Minor League Notes -- torturing myself

by azibuck on Jul 31, 2008 11:25 PM EDT Comment 9 comments

I like to keep track of "what could have been." It's unhealthy. I look back at the life I've lived much more than how I want to live the rest of it. Anyway, so it is with baseball. I follow guys the PBC traded away, and now I can also follow guys we could have traded for. It seems pretty certain that we could have had Phil Coke and George Kontos instead of Karstens (vomit) and McCutchen.

This post is obviously ill-timed and will probably be ignored, but just because we made a good trade doesn't mean everything else in the world stopped.

George Kontos 1-hit (our crappy) Altoona Curve tonight. He fanned 13 and walked only one.

I'm one of the few that thought Coke was interesting, and I'll slap a quarter down right now and bet he's in NY this year. Small sample but since moving to the bullpen he's given up 1 hit in two appearances and whiffed 3 in 3 innings.

Bryan Bullington is still giving up runs, but in Buffalo he's struck out 20 and walked only 2 in 16 innings. In two relief appearances covering 7 innings he's struck out 10 and walked 1. He may never amount to anything, but I still don't understand why we didn't exhaust all possibilities with him.

And Todd Redmond.

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I also would have rather had Kontos and Coke,

but it’s still too early to judge any of the players we got or could have gotten in that trade. Also, the fact that we’re actually making the sort of trades that will head us in the right direction is really, really encouraging.

As for Bullington, when you said he’s still giving up runs you forgot to mention that he’s giving them up to the tune of 11 ER in 12 IP. He’s also 27 years old this season, so his upside is fading fast.

Now if only we could get rid of Van Bensucken…

by camoseven on Aug 1, 2008 12:31 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Kontos or McCutchen?

A lot of chatter on which pitching package is better. Some expressed more satisfaction with the 2nd version (McCutchen has a higher ceiling?). Others felt both pitchers in the 1st version are younger and better; whereas McCutchen is not younger and Karstens is not better.

I just like to know (from what we know today) who you guys would take straight up: Kontos or McCutchen?

by Haidao on Aug 1, 2008 1:50 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

McCutchen

Kontos has a little better pure stuff, but I see a lot of red flags with him. He got arrested for partying too enthusiastically in rookie ball, which speaks poorly for his dedication. He’s missed time with shoulder pain. He’s had trouble mastering a changeup, and might end up as a reliever.

Kontos’s upside may be slightly higher – but he’s got a lot more downside risk than McCutchen, who’s got a very good shot at ending up as at least a useful member of the rotation.

by Vlad on Aug 1, 2008 3:38 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Don't know enough about either one

Looking at their bbref page and scouting reports, I lean toward Kontos because he’s younger and just seems a notch better to me.

by azibuck on Aug 1, 2008 4:29 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Also, Bullington:

What possibility did we not exhaust?

He’s got a 20/2 K/BB over 16 innings in the time frame that you note… but he’s also given up 21 hits and 12 earned runs (including four HR) in that same time. All he’s proven with the Indians is that he’s able to consistently put his sub-par stuff over the plate. Well, we already knew that. It’s not a useful skill in the bigs, in isolation, since those same meatballs will just end up going 400+ feet if he throws them to ML-quality players.

It’s not enough to just throw strikes. You have to throw quality strikes. And Bullington can’t, since he doesn’t have quality stuff.

by Vlad on Aug 1, 2008 3:44 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Did we already know that?

That K/BB and K/IP is wildly out of whack with his numbers in Indy. Did he make a relief appearance? Did we tell him to concentrate on two pitches instead of four and pitch every other day? Our bullpen’s been horrible. We didn’t exhaust the possibility that he’s a reliever.

And to be clear, I don’t think it’s a big deal AT ALL. I just don’t understand why, when we’re wasting our time on all these other crappy reliever, that we couldn’t have wasted a little time to find out if he could relieve.

by azibuck on Aug 1, 2008 4:27 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Bullington in relief

I don’t really see the point there, since his main asset as a pitcher is his stamina (which would be wasted in short relief), and his stuff is so sub-par that even if you cranked it up a bit during the move to the pen, it still wouldn’t be up to ML standard.

The component ratios are different, but I don’t think it’s significant since a) it’s only four games and b) it still adds up to pretty crappy pitching. To me, it looks like the profile of a hittable guy who’s been told to throw more strikes. His K/BB improves because a higher percentage of his pitches are strikes – leaving him in generally better counts, and his HR rate goes up because some of those strikes are meatballs.

[It’s also worth noting that inning-based rate stats break down a bit when applied to extremely hittable pitchers. Bullington’s K/IP is good, but his K/PA isn’t quite as good, since he’s using a higher-than-average number of PA per inning to generate those Ks. If he weren’t giving up so many hits, his K/BB/HR rates would be lower.]

by Vlad on Aug 1, 2008 5:45 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs