“I have greater concern probably this year about our pitching health than I did last year,” Reds VP of player development Shawn Pender told The Cincinnati Enquirer’s Bobby Nightengale and other reporters about the club’s minor league hurlers. After the canceled 2020 minor league season and a shortened 2021 minor league season, there really isn’t any sense of normality in 2022, especially since the Triple-A schedule will actually be longer than usual. Returning pitching prospects to their old routine isn’t feasible after two seasons of a staggered or non-existent workload, especially since many of the younger arms entering the minor league ranks over the last two years have never really had any sort of set routine.
How teams plan to deal with this issue will vary from organization to organization, but the Reds’ plan for the moment is to have 16-17 pitchers available at each minor league level, either on an active roster or on a developmental list to act as extra depth. Many of the youngest (under age-23) pitchers in Cincinnati’s system have yet to arrive at early minor league camp, as Pender said the team is thus far focusing on its more experienced minor league pitchers “so we give them more of an opportunity to build up properly under our watch as opposed to sending them directions about things we want them to do.” In general, the Reds’ minor league relievers are all being prepared for multi-inning relief outings or even short, opener-style starts, to give extra cover to the regular starting pitchers as they continue to build up their workloads.
More from around the majors…
- The Phillies believe they’ve found a hidden gem in 2021 fifth-round draft pick Griff McGarry, a hard-throwing right-hander from the University of Virginia. The Athletic’s Matt Gelb reports that other teams asked the Phils about McGarry in trade talks prior to the lockout, after McGarry posted a 2.96 ERA over his first 24 1/3 pro innings and struck out a whopping 43 of 100 batters faced. A lack of control led to a lot of inconsistency in McGarry’s collegiate career (explaining his drop to the fifth round), and that issue has yet to be entirely solved, as evidenced by the righty’s 14% walk rate in 2021. However, McGarry has already shown enough that “at worst, the Phillies think McGarry is a high-octane reliever in the majors,” Gelb writes. Philadelphia director of player development Preston Mattingly cited McGarry’s “four pitches that can all grade out as plus,” and with this kind of repertoire, it isn’t surprising that the Phillies will give McGarry every opportunity to start.
- Finding quality catchers has never been easy, and the mental aspect of the position and a young catcher’s ability to handle and connect with a pitcher remains an x-factor even in a sport increasingly dominated by analytics. “Unfortunately, there is no way to absolutely quantify catching,” one National League GM tells The Athletic’s Peter Gammons, and thus each team approaches the position in a different manner. Some clubs are looking at players in their systems who play other positions and experimenting with them behind the plate, while other teams go the traditional route and draft catchers out of college or high school. The potential problem with the latter tactic, in the opinion of another GM, is that college coaches “want to call every pitch, so a lot of big programs don’t develop the mental part of catching” and “increasingly high school kids are playing the showcase circuit, where it’s not important to build relationships and all that is important is the individual skills.”
I’m excited to see what Griff does this year. Given the lack of higher-floor pitching talent in the system I think DD would be wise not to deal him.
Me too! Not sure if you get the Athletic, but there was a really good article there about him the other day. Even if he can just be a lights out reliever that would be great.
Oh yeah it says that in the article. My bad.
No problem. I am not a subscriber but certainly respect their work.
6-man rotation. You’re welcome.
I hope that Griff get’s the nickname “Crime Dog”, if he doesn’t already.
And yes, I know it’s been used before, but Fred McGriff is long since retired.
Nah. That’s my nickname. Lol
Imitation is the highest form of flattery.
He’s got Leo McGarry’s last name, no need to change that.
Thank God for analytical minded people. A 5+ Era in the ACC…yep! Good work by Philadelphia.
If only scouting was a simple as picking the guy with the best stats. We could just automate the position away and save a lot of miles on the speedometer.
Not sure what the Phillies saw in his first professional season to make them think he is a breakout candidate. During his 4 years at Virginia, McGarry walked as many hitters as he had innings pitched – 134 innings pitched and 131 BBs. That’s not a typo. All 4 of his individual collegiate seasons yielded the same result – as many BBs as innings pitched. He then added 14 BBs in 24 innings as a first-year pro.
