Add new comment

Look at our staff in Tacoma vs Jackson.
Tacoma team ERA: 5.62
Jackson team ERA: 3.12
You think the two leagues are 2.5 runs different, or that the staffs might be made of slightly different quality players? And that fact happens to affect the batting stats of the players hitting against them, y'know.
You think the Southern League hitting stats are down because the quality of hitters suck? Why would the dominant pitching they are facing not have something to do with that? Bauer, Hultzen, Corbin, Skaggs, Molina Heckathorn, a bunch of great bullpen arms... Teams stored many of their massive pitching talents in AA this year. Isn't that how it is every year?
R/G:
2011: PCL = 5.56, SOU = 4.46
2010: PCL = 5.22, SOU = 4.52
2009: PCL = 4.88, SOU = 4.29
AA teams are younger and so have more growing hitters - and more talented ones. AAA teams are older but stocked with quad-A hitters and #6 or 7 starters who are stoploss guys or 30 year old journeymen. AA is the gauntlet, the proving ground both for pitchers (guys can finally hit breaking balls) and hitters (the pitchers are more dangerous). AAA is the holding pen. Hultzen's proved everything he needs to prove, the rest is just a waiting game.
Carraway is the 6th or 7th most talented arm that was in Jackson. That doesn't mean he can't be a quality ML pitcher, but his raw stuff is a handful of matches compared to some of the bonfires we've got down there.
Telling me Carraway became merely the 2nd best pitcher on the Tacoma roster by being promoted isn't an indictment of Carraway or the talent level in AA - it reinforces the idea that any of our AA thunderbolts (or Erasmo, the best pitcher on the Tacoma roster) have more oomph that anything from Beavan on down to AA.
Are they ready? Is it time to pull the plug on the current big-league tenures of Beavan and Noesi?
I think when Hultzen is promoted in 2-3 weeks that you'll say, "see, they judged he was ready, and made their move." And I'll tell you that wasn't it, and it was all about money.
Which is understandable, but not a talent evaluation. If you can explain to me what more Hultzen has to learn in AA I'd love to hear it - especially since the hitters apparently all suck down there according to you.
~G