Our pitching is hot, but some ex-prospects are not

Beerleaguer’s senior correspondent alerts us to some former farm hands who’ve dropped the ball with their new clubs.

Gio Gonzalez: With Triple-AAA Sacramento (A’s), the 22-year-old left-hander allowed five runs on seven hits and five walks in four innings in a loss to Iowa, his second five-run outing in as many appearances. On the season, Gonzalez, who was bypassed by Greg Smith when a spot opened in Oakland’s rotation, is 0-2 with a 5.00 ERA and 21/16 K/BB ratio. Opponents are hitting almost .300 against him.

Matt Maloney: Another left-hander getting hit consistently in Triple-A, Maloney allowed five runs his last outing and is now 2-2 with a 7.24 ERA in six starts for Louisville (Reds). His 28 strikeouts are solid, but opponents are hitting .327 against him.

Justin Germano: Germano, who spent most of the season in San Diego's rotation, shot out of the gate with three good starts, but his last three have been a train wreck, allowing 10, 6 and 5 runs to Houston, Arizona and Florida. The 25-year-old right-hander is scheduled to pitch Thursday against Atlanta, but yesterday manager Bud Black hinted at making a switch. Left-handers Wil Ledezma and Glendon Rusch are considered candidates to replace Germano, who "needs to pitch perfect to survive, even at Petco," as Baseball Prospectus puts it.

Others pitching poorly: Eude Brito; 8.18 ERA Double-A Binghamton (Mets); Anderson Garcia, shelled in two appearances with Class-A High Desert (Seattle).

Hot: Brian Sanches; 1.10 ERA, 5 SV, 20 IP, 24/3 K/BB ratio Triple-A Columbus (Washington)

Hot in Mexican League: Yoel Hernandez; 1 ER in last seven innings.

Comments

[Wayne]

I guess Gillick knew what he was doing when he either traded or released them.

[GM-Carson]

I compiled a list of Phormer Phillies pitchers doing well around the Majors about 2 weeks ago that Weitzel put in a post. Almost every single one of those pitchers has hit some hard times recently.

[The_GodfatherSJP]

Kind of makes you wonder what the actual success rate of prospects is. I mean if you draft 10 guys but only expect say 3 to contribute in some form in the Majors, that's a fairly bad ratio, no? Of course one would expect the "rate" to drop the further down a guy gets drafted.

[clout]

Godfather: I think the success rate is actually much lower than that if you include all the players drafted every year by all the major league teams. Obviously most of the later round guys are not ever expected to make it. I'd say 30% success rate might apply to the top 2 rounds, but I bet it's even high for that.

[Bedrosian's Beard]

Maybe Kenny Williams knew something when he traded Gio twice...

[Willard Preacher]

I'm thinking 3 out of 10 is probably about right (or high), as well. For every Cole Hamels there are a whole lot of Brien Taylor's and Tyler Green's.

The math would lean itself to agree - every team employs between 5-10 starters in a year (with some notable exceptions). If the typical career for a pitcher can last 10-15 years, there aren't a whole lot of openings in the bigs to begin with. Many of the top tier prospects are planned for. The next tier has to have luck on their side. The tier after that may need to think about making a name for themselves via the 'pen. Tier 4 are the career minor leaguers/big time busts. I think most of the guys above fall somewhere between tiers 2 and 3.

[MG]

I do know that 90% of players drafted never play a game in the big leagues and that a sizable number of "Top 50" prospects" don't pan out.

[Andy]

I'm not holding my breath on any of those guys except Gio. I still think he's gonna make it some day.

Everybody knew that Maloney, OTOH, was an outstanding AA pitcher.

Sanches, likewise, always puts up amazing minor league stats. His peripherals, before the Phils brought him up, indicated he could cut it anywhere. He couldn't.

[Andy]

If Billy Beane is disappointed, I'd send him Monasterios and Jesus Sanchez for Gio, no questions asked. I'd even send him Carl Henry, you know, if we had managed to hang onto that "hot prospect."

[MG]

No reason to get excited or down about what a prospect is doing in April unless they are trying to come back from an injury or they have moved up a few levels/trying to prove themselves.

[AWH the RBP]

The pressure is obviously on Germano because the Pads are in the cellar and sinking fast. Their offense is so bad they can't afford to give up too many runs.

It looks like we got the best out of Brito in the brief stint he was in a Phillies uniform.

Is Maloney's BABIP abnormally high?

Gio's K/BB ratio is much higher than it has been historically, and his K's are lower per IP than they have been. Command issues?

After looking at the list, I'm all for bringing Yoel Hernandez back.

[MG]

Reason #182 why Beerleaguer is the best source of news on the Phils (well you have to give the nod to PhuturePhillies for updates on the minors):

An update on Yoel. My only memory of him last year was watching him pitch in his first game as a Phil in SF (a game I was at) and get lite up. I was asked by a friend who the hell this guy and I said a member of the "Value Village." Explained to him and he just laughed.

[AWH the RBP]

Also, this is Gio's first crack @ AAA ball. It may take him some time to adjust.

I'm with Andy. I'd bring him back in if there's the chance.

[AWH the RBP]

Foxsports is reporting JRoll had 4 hits in a rehab game.

