.

Goddamn those red sox. All these studs pedroia, lester, ortiz, youkilis that never had the track record to predict that kind of success. I suspect heavy steroid usage in boston.
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I think you're putting too much stock in the minutiae of minor league statistics man. They're a nice guide post, but there aren't really any professional evaluators that use them as gospel...and this is baseball where a professional evaluator is very comfortable with statistical evaluation.

There's just too much that the organization does regarding development that isn't based on maximizing current statistical value.


But yes, watching the Red Sox fluke their ****ing way into stud after stud has been aggravating. They are a fantastic organization at drafting and development though.
 
As for Masterson...he's seen a 2mph drop in velocity this year and big uptick in BB/9

Dr Andrews should be kept on speed dial.
 
MindzEye said:
I think you're putting too much stock in the minutiae of minor league statistics man. They're a nice guide post, but there aren't really any professional evaluators that use them as gospel...and this is baseball where a professional evaluator is very comfortable with statistical evaluation.

There's just too much that the organization does regarding development that isn't based on maximizing current statistical value.


But yes, watching the Red Sox fluke their ****ing way into stud after stud has been aggravating. They are a fantastic organization at drafting and development though.
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I don't think i am at all.

The numbers made it clear to me that guys like stro and hutch were underrated prospects, and guys like drabek and wallace were overrated. In fact drabek was te last straw for me....i let the "scouts" convince me he was a good prospect despite the stats screaming at me that he wasn't. That's the last time i let scouts tell me that magic arms can overcome years of troubling stats.

For all the talk from guys like Tabler about some players being better in mlb than they were in milb, that's really a bunch of bs. It doesn't really happen.
 
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