Seattle Sports Insider

Rick Porcello - the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Of pitchers, and blogs, in search of transmogrification

Posted by

1/25/13

=== The UGLY ===

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BIll your thoughts on Brandon Webb. Yes he did have a short career but he did dominate to an extent. You can't hold a guy at fault for an injury unless he did something stupid to cause it. If he never throws another pitch again do you think he deserves some sort of recognition/respect from the HOF/MLB? Not saying he deserves his name on a plaque in Cooperstown but the guy was on the way to having one

Asked by: Anonymous

Answered: 8/24/2010

1) I believe that you're exaggerating what he has accomplished. There are a dozen pitchers who have careers like that in every generation.

2) In terms of special recognition, he would rank far behind Saberhagen, David Cone, David Wells, Dwight Gooden, Orel Hershiser and others. They were more dominant than he was, and they lasted longer.

3) Let's not assume that Webb is finished.

4) I've said it a thousand times, but. . .I don't believe in ground ball pitchers. I don't trust them, I don't want them, and I don't believe one should ever invest money in them.

In theory, a ground ball pitcher with a good strikeout rate is the best of both worlds. But the problem is, there just aren't any pitchers like that who are consistently good; they all either get hurt or they lose home plate. The only pitcher like that who has had a great career in the last 30 years was Kevin Brown. The overwhelming majority of the consistently good pitchers are the guys who live off of the high fastball--Clemens, Schilling, the Unit, Pedro, Santana, King Felix, Verlander, Sabathia, etc.

There are a lot of things I'll disagree with James on. I *think* that I, and Tango, just somehow managed to eke out a 4-3 extra innings score against the Grand Old Man on the Wil Myers Incident. But I sure don't want to be on the other side of him when he's bringing huge, over-arcing, Baseball Almanac type perspectives like this one to bear.

Anyway, groundball pitchers got a Big Idea to let the batter HIT the ball. Vot a Kountree!

They're betting their paychecks on the idea that "I bet I can make you hit it kinda bad." They're telegraphing the timing of the pitch, letting the hitter load up, and they're saying "I can locate it so that you are swinging at a pitcher's pitch."

Does that sound, sound to you?

Anyway: me, personally, I have a rough time watching guys who can't put a hitter away with two strikes. I hate to watch them pitch. Baseball shouldn't be such a chore. Now, Drew Smyly, there's a guy who's easy on the eyes....

If the Tigers shopped Porcello to the Red Sox, James would certainly do all he could to talk them out of it.

I'm biased against Rick Porcello, and biased against him a lot. Get that straight.

.................

Also ugly: the fact that the very moment that Paxton and/or Hultzen and/or Maurer and/or Taijuan have six Erasmo Ramirez starts, six blinkin' starts if they impress, we won't be having this conversation any more. Of course, one of them might be gone. For Rick Porcello.

.................

Also in this sub-header: if Porcello were to plateau-leap in Seattle, he'd have to do it with Jesus Montero catching him.

..............

Okay, so...

=== The BAD ===

Jason Vargas and Rick Porcello, as this song goes, are roughly equal in quality. However, Jason Vargas is a flyball lefty who is skittering away from Green Monster West, whereas Rick Porcello is a groundball righty would would be throwing 3.50 ERA's in front of baseball's best SS glove (for sure) and one of its best 2B gloves (according to the stats, but Dr. D demurs).

Vargas was in his walk year; Porcello has three years of arb left. Prest-O Change-O, we just threw Jason Vargas into a Calvin & Hobbes Trans-Mog-ri-Fier and got a considerably better version.

:: shrug:: It could happen.

Why's that bad?! The bad news is, an enhanced Jason Vargas is no ball of fire. Especially when you got K-Pax and Deuce Hultzen whose innings he is going to be swiping. But, we've got to admit: Rick Porcello is better than Jason Vargas. His WAR, by the way:

Year	WAR
2009	2.0
2010	2.0
2011	2.7
2012	2.9

John Benson Roto Rule: judge a pitcher by his WORST recent season. Do you have any idea how many pitchers would have a "better worst" year than Porcello, 2009-12? I'm guessing that Porcello is on a list of about fifteen or twenty pitchers who have notched 2+ WAR in EVERY season since 2009.

NEXT

Comments

If not Rick Porcello, then who

So if we Rick Porcello is not someone we should look to insert into our rotation and if we assume the M’s management is set on not promoting any of the young minor league arms to start the season, are there any free agent arms currently sitting out there that we should take a serious look at, even if we only want them to be a serviceable placeholder until the young arms make enough of a statement down in AAA to force their way onto the major league roster. Here is a list of names:
Kyle Lohse, Joe Saunders
"take a non-roster flyer" group: Daisuke Matsuzaka, Jonathan Sanchez, Dallas Braden, Carl Pavano, Freddy Garcia, Carlos Zambrano, Brad Penny, Chien-Ming Wang, Chris Young, Jamie Moyer.

