Dress Down Day

It’s Friday and everyone’s loosened their ties a little, maybe even worn jeans instead of dress pants into the office and, when I sat down to write this little old blog, I kind of had that Friday feeling and thought I’d just go with. This might end up being purely stream of conscious and might not even make that much sense but I just fancied writing something a little more relaxed, so here we go.

Imagine if there were a 21-year-old guy at a premium offensive position in his second big league season who hit exactly .300 in his rookie season and was now hitting .375 with a .398 OBP and a .513 slugging percentage while playing improved defense at one of the most important defensive positions. Wouldn’t you think there would be regular tributes to his immense talents and his incredible long term potential? Well we have the player in the Cubs Starlin Castro but, as yet, he hasn’t been getting the kind of pub his numbers deserve and it seems somewhat mystifying. In his rookie season Castro had 506 plate appearances and put up a line of .300/.347/.408 while the NL Rookie of the Year, the Giants Buster Posey, had a slash line that read .305/.357/.505. As you can see the only drastically distinguishable talent is Posey’s power while the San Francisco catcher had 63 less plate appearances than Chicago shortstop. The intriguing thing to begin this season is that, although it is around 20 games into the season, Castro has not had a precipitous drop in production like other players that started hot (see Adam Lind). Looking at the advanced stats Castro’s BABIP is inflated which would usually indicate an impending offensive recession, the difference with the 21 year old is his career BABIP, including the Minor Leagues, is about 50 points above league average meaning that this might just be the way he hits. I just thought it was really weird that Castro isn’t being touted for all kinds of accolades but, whether it’s because he’s playing for an unreadable Cubs team or not, there doesn’t seem to be much hype around a projectable young player.

There are three very interesting young pitchers in the AL (I’m not including the Oakland A’s who have three on their own) who all profile as front of the rotation starters but have very different profiles. Michael Pineda has built up a lot of hype for himself with his power stuff and gigantic frame and has been equally dynamic in his first taste of the Major League mound. His mid to upper 90’s fastball has generated a 7.45 strikeout per nine innings rate which is interestingly the lowest it has been in his career, in fact in three minor league seasons this never dipped below 8 K/9 and peaked at 10.97 in any substantial sample size. The problem is that thanks to the Mariners bringing Pineda up early this year they denied him a chance to develop a genuine off speed pitch to get out the tough lefties he will face. Because of this lack of top notch secondary stuff Pineda could get shelled a couple of time with lefty heavy line-ups sitting on his fastball, and this brings about all kind of questions about the Seattle organisation and the real need to have Pineda up now but that’s for an entire different book...sorry...blog. The most experienced of the three (meaning he pitched in the big leagues last year) is the Blue Jays Kyle Drabek, the son of former Pirate Doug. Drabek moved north of the border as the centrepiece in the Roy Halladay deal and is a genuine centrepiece prospect. In 3 starts last season Drabek put up a 4.76 ERA but with a 3.48 xFIP, relying on his tailing fastball and sharp breaking ball he has improved his stirkeouts per nine innings and has a respectable 3.00 ERA accompanied by a worrying 4.35 xFIP. I have tried to see as much of Drabek as possible despite his best efforts to evade me, a lot of the time he looks like a young pitcher building up his durability as, for the first five or six innings, he looks dominant but when he tires he tires very quickly and gets fly ball happy. Whether Drabek becomes a decent Halladay impersonator is unlikely but if he can keep up his early season form his calling card could be his consistency. After thinking about it a little I actually think that, of this trio, Orioles lefty Zach Britton could have the best career because, at 23, he has a well developed arsenal including a devastating sinker that has produced 56.7% ground ball outs. He also has good secondary stuff including a slider that, when it’s working, can really throw hitter but his sinker will be his money maker. It is a sustainable pitch that really only improves the more he will throw it and more he learns about the art of pitching. While he doesn’t have the workhorse build of Derek Lowe his repertoire is incredibly similar and he is in a rotation a lot earlier in his career than D-Lowe and has landed in a good educational environment. It’s not like Lowe has a bad career either.

Quick Braves footnote about last night’s disheartening walk off loss to the Dodgers. I felt sick watching it and hope that Craig Kimbrel was taken to the metaphorical woodshed for not backing up home plate in the bottom of the ninth.