Mitch can pitch

As you’ll certainly notice if you read my articles on this site, I have an affinity for mediocre pitchers. Or rather, I have an interest for non-ace pitchers who aren’t amazing, but are solid.

Unless you’re playing in a very shallow league, non-ace pitchers can make or break your season. Everyone can identify the CC Sabathias and Josh Becketts of the world. However, pitching is difficult to assess and predict; there are many pitchers who come “out of nowhere” to have respectable seasons. If you’re able to identify these players, you can get some excellent values on your pitchers, and focus your earlier-round picks on safer-bet offensive players.

Furthermore, even pitching staffs with aces at the front need solid pitchers behind them. Often times, you can get a pitcher in 15th round who pitches as well as someone drafted in the 8th round – you just need to know where to look.

And for those of you play in truly deep leagues, and/or AL- or NL-only leagues, you often find yourself stuck with awful pitchers because you simply need to fill those spots. Sometimes the best pitching staffs aren’t the ones that are filled with aces, but rather are the staffs that don’t have any pitchers like Carlos Silva bringing down the rest of the staff.

With that in mind, let’s discuss Mitch Talbot.

Who?

Mitch Talbot, a 25-year-old left-hander in the Rays organization, may have had one of the least noticed excellent seasons by any minor league pitcher this year. Talbot is understandably overshadowed in an organization with a ridiculous amount of pitching talent. That said, he also had a very good season.

In 161 innings in triple-A, Talbot posted a 3.86 ERA – solid, but not awe-inspiring. Of course, we know that ERA is far from the best predictor for a pitcher’s future success – especially for minor leaguers. Talbot also tallied 141 strikeouts and allowed only 35 walks – an excellent ratio. Furthermore, Talbot induced twice as many ground balls as fly balls, thus leading to him allowing only nine homers. In fact, in 684 career innings in the minors, Talbot has allowed a mere 44 homers. That’s excellent.

Furthermore, Talbot’s 3.86 ERA is misleading due to the fact that he had a very high BABIP this season – .326, to be precise. That’s a lot higher than we’d expect, even allowing for the fact that as a ground-ball pitcher, Talbot will allow a few more hits than a fly-ball pitcher (of course, these hits are likely to only be singles).

While Talbot is excellent against left-handed batters, he’s not bad against righties either, suggesting that he won’t necessarily need to be moved to the bullpen. Furthermore, he improved throughout the season – in the last two months, he struck out 64 batters in 64 innings. Granted, this is a small sample size, so we can’t read too much into it, but it’s very possible that Talbot was continually improving throughout the season.

Of course, Talbot’s biggest problem at the moment is that he plays for the Tampa Bay Rays. He’s no higher than seventh on their starting pitching depth chart (and is in danger of being passed by Jeff Niemann, Wade Davis, and Jeremy Hellickson). However, odds are pretty good that the Rays will deal Edwin Jackson (or perhaps move him to the bullpen) to allow David Price into the rotation. Furthermore, starting pitchers are fragile – should any Rays pitcher get hurt (I’m looking at you, Scott), Talbot may be called up to fill in.

Finally, there is a very real chance that Talbot will be dealt within the next year, as the Rays look to shore up right field, designated hitter, and their bullpen.

Keep your eye very closely on Mitch Talbot. He’s ready to contribute to a major league team, and if he finds himself in a position to start every fifth day for any team, you may have yourself a late-round steal or excellent waiver wire pickup.