The Reds will promote right-hander Michael Lorenzen to take a start on Wednesday, C. Trent Rosecrans of the Cincinnati Enquirer tweets. The 23-year-old was taken in the first round of the 2013 draft.
Lorenzen entered the season rated as the game’s 63rd-best overall prospect in the eyes of Baseball Prospectus, while Fangraphs’ Kiley McDaniel ranked him 88th. He was a position player and closer in college, and built up relatively few innings before jumping to 120 2/3 Double-A frames last year. But they were good ones: he posted a 3.13 ERA with 6.3 K/9 against 3.3 BB/9.
Thus far in 2015, Lorenzen has allowed just six earned runs over 19 innings covering three starts. He has just 12 strikeouts in that span, hardly a dominant rate, but has only permitted four free passes.
As McDaniel explains, Lorenzen has already pleasantly surprised with the rapidity of his development and may yet have some ceiling to strive for. The Reds will once again push him forward fairly aggressively, now by asking him to step in for the injured Homer Bailey at the game’s highest level.
If he keeps his roster spot for the rest of the year, Lorenzen will be in good shape to quality down the road for Super Two status. While that would obviously enhance his earning power, he would still be controllable for six seasons after 2015.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
He looked good in ST so hopefully this fills the Homer Bailey void. Now can we please DFA Kevin Gregg and put Raisel in the bullpen to help that atrocious situation?
As bad as Gregg is I think Badenhop is even worse!
Nah Badenhop has a good track record. He will be fine
I don’t know he couldn’t even close the game out with what I believe was a 9-2 lead last night.
He has been bad since spring training ! something is wrong. He was literally unhittable for red sox last year!
I was really hoping to see Raisel Iglesias get a chance in the rotation. I suppose I will have to wait until the inevitable demise of Jason Marquis by July.
After July, Cueto and Leake could be gone too, so he could get his chance then too.
Time flies. I remember Michael when he literally was a baby. Growing up, his grandparents were my next door neighbors.
I played against him 2 or 3 times in high school, really didn’t think he was that great back then. Maybe we just caught him on off days. Good for him making it to the show.
It’s funny to hear people say they played against some big leaguer in HS or college and they always say the same thing: He wasn’t that great when I played against him. LMAO
Someone needs removed from the 40 man, hopefully it’s Gregg