The A’s are plugging right-hander Mitch Spence into their rotation for at least tonight’s start against the Royals, manager Mark Kotsay announced Friday (X link via Martin Gallegos of MLB.com). It’s not clear whether it’ll be a one-off outing or whether Spence, the top pick in December’s Rule 5 Draft, will be guaranteed multiple starts. Still, given the wide slate of injuries on the Oakland staff — Alex Wood, Paul Blackburn and Joe Boyle are all on the 15-day IL, and Ken Waldichuk just had Tommy John surgery this week — it stands to reason that there’s room for Spence to claim a rotation spot if he performs well.
Through the first seven weeks of the season, Spence has made Oakland’s decision to scoop him up with the top pick in the Rule 5 Draft look wise. The former Yankee farmhand has logged 25 1/3 innings of 4.26 ERA ball in a long-relief role, with a significant portion of the damage against him (four runs) coming in one 4 2/3-inning mop-up effort on May 5. Spence coasted through his first four innings that day, yielding only one run and enjoying a trio of perfect frames, before running into trouble trying to get through the fifth inning in what still stands as his longest outing of the season. He tossed 72 pitches that day but hasn’t thrown more than 56 in any other appearance.
Even with that shaky final frame earlier this month, Spence has looked the part of a viable big league arm. It’s a small sample, of course, but he’s fanned a roughly average 22.2% of his opponents against a tidy 7.1% walk rate. Spence’s 54.4% ground-ball rate is more than 10 percentage points higher than the league average. His opponents’ average exit velocity, barrel rate and hard-hit rate are all lower than average as well, and Spence ranks in the 86th percentile of MLB pitchers in terms of generating chases on pitches off the plate.
Given that Spence already tossed 72 pitches in his longest outing of the season and has worked three or more innings on six different occasions, it stands to reason that he should be able to give the A’s at least four innings. If he’s efficient enough, stretching to five frames seems plenty plausible. If the A’s opt to move Spence into the rotation on a more permanent basis, his season-long workload shouldn’t be an issue. The 26-year-old paced all minor leaguers last season with 163 innings over the course of 29 starts. Even if he finishes the season as a starter from here on out, he likely wouldn’t climb to such a lofty innings total.
The A’s are currently leaning on lefty JP Sears and veteran Ross Stripling to anchor the rotation. Young Joey Estes and journeyman Aaron Brooks are also getting starts at the moment. It’s not yet clear when the trio of Wood, Boyle and Blackburn will be back on the active roster, though the latter of the three is expected to be in a walking boot for another couple weeks. (Blackburn is dealing with a stress reaction in his foot.) Oakland recently picked up right Brandon Bielak in a cash deal with the division-rival Astros, giving them another option, but he could also step into Spence’s long-relief/swingman role if the A’s want to see how Spence fares trying to turn over big league lineups multiple times.
Well deserved. Mitch Spence has proven A’s he can be in the rotation no matter injuries on current state of Oakland pitching.
The A’s have snagged from the Yankees yet another starting pitcher. JP Sears has been good, Waldichuk has a lot of as of yet unrealized potential, Luis Medina might turn into a player if he can get healthy and then they also have that kid in the minors Bowman. All for a month of Montas.
“Month of Montas”…The Montas & Gallo trades would have gotten 90% of GMs fired. A simple Google search(and common sense)would have revealed Montas was most likely not healthy when traded since he’d been removed from recent starts.
Good for those guys though, I’m pleased for them. they probably wouldn’t have had a chance with the Yankees. If Cashman thought they had any value, he wouldn’t have traded them.
The Yankees have a factory that produce these type of arms. They use them for trade material. They’re not making the Yankees, but they’re perfect for a team like the Sacramento A’s.
What a garbage franchise the A’s have become. I lived out there when they were good. The Coliseum was a heap even in the 90’s and they just ran the team into the ground. MLB needs to hold owners more accountable, there’s room for 2 teams in the Bay area if you don’t play in a sewer and invest in your roster.
They won’t hold them more accountable because it’s a club of 30 billionaires. They know Fisher screwed up this market, but the other 29 owners won’t speak out because they don’t want to restrict any future moves they will make.
The A’s would have thrived in Oakland with a better park and a committed ownership. Fisher and company purposely killed any enthusiasm for the team over the years.
Yes agreed. They tanked the team, and kept them in that dilapidated building on purpose. Now they can wring their hands and say “no one was supporting the team”. Owners are a tight group, so they won’t call out what was done. Sucks for the local fan base. On a positive note one more reason to leave California…
Don’t need the “A’s”, don’t want the “A’s”. A-list movie actors are all moving in right next to the stadium now that they see that the “A’s” are finally leaving. They knew the area was gold, they were just waiting for the rot (the “A’s”) to leave. Funny how that worked out.
Hence the Adage; “ You can never have ENOUGH Pitching “.
Even their Depth pieces are Injured: Sean Newcomb, James Kaprelian, Luis Medina, etc.