There is next to zero chance he sticks as a starter, and the Phillies will surely waste three development years insisting he can be a starter. He’s a long shot to be a contributor of any sort, but he’s a much more interesting prospect as a back-end reliever than he is as a starter who would never rise above AAAA ~
Because his K rate is absolutely absurd and there’s reason to believe that if he can hold his own for long enough in the minors with the BB issue starting, than he’s got a good shot to be a good RP. And the point made by Gelb that the external validation of other teams calling up on a seemingly flawed prospect makes you wonder if you are valuing said prospect high enough.
I hear you. How many teams inquired and what value they placed on McGarry is unclear. His K rate at low-A Clearwater was absurd. So was the small sample of 11 innings. He also had a 5.73 BB/9. He won’t make it past Reading with that ratio. A 4-year collegiate, 2022 will probably tell us all we need to know about his chances of being a contributor on a big league roster.
Well if you read the article in the Athletic … they go into why they feel this way. His last few starts his senior year things clicked for him and he absolutely dealt… his coaching staff and many scouts think that he may have turned the corner … is it way too early to suspect that he has ironed everything out? For sure. But I believe it is also to early to just write the kid off… Phils are saying all the right things in terms of changing their player development… let’s see if they are actually headed in the right direction. This will be a good case study.
The use of pitcher after pitcher after pitcher each game and all the “match-ups” is one of the many reasons why baseball is boring to most people as well as culturally irrelevant and on the way out more and more with each passing year. There could be no season at all this year and the country would hardly notice or care, and basically everyone knows it.
then why are you here?
To provide a dose of reality and encourage drastic changes in the game. It’s in all likelihood too late for the sport to be saved, even if they finally instituted the necessary changes now, it’s probably just too late for “baseball”. Began playing it when I was 6 and still love to play adult rec coed softball (as well as some informal baseball on occasion of batting practice/fielding practice).
Get off my lawn
In fact, even the fans who attend the games need to largely be distracted from the game itself with a wider “fan experience” that’s promoted/emphasized/expanded more and more with each passing year. Much, much, much more than the fans who attend the games of the other sports. Even the attending “baseball” fans need distractions from the largely slow paced, annoying, tedious, boring game. It’s culturally irrelevant and extremely boring to almost everyone who didn’t play/watch it from a young age and it’s on the way out more and more with each passing year. And almost everyone knows it.
Sorry that we bore you. Stop wasting your time here. They also have Pro Football Rumors. You might find that more on the ascent than baseball.
I find people who reply to their own comments to repeat the same bad one-liners are boring and culturally irrelevant, and I think people who feel that commenting on MLBTR will somehow actually contribute to the change in the rules of baseball are delusional and that they need a dose of reality.
The Phillies will improve to 83-79 this year.
The Phillies track record says they may not know a diamond in the rough if it jumps out and hits them. Hoping for the best, but geez they cannot develop pitching.
to be fair, that’s kinda why basically everyone who was responsible for that in the past was fired.
That is true. The thing that gets me is their problems have been for generations. Outside of Hamels and Nola, they really haven’t developed good pitching…like ever.
Don’t anger the Wolf-pack……
Two words: Ranger Suarez.
When does Harper demand a trade?
when he wants to uproot his family?
When Vegas gets a team!!
after this season and another 500 season guarantee and I would do it in a heartbeat while you can get some players.
I agree with the comment about catchers being difficult to value analytically. I attended one of the MIT Sloan Analytics Seminars quite a few years back now and that was the consensus then as well. The comment was that you can look at the limited data and surmise that someone’s good at it, but there aren’t really enough numbers to support the argument. So you look for additional data that supports your supposition which is a little dangerous. The result is that some people tend to focus on things like stolen base percentages which have a minimal impact. Or look at framing statistics which are only slightly helpful at best. It is easily the position filled with the most intangibles. I remember meeting Carlton Fisk when I was wearing my Clarence De Mar marathon shirt. He took one look at my shirt and said, “You’re even crazier than me.” We both got a good laugh. I think Pudge finished a marathon every game walking out to the mound so many times. I would have loved to pitch to him.
Griff McGarry. Grandson of former Hoboken Zephyrs manager Mouth McGarry?
No. McGarry Maddox
Why did it take other teams asking about McGarry in trade talks to realize they may have
a hidden gem.That is what is wrong with this organization they should have known and that
is why they SUCK at developing players.They have no clue who is good and who is bad and they seem to go more for the bad ones.