What do we have in the young pitchers who have just helped Altoona wrap up their EL championship? Certainly they have caught the attention of our tribe here. In wg1of5's Community Prospects post Bryan Morris is ranked third, Rudy Owens is ranked fourth, Jeff Locke is ranked seventh, and Justin Wilson is ranked twelfth. To offer some context I thought it might be useful to compare the performances of these young men to Paul Maholm and Zack Duke, whom we have seen perform at the major league level. To do that I've listed the age at which each of these folks got to AA, their FIP at AA, and their FIP in earlier years.

Things that I see are that Duke really was a special pitcher, and Owens looks to be in the same class (although he throws harder). Locke's work is nearly as good. Morris's pitching at Bradenton was spectacular, but it's not clear to me that our current crush on him makes sense. And for Wilson, the question is one of throwing strikes, something that Owens does very well. A number of you clearly see a different story than I do. I'd love to find out why.