Minor notes: Ground-ball pitchers rising the chain

Reading right-hander Carlos Carrasco, who recently moved from 41 to 22 in Baseball America's mid-season Top 100 prospect update, not only possesses great strikeout potential, but has shown a consistent ability to keep balls on the ground.

Kyle Kendrick, who toes the rubber in just a few short hours, has surprised Phillies fans with his control and sinker – custom made for the short porches of Citizens Bank Park. What some fans may not realize is that Kendrick is just the beginning of a stream of high-ceiling, ground-ball pitchers rising the ranks in the Phillies' farm system.

Carrasco, still just 20 years old, is making a pretty smooth transition to Double-A, and for the most part, is keeping balls on the ground, somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 percent. So far, he’s 3-0 with a 3.16 ERA in five starts for Reading, making progress, but still a healthy distance away from pitching in Philadelphia. The Venezuelan right-hander was named top prospect in the Phillies’ system after winning the Paul Owens award for a 12-6, 2.26 ERA, 159 strikeout season with Low-A Lakewood. Carrasco takes the mound for Reading today as part of a double-header in Erie. Follow the action here.

The team’s best emerging groundball threat might be left-hander Josh Outman, who’s 9-4 with a 2.59 ERA to go with 100 strikeouts for Class-A Clearwater. His ’07 pitching splits are through the roof. The former 10th round pick has induced 133 grounders to just 44 line drives and 77 fly balls this season. Suddenly, the future of pitching in Philadelphia's bandbox is a little brighter.

(Thanks to Tom. G of Balls, Sticks & Stuff for the inspiration for this post.)

Comments

[ajc1]

Thanks Wietzel - love these occasional posts on the minors. Clears some of the doom and gloom I'm often reading/feeling.

[J. Weitzel]

Ajc1: Phuture Phillies is a great blog on prospects. The fellow who writes it works hard and is very passionate about it. There's a permanent link on the left.

[J. Weitzel]

I have to find out why Outman hasn't been promoted yet.

I wanted to wait a season to see if the 2006 Lakewood class was for real (Carrasco, Outman, Kendrick, Maloney, Overholt). I'd say there's definite Major League talent there.

[Alby]

Is there a better name for a pitcher than Outman?

[joe]

Alby -

My favorite pitching name is Early Wynn

[Alby]

We once had Bob Walk; the Mets had Grant Balfour. It's about time an Outman takes the mound.

[Alby]

Interesting story here about the Yankees, via ESPN's Rob Neyer: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?entryID=2939838&name=Neyer_Rob&CMP=ILC-INHEAD

[dajafi]

Outman is pitching today. He's allowed two solo home runs through 5, but has 9 strikeouts. The homers were just his 6th and 7th surrendered this season, so Jason's point holds up. I'd say he's definitely no worse than the 4th or 5th best prospect in the system at this point. Question is whether he's better suited to start or close.

Also, the Phils evidently reacquired Jake Blalock, who was released earlier this year by Texas and Kansas City. He's starting in LF for Clearwater this afternoon and is 0 for 2.

[P O'Neil]

Good to see they managed to aquire the wrong Blalock a 2nd time.

[GM-Carson]

In a short time Joe Savery may be coming in out of th bullpen to save the game.

[GM-Carson]

I posted this early this morning on another thread, but I'm going to post it again because I find it interesting- Since returning from the All-Star break the Phillies have played 5 straight games in which they or the opponent has scored 10+ runs (Phils 3 times Cardinals once and Dodgers once). The sum of all run scored in those 5 games by both teams- 73, that's an average of 14.6 runs scored per game...wow! I guess this shouldn't be all that much of a surprise considering the Phils do possess the most lethal offense in the league accompanied by the most horrific pitching staff.

[RSB]

Carrasco will almost certainly be pitching for the Phillies by the time this season is over. I see him having a regular slot in the rotation by June of next year, at the latest, unless he starts bombing at the higher levels.

It's exciting to consider him and yet kind of unfortunate as well, because there's no question that they're going to rush him. Worked out just fine with Hamels and it's looking all right with Kendrick, but you can't expect to get away with that every time.

[Tray]

Keith Law with some bearish comments on Kendrick in his chat today:

He's not really a groundball pitcher at all. I think he's a 6th starter/long man, tops, someone the Phils need to upgrade on if they're going to make the playoffs.