Lohse if he didn't cost a pick

Since he does and would otherwise likely already be gone... I like Bonderman.
The floor and ceiling for all of those seem lower to me than what we have. There could be a gem there, but I don't see it.

Serviceable placeholders: Shaun Marcum was 1 year, $4m

Do we infer that maybe they don't want serviceable placeholders as much as we'd thought they did?

Good reminder on Bonderman

If that REALLY is the idea, a placeholder, you'd think that Bonderman would be a perfectly feasible way to cobble 6, 8, 10 starts without an embarrassment to the shot-callers. Even if he fails, it was an MLB(TM) approach.

can't gamble on Bondy until we see him throw once.

Makes me think they're going to get someone they know they like for the whole year or just get another couple of spaghetti guys so they're triple-covered in Bonderman experiments and hope someone has a good few months if they want the kids up in June.
I think we'll start the year with King Felix, Iwakuma, Ramirez, Beavan, Bonderman if he can throw 90, some other gamble if he can't

I've always liked groundball pitchers

It seems like Derek Lowe has had a pretty good career. But still, when I read something like the above, it makes me reevaluate and realize how little I really understand about this game. But I still like groundball pitchers.
Speaking of Derek Lowe, isn't he still available?
Porcello would be nice, but giving up one of the big three? Not sure I'd do that. Doesn't seem like there's a super strong market for Porcello right now.

Not trusting Maddux?

I get James' point ... but Greg Maddux becomes the best righty of his era with Clemens chem issues, doesn't he?
I actually don't know Maddux GB% when he was in his prime, relative to league, (it was before the explosion of on-line stats). But, he never got anybody out with high heat ... that's for sure.
Of course, I don't trust the Silva/Wang model ... which is not just GB pitcher - but an extreme let 'em hit it model.
I just don't know if it is fair to categorize Porcello at all. His only minor league sample was age 19, and then he found himself starting in the Majors at age 20. Yeah, he's got 600 MLB innings ... but he was only 23 last season ... and he had a career high 5.5 K/9. No ... he's not going to become Maddux ... or even likely to be an all star. But, my question on Porcello would be is he ALREADY optimized - at 23? He's certainly a "Z" model, (like walks and decent HRs) ... but sheesh, we've got kids with 800+ minor league innings that we EXPECT will have further development to do in the majors.
Fister was running Porcello's line in West Tenn at age 23.
Just sayin'

That's how I saw it

Bonderman always made sense for that as a maximum to count on. Anything better is gravy, anything worse is an injury. That's assuming that's how the team saw him anyway. They've had him down there since before the last few pitchers signed, do they'd know better than me. Easily.

Solid points

I remember Maddux as a GB and K guy. No% to check, but that's how I perceived him looking back. I wasn't into the GB stat until later anyway so I wasn't looking at the time. Yup, post 2001 fangraphs has him at 1.87 GB/FB in 1732 IP. That leaves his first 3300 IP unknown, but his HR/IP was about twice as high during that stretch as it had been to that point. He was putting up 0.2 and 0.3 hr/9 IP for whole seasons before and that's just insane.
I could find things to like about acquiring him except for Felix, Iwakuma, Ramirez, Paxton, Hultzen, Maurer, Beaven, Walker, Carraway, Noesi, Bonderman, etc.
I guess we could trade Ramirez or Iwakuma. I just don't see the need to add starters. If it's one starter knocking on the door, get a stopgap because it's a need. Some number under the 5 or so we have that could be up within a year and a half moves it from need to luxury.
I wouldn't gripe because the luxury was pointless, I'd only be upset if they paid as if it was a need. I've read more here to make me like Porcello than everything else I knew about him though.

I should ask him about Mad Dog

It's not clear what pitcher family Maddux would go in, and whichever family it was, he'd be the best one at it, so drawing generalizations from him would be tough...
Obviously there is a huge difference between a generalization and an absolute. I don't want any starting pitchers who throw 87, either. But gimme the 30-year-old Jamie Moyer? Well ...
It is VERY HELPFUL to be aware of principles that are true 90% of the time. :- )
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James had a "polished righty" family, Jim Bunning types, who do it all, and maybe James would have Maddux more in that family than in the groundballer family. Certainly Maddux had very nice K rates, especially up to his middle 30's.
But yeah. I'd like to hear James' reaction to Maddux, because he's always like "the only exception to the groundballers rule is Kevin Brown."