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Ay carumba, if 2006-11 can be considered history, anyway.
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This isn't to say it's completely out of the question for Z to hopscotch one of these guys into the rotation. But, three?!? I don't see it happening.
Nah, Taijuan isn't pitching for a job in March. Four rookies in three years, we sez, making two-at-once a logical necessity at some point.
Do teams put two rookies in the same starting rotation? Is that the way they do bidness? .... we took a look at b-ref.com to look at some recent rookie SP combos.
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The 2009 Oakland A's we talked about to lead off. Not only were Cahill and Anderson in the Opening Day rotation, but both were pure rookies, and both considerably younger than Hultzen and Paxton.
Not only were Cahill and Anderson in the Opening Day rotation, but Gio Gonzalez was there a month later, and Vin Mazzaro a month after that.
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The 2006 Florida Marlins had four (4) rookies in their starting rotation: Ricky Nolasco age 23, Anibal Sanchez 22, Josh Johnson 22, and Scott Olsen 22. Dontrelle Willis was the Opening Day guy.
They'd been a .500 team, and for the next few years, remained one. Which, for them, was an accomplishment, given their budget constraints.
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The 2010 Orioles had Brian Matusz debuting as a rookie, and quickly phased in Jake Arrieta behind him ... Brad Bergeson had finished the 2nd half of 2009 in front of Matusz, and Chris Tillman had logged only 60 IP in 2009.
So the 2010 Orioles phased in four rookie SP's in less than a calendar year. As a group, they didn't pitch that great.
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Examples could be multiplied: the 2010 Reds with Leake and Wood, the 2009 Blue Jays with Ricky Romero and Scott Richmond (and Brett Cecil and "Scrabble"), the 2008 Dodgers with Kershaw and Hiroki Kuroda (okay, so sue me!), the 2008 Orioles with Jeremy Guthrie and Brian Burres both making the rotation out of ST ... you have a couple of ML teams every year who do this.
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=== Lesson Learned Dept. ===
If you flip back through B-Ref.com pages, you find that it's a little unusual for teams to put two rookie SP's into the rotation together. That is, only one or two teams do it per season. >:-]
And the reason that it is unusual? Is only because --- > it is unusual for a team to have two excellent rookie SP's to deploy.
I think you'll find that if you examine the history, you'll find that when a team has two James Paxtons arriving in spring training, then it --- > goes ahead and uses them. About 70%, 80% of the time.
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Fans are concerned about bringing blue chippers along "the right way." That creates one of the most persisting, and most fun, thematic debates about baseball.
Lotta fun for M's fans right now, arguing about Taijuan Walker. It beats arguing about Cha-Seung Baek.
SSI firmly maintains that, if you watch carefully, you'll see that major league GM's don't think that way. If a GM has a player who can really help his ballclub, the player is gonna be in there.
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My $0.09,
Dr D
I am confused...
Since Beavan was a rookie last year, and Beavan pitched nearly as well as Pineda for their first 10 games or so... why doesn't this count as Z already proving that he will bring up 2 or more rookies for the rotation in the same year?
If you extend the net (not that 'net!) to catch all 1st-year SP's debut'ing in the same year, the input bus chokes and crashes ... most teams do that at some point...
We were using the very strict criterion, where two rookie SP's break camp in the same rotation.
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Although, now that you bring it up, why the Opening Day roster should be such a huge talking point, I dunno. We fans talk about the Opening Day roster as though it were a religious event. " .... how could you even think about Hultzen in April? Make it May, at least!!"
No special reason to make such a big whoopin' deal out of April 1, as opposed to May 15. Other than our own fan over-talk-it psychologies.
It was to multiple rookies with almost no experience in the minors that I was really objecting to.
I respect scouts. I also respect statheads. I think, especially in the modern world, it is important to utilize both to make good decisions.
IMO, it is simply not possible to make an "informed" decision on a kid with 70 innings in A ball.
In one of the other threads, Oswalt and Miller were referenced. Oswalt had 500 minor league innings, (though only 30 in AAA), and Miller had 400 (with basically a full season in AAA).
My belief is that you MUST get a good number of innings to look at a kid in order to not only be certain of what you have - but also to assess what his strengths and weaknesses are - and to formulate your plan for optimizing the individual talent in question.
While I can accept the idea that in rare cases, (Strasburg), you get a kid so "developed" that lots of AAA innings aren't mandated. But, I think the player and the organization likely benefit from at least some hands on experience with the kid.
Last March, I remember near certainty about the upside of Wilhelmsen and Lueke and how they were going to make the bullpen immediately solid. And honestly, I would say bullpen is a LOT more conducive to immediate success than starting.
Me? I could easily accept that a kid with 300-400 innings in low to mid minors bypassing AAA in some cases. But, that situation is based on having enough first hand experience with the guy that you are extremely confident that he has in fact developed enough that AAA is critical.
For me, Hultzen is the hardest call. College innings at the highest level are probably akin to AA innings. But, watching a kid isn't the same as working with him. And in this age of pitch counts and inning limits, the lack of professional innings for these three guys doesn't help, either.
In the end, I think the minors are necessary in the majority of cases because in the majors, the #1 priority in 99% of cases is winning. Period. In the minors, while winning is nice ... DEVELOPMENT is often the priority. To me, it is a generally a bad idea to emphasize development OVER winning once you reach the majors. Obviously, all rookies have development to do. The point is one of percentage of focus. Winning is (and should be) less important in leagues specifically designed for player development.
For me, utilizing the majors as "just another development level" sort of precludes the idea that the majors are supposed to be about winning. You cannot pretend to emphasize both.
This is why a player like Ackley ... the best college player of the decade ... is better served putting in his work in AA and AAA. So, by the time he reaches the majors, his focus is 90% on winning and only 10% on development.
That resonates better, yes ... sorry for misinterpreting your view of the situation...
Whether I agree or not, your position is certainly REASONABLE when you say that Danny Hultzen would be a rush job, even if Paxton were not in the picture. How many pitchers skipped the minors? There are 9,000 minor league pitching coaches who would hold your jacket for you while you shouted that one over a megaphone...
And here they are, adding a second SP who has Lincecum / Verlander / Weaver minors time at best ...
Can sympathize with the shock factor. Prediction here, however, in terms of theory-vs-practice - is that Paxton and Hultzen will pitch well in April 2012.