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Josh Fields, not Shields.
PrOTD Chance Ruffin
Here's an interesting Tigers video in which their VP of scouting comps Ruffin to Huston Street. You can see the physical similarities, though the slider and the K/BB profile seems to separate the two pitchers a bit.
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=== Arsenal ===
Ruffin's K pitch is a wipeout slider, practically Jeff Nelson class, as you can see from the vid.
His bread-and-butter pitch is a 91-94 fastball with, according to the Tigers' VP, outstanding sink.
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Ruffin also mirrors Street as far as the mechanics: short guy, RH, leg kick, hides the ball, comes sidearm, very aggressive demeanor.
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=== Sabermetrics ===
The stats jibe with the Street comp only up to a point. The control is there, with high K's and low BB's at every level prior to this season. In fact, his polish is such that there's been discussion about moving him to the rotation, but he's seen as a short-track closer in the bigs.
Before the season, Baseball HQ said:
Short/aggressive RP who should move quickly if kept in bullpen.
... Pitches off FB to set up plus SL, his K pitch.
Commands FB to both sides of plate ... needs to develop change...
Polished overall game and could eventually move to bullpen.
Plus FB from 87-93 mph. Plus-plus slider from 78-82 mph. Minus change curve and changeup.
Here's an article from Detroit.
In 2011, Ruffin has piled up scads of K's ... 55 in only 43 innings ... but has walked 20 as well, one every other relief outing. Street, of course, was only in the minors part of one year, and didn't walk anybody when he was.
The K/BB ratios don't really imply that Ruffin is wild; his mechanics are too sound and his track record too convincing. More likely, the K/BB ratios indicate that he's more of a dominator and less of a groundballer than Street.
The M's had a guy like this recently -- Josh Shields Fields, LOL -- taken late first round / supplemental first, as Ruffin was. But it seems the Tigers did their homework more carefully on this closer wannabe...
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=== Can You Win Your Next Pennant With This Player ===
The Street precedent does remind that a guy like Ruffin might be just about ready to help the M's. Ruffin's already been in the minors longer than Street was.
If Chance Ruffin be the fourth player, then the "Can You Win Your Next Pennant With X" vision becomes easy to perceive:
- James Paxton slams into the open rotation slot
- The M's get a RH lockdown reliever
- The M's get a LH lockdown reliever
- A 100-110 OPS+ bat plays CF ... or ... a 120 OPS+ bat plays LF
And, all of a sudden, the M's have added three cheap players, all part of their next pennant run, and merely re-loaded Fister's spot.
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Or not,
Dr D
Comments
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that Ruffin is the PTBNL
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so I can sleep easy with that knowledge.
Either way though, Ruffin or Smyly, I feel really good about the value in the PTBNL.
~G
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... in the Fister deal. Both Ruffin and Smyly rate WAY ahead of the other three guys for HQ. LOL.
Ruffin makes much more sense to me, on the face of it. I'd use Furbush and Ruffin as twin short men, one right and one left, and key parts of my next pennant winner.
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of the 4.
Doc, what do you make of the fact that Martinez is .315/.336/.500 vs. LHP and .267/.311/.363 vs. RHP? Over his head age-wise and just staying afloat against righties, but mashing out 8 doubles and 4 HR in 108 ABs vs. lefties.
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His EYE is only 4:22 against LHP's, so they're beating him a lot, but he has a good number of doubles and homers against them.
No doubt if he has time to think, and the ball's centered, he can turn on it.
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As you mention, he looks over his head, age-and-level. He shouldn't be 4:22 in the RH-on-LH situations.
And as y'know, Francisco Martinez is a tools scout call, not a saber call. Not much in his results for us to like, other than that he's being asked to accomplish a blue-chipper's timeline.
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Because I hadn't seen anyone reference this quote from the Tigers' side. Dave Dombrowski speaks so much more openly about the insider stuff than our front office. I like that Jack's ship has no leaks, but these kinds of quotes are fun:
"In any of the deals (we discussed), they really identified Casper Wells as a player they really liked," Dombrowski said. "They also liked Charlie Furbush a great deal.
"We had really never talked much about Martinez. But then once we got closer and were willing to talk about him, that piqued it a little bit more because he's a quality offensive player. We didn't want to give him up, but we have Castellanos behind him, and this type of move we thought was going to cost us a quality prospect."
So clearly the M's won't be getting Castellanos, but I don't think anyone thought that was a real possibility.
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If I'm Detroit I'd rather give up the low-minors starter than the ML ready closer, just based on where they're at and the timeframe in which they're trying to win. They already had to trade for ML pitching, no sense trading a reliever they might desperately need and have to make another trade in the offseason or next trade deadline to recoup.
But for us, I'd love Ruffin. League, Ruffin, Furbush, Lueke, with Laffey as the 2nd lefty? Find me a long man ya like and I'd be interested to see that pen perform. Lot of kids in it, though - I'm sure the Ms would want a more veteran long reliever. Scott Patterson's earned his keep - he could hop in the pen for LR duty.
That'd give you 4 relievers who've run a season with 10+ Ks in the minors with decent-to-great control, and none of em are your closer...though he did have that 9+ K year in the bigs, so we'll forgive him.
I'd love a deeper, nastier pen, even though ours has performed admirably this year for the most part.
Maybe some improved hitting could give us some leads worth protecting, too.
~G
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Big fun CS :- ) thanks for the hookup ...
Folks underestimate that part of the game so much ... the simple question of, which GM is doing the choosing and who does that GM *like* ...
