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JH's picture

Minor league lefties OPS'd ~.750 off of Pineda last year, and lefties are OPSing 139 points higher against him than righties are through 3 starts.  It's a legitimate concern.  3 good starts doesn't establish that it's not an issue.  Especially when only one of those starts was against a lefty-heavy lineup, and two of those lefties - Dyson and Getz - are pretty crappy hitters. 
Pineda's looked great, and he has otherworldly potential, but I'd feel a lot better about him if he had a legitimate weapon against lefties.
He's definitely one of the best starters in the organization, and on talent deserves to be in the big leagues.  Nobody's questioning that.  The only "counterpoint" is that he'd be even better if he could neutralize lefties more, and that the minor leagues might have been a better place for him to work on that skill.  We're seeing that play out right now, as he's thrown his change less than 10% of the time and it's gotten pretty bad results (2.5 runs worse than the average change in only 3 starts).
I love watching Pineda, and there's no doubt that on talent he's good enough to succeed in the majors.  I do wonder about how wise it is long-term to put him in a position where he may just abandon developing the change into a weapon.  The list of ace-level pitchers in the majors who succeed with only 2 pitches is pretty short.

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