Maybe you should ask Kyle Kendrick how it feels to miss a bat ... oh wait, you can't, because he never does!

Law's a pretty smart guy but he tends to be a little critical - I mean in the same chat he said Jose Vidro was "terrible." Admittedly he's purely a singles hitter now, but he still hits .300, that's not so bad out of your second baseman.

[from the district]

rsb - interesting comment. Its definitely a tough call as far as what constitutes rushing. Wasn't the phils mo previous to Hamels that they hardly ever threw their prospects into the fire?

I feel like it is a general trend in baseball to bring up prospects more quickly. Maybe the philosophy is if they aren't mentally tough enough to handle getting shelled a bit in the bigs and then adjusting to that (as Hamels did, or is continuing to do), then they aren't going to have that much success at the MLB level anyway.

[Alby]

In that case, Keith Law is saying the Phils won't make the playoffs, because the next three additions to the rotation will replace other pitchers, not Kendrick.

[P O'Neil]

I think i read somewhere that Gillick has always been someone willing to throw a pitcher into the fire. Not sure how true that is.

[RSB]

Of course, Law was also the guy that featured the Phillies first on his list of prominent 'buyers' in an ESPN.com article on trade deadline buyers and sellers - and then went on for three paragraphs about how they had absolutely nothing to offer in trades. Where do these guys like him or Dayn Perry come from and how to they suddenly get to be considered authorities on anything.

[J. Weitzel]

Keith Law peddles BS for a living. Please explain what goes into a prediction like this: "I think he's a 6th starter/long man, tops."

Based on what? He's 22 and has six starts under his belt ...

[J. Weitzel]

P'Oneil: That's the one area where I like what Gillick has done. He prefers young starters and veteran relievers, and hasn't been afraid to move talent to the show quickly. Hamels, Zagurski, Kendrick being three examples.

[joe]

Does Keith Law think that Chien Ming Wang is a terrible pitcher, because he too doesn't know how to "miss bats".

sheesh. being a strikeout pitcher aint the only way tot make a living.

groundouts are more democratic, anyway. K's are dictatorial, let your fielders vote the guy out, don't mae the decision yourself.
(with apoligize to crash davis)

[Tray]

I think he's just going on his stuff, which isn't stellar. As for the article RSB's referring to, he said that we had to be buyers because we're built to contend now and don't have much, in his opinion, in the pipeline - he also said that we don't have much to offer besides Rowand, Bourn and Carrasco.

[ae]

Tray - Vidro isn't terrible as a 2B (although I remember his defense being pretty weak last year)...but Seattle's using him as a DH. by that criteria, he is terrible.

[Alby]

Don't know about those two, but many of these guys start out as number-crunching SABR types -- IOW, baseball geeks.

As for Kendrick, there's no real way to tell if he'll be able to duplicate this level of production next year. For now, he's plenty good for this rotation -- his ERA is almost identical to Hamels', FWIW.

[Phil]

I think Law has a point about Kendrick’s performance thus far.. His ERA is about a run better than his peripherals. A 14/11 K/BB ratio just doesn’t portend great things in the future. These considerations, along with his minor league numbers, http://www.minorleaguesplits.com/pl/452/452718.html>which ok, but not anything eye-popping are a lot more meaningful than his performance in the majors this year. The Wang comp. really isn’t helpful. Wang doesn’t strike out many guys, but he also doesn’t walk guys and doesn’t give up home runs (like, ever). In other words, he’s really good at one of the defensive independent pitching stats and exceptional at another. I’m less comfortable with Law’s assessment of Kendrick going forward—he clearly has some learning to do but I can see him as a very credible 5.

[Bridoc10]

We have an Abe sighting...

Nunez is starting @ 3B. Ruiz is behind the plate.

[joe]

wang (2.2 BB/9) vs kendrick (2.6 BB/9) are actually fairly close, and if you believe in the rookie squeeze, may be even closer.

the HR/9 is a lot higher, though for kendrick.

The Kid, however, is only 22, and we should see improvement from here.

[Bridoc10]

The streak has ended!

Why would you take the bat out of Ryan's hands in that situation? It's not like he's a contact hitter! Running there makes very little sense.

[Ace]

Another couple guys to keep an eye on are Ben Pfinsgraff and Andrew Carpenter. Both are still a couple years away from Philly, but look promising thus far.