Jack "liked" Jason Vargas, "liked" Mike Carp and there was no question of such players being *objectively* superior saber players to 500 others like them...
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If they gave up Ruffin, that reminds a lot of the price Toronto paid for Rasmus ... the core of an entire bullpen, plus other dynamic young talent...
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For a while I wasn't too keen on getting him, preferring Smyly since I think it's a huge mistake to invest in relievers. However, now I think it's a great move. I fully expect to be competitive next year, and a quality bullpen arm is sorely needed to do so. Also, we have plenty of quality starters in the minors so adding another one isn't a big deal.
The ball hasn't cleared the fence yet, but the Fister trade is looking like a home run.
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Guys on the current roster between 22 and 26, youngest to oldest:
Pineda 1/18/89
Beavan 1/17/89
Ruffin 9/8/88
Ackley 2/26/88
Seager 11/3/87
Robinson 9/1/87
Cortes 3/4/87
(Smoak 12/5/86 -- DL)
Carp 6/30/86
Furbush 4/11/86
Felix 4/8/86
Lueke 12/5/84
Wells 11/23/84
Total: 13
+++
Old guys: Ichiro, Wright, Kennedy, Wilson, Olivo, Bard, (Figgins -- DL)
In between: L-Rod, Gray, Pena, Guti, Vargas, League, Wilhelmsen, (Aardsma, Kelley, Ryan -- DL)
Is there anyone essential to the next pennant that's not in the first group?
My view: (1) Not if you assume Lueke or Ruffin can close. (2) Ichiro will be around anyway. (3) OK, yeah, you need a catcher.
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1. Furbush turns out to be a reasonable "push" for Doug Fister all by himself. Not at all farfetched.
2. Wells keeps his EYE over 0.30, slugs close to .500 in Safeco, and knocks in 90 runs.
3. Ruffin becomes one of those setup men, about whom everybody wonders why he isn't closing.
And Zduriencik turns out to be several yards ahead of us all, when it comes to projecting MLB upside for young part-time players ::coughGutierrezcough:: breaking in.
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The Fister trade was BADLY panned, the day of. It might not take even a month before the savvy fans are re-assessing...
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per Baker's tweet. Made ya look. :- )
Anxious to see Ruffin, and check out this Detroit vision of him as Huston Street the Sequel.
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It could be far more than that if we get some coin flips in our favor. We sent out two pitchers: a 24th man having a career year as the 2nd-best man in the pen, and a #3-4 starter who was great for us and is getting shelled in early post-trade action.
If Ruffin is our next closer (once we trade League at the deadline next year) that takes this trade up several notches.
If Wells is more than I thought he was and can plate those 90 RBIs, it's a golden trade.
If Furbush is a #4 starter just to swap with Fister, then Jack looks like a genius - again.
I still have no real passion for Martinez. *laughs* Hopefully the scouts are really right and 2 years from now we're all marvelling at his tools and production.
Fister had value, and I like him as a pitcher. We may have cashed in his value perfectly to patch holes in our roster on the cheap with plus players. I'd love for that to be the case.
Now we just need to keep the right players. Everyone said in 2005 that Gillick had destroyed our minor leagues, and we all know Bavasi is inept at the job he was paid to do.
But LOOK at the young talent on that 2005 team:
- Mike Morse
- Jose Lopez (yeah, I know...but at the time he was worth a lot)
- Greg Dobbs
- Yorvit Torrealba
- Miguel Olivo
- Shin-soo Choo
All under 27, all able to contribute to ML teams since. Funnily enough, we kept the one guy who is currently useless and dumped all the others.
The pitching staff had:
- Felix
- Pineiro
- Sherrill
- Soriano
- Putz
- Thornton
as under-28 pitchers. We HAD young talent. We just couldn't recognize it and dumped the vast majority of it. Jack has had a great eye for bringing in talent, and for knowing who to keep (the only real argument against would be Morrow, and I'm still not one for placing long-term bets on that dude's arm holding up).
We need to sift all this new talent to find out who to keep. I'm thrilled Carp was given another chance - I thought he was gonna go Mike Morse it somewhere else. But just HAVING talent doesn't mean you recognize and nurture that talent. We need to keep doing all of that in order to succeed at Rebuild 3.0, after our abject failures in 1.0 and 2.0.
Fingers crossed.
~G
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Francisco Martinez, that is. 12 hits and 5 XBH in his last 10 games (2 BB:6 K).
Last 10: .324/.350/.541
Far outhitting Chiang since they've both been in Jackson.
He's older than Nick Franklin, but only by 6 months. They're both 20, but Martinez turns 21 next month.
Verrrrry innnnnnnteresting.
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At #7.
But all 4 in the top 17, and he later upgraded Furbush. So pretty much 4 of the Tigers top 15.
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Are exactly the sorts of players I would yell and scream about relying on if this were Bavasi's Mariners.
As Sandy likes to point out, the Mariners basically never improved a minor-leaguer on their watch. Ibanez went to KC for finishing school, As-Cab and Choo to Cleveland, Dobbs and Morse were sent their separate ways...
Getting a toolsy guy was a death sentence. We needed minor leaguers who could improve themselves.
With Peguero, Halman, Trayvon, Francisco and our latin hitters in the low minors though...I guess I have more hope that the Mariners can make more of them than the previous regime could.
Not a LOT of hope mind you... *laughs* but some.
Here's to good students meeting up with good teachers and learning a few crucial things.
~G