Could be back by Thursday.

Link:

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/8107970/Rollins-has-4-hits-in-rehab-game

Keep your fingers crossed!

[AWH the RBP]

The link on the left (Rotoworld) report that Cleveland are set to cut Jason Michaels.

Any interest?

[clout]

Just for fun I went back and looked at the 41 players drafted in the first round in 2002. You'd expect them to have at least tasted The Show by now.

Of the 41 drafted, 23 have played in the bigs. Four of them can be fairly described as fringe players who won't stick (or are already out of baseball). Of the remaining 19, 9 could be described as really good players (Fielder, Kazmir, Hamels, Swisher, Loney, Francoeur, Greene, Francis, Hermida). A few more are OK and could achieve that higher level (Teahen, Cain, Blanton, Saunders.) The remaining 6 look like mediocrities.

[clout]

AWH: If J-Mike could play third, I'd be all over it.

[Inside/Outside the Parker]

Everyone wanting to trade Howard for Ian Kennedy/Phil Hughes:

Second thoughts?

Success rate of pitchers is way too low to risk trading a guy like Howard, unless there is no other option. There is no way that Kennedy and Hughes combined, even last season before they had their bubble burst, are as valuable as Howard. They have time to improve, but one or both of them could fall flat on their face and never recover. It would be like getting two Gavin Floyd's for Frank Thomas (late 20's prime).

[bay_area_phan]

clout: A similar fun exercise is to do a Google search for some team's draft picks in some random year. Or, if you want to be slightly less than random, pick a team like the Braves or Twins who are known for their successful minor league system. To give you an example how this works, I typed in "1999 Atlanta Braves draft." Up popped a list of all their draft picks from that year -- all 50 of them. A few have had a cup of coffee in the majors, but there literally wasn't one I had ever heard of.

A major league draft is a success if it yields one starting major league player. If it yields two starers, or a starter and a couple valuable reserves, it qualifies as a coup.

[bay_area_phan]

To add another layer to the fun, I next typed "Philadelphia Phillies 1999 draft." Turns out their first pick that year was Brett Myers. Not a bad pick. They also got Marlon Byrd in Round 10 &, in Round 37, they got Kameron Loe, who is now a fringe starter/reliever with Texas.

The name that stuck out to me, however, was Joe Saunders, whom the Phillies drafted in the 5th round that year. I immediately wondered: could this be the same Joe Saunders who is 6-0 with a 2.61 ERA for the Angels this year? Further research revealed that it could be, and is, the same guy. The Phils drafted him out of high school in the 5th round, but failed to sign him. He then went to Virginia Tech, and ended up being picked by the Angels in the first round of the 2002 draft. Not that he could help our present team or anything . . .

[The_GodfatherSJP]

Clout,

Actually that seems pretty high. 19 out of 41 is about 46% of the draft picks who are contributing (note to snarks: observe the language here, I said CONTRIBUTE, that doesn't mean good, it means EMPLOYED FULL TIME BY A MAJOR LEAGUE TEAM). Drop the mediocre players are you're at 32%, seems about right for our guesses. All depends on how you want to parse the numbers. You could argue "Hey, 9 out of 41 first rounders are quality players, that's 21%, that's a little low!"

Of course this leads into an argument of what exactly constitutes a draft pick bust, and how do they occur? Would a bust be someone who is expected to become another Willie Mays, but puts up Abreu's numbers instead (Note the nuance here, Abreu's stats are good, just not superstar worthy)? Where's the line between a bust and someone who's just not as good as expected?

[Bedrosian's Beard]

FWIW,

I think the Beerleaguer "offer" was Hughes/Chamberlain for Howard.

[fljerry]

You think maybe the scouts have picked up something that Howard is doing wrong and Howard may not be as good as we think he is.
Howard at this time looks like another Adam Dunn. Its actually a wonder that Phils are in first place since we have so many automatic outs in our lineup (including Howard). Burrell should now be batting 4th and move Howard to 5th. they can now pitch around Utley but with Burrell there, they can't. I myself was not a big Burrell fan but he sure has changed me. He looks like an excellent hitter up there.

[typhoon]

BAP: Saunders will come back to earth. He could still help the Phillies but he is not a #1 starter.

[ColonelTom]

Gonzalez had the same sort of command issues when he first jumped to AA (81 BB in 155 IP). He made the adjustment the following year when repeating AA (57 BB in 150 IP). He sounds like a guy getting intimidated when jumping a level and trying to pitch away from contact. I'm not sure that bodes well for his future success, but he's still got a ton of potential.

[ColonelTom]

I think they're leaving Howard in front of Burrell, who's obviously hitting much better right now, so that Howard will see more fastballs. Those numbers are ugly, though. He's not exactly helping his case for a Miguel Cabrera-like long-term deal, is he?

[SamDracula]

Gio had a terrific spring and would've made the team if it wasn't for Greg Smith (1 of 5 top prospects that Beane got for Haren) and Dana Eveland (the throwin in the Haren deal). I'm not worried about kids. For the most part, pitchers don't learn to "pitch" until they're in the mid to late 20s. Looks like Gavin Floyd may be maturing into a "pitcher", huh?