Archive for Michael Pineda

On Monday, Tampa’s Jeremy Hellickson and Atlanta’s Craig Kimbrel took home Rookie of the Year honors in the AL and NL, respectively. Both Hell Boy and Kimbrel (this fellow needs a menacing, pee-your-pants-upon-hearing-it nickname) seemingly have very bright futures ahead of them. But winning ROTY doesn’t always mean that a player is destined for long-term stardom (Jason Jennings and Angel Berroa say hi!)

Today, I want to hear you opinions on a different question: which rookie pitcher (minimum 50 IP in 2011) has the most long-term value? In other words, if you could only have one rookie hurler, which would you choose? Below I’ve listed 15 rookie pitchers who are likely to garner consideration, as well as a quick case for and case against choosing each rookie.

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With the regular season ending on a Wednesday, many leagues are having a 10-day week to end the year. Check your league’s rules to see how you are accounting for the last week! This list will assume the 10-day week.

Trevor Cahill – In 2010, Cahill lived a charmed life with a .236 BABIP. Fortune smiled upon Cahill once again as he began this year 6-0 with a .257 BABIP. But since May 15th, Cahill is 5-13 with a 5.33 ERA and a .318 BABIP. For the season, Cahill now has a 4.32 ERA and a .299 BABIP. And the only reason his ERA is that low is because of his home park, where Cahill’s ERA is over two and a half runs lower than his road mark. Cahill has one home and one road start, but his home game is against TEX. After handling the Rangers twice during his 6-0 start, Cahill has allowed 10 ER in 20 IP in his last three starts against them. Give Cahill a spot on the bench this week.

Edwin Jackson – By both FIP and xFIP, Jackson has pitched worse since his trade to the Cardinals but his results have been better, as he sports a 5-2 record with a 3.24 ERA in the National League. Jackson has enjoyed Busch Stadium, where he is 3-0 with a 2.41 ERA in six starts. Overall, he has eight Quality Starts in 10 games for St. Louis, with only a poor outing in Milwaukee where he allowed 4 HR dragging down his numbers. This week he gets home starts against the Mets and Cubs. Get Jackson into your lineup this week.

Mat Latos – While he has not pitched as well as last year, a 3.62 xFIP is still a good number and should have resulted in more than 7 Wins in 29 starts. In his last nine games, Latos has a 3.00 ERA with 15 BB and 55 Ks in 60 IP yet is only 2-4 in that span. Some might be scared off from starting Latos due to the road start in Colorado, but he has been decent in two starts this year in Coors (11 IP, 5 ER, .729 OPS against). Ride the hot hand and hope Latos breaks into the win column in one of his two starts this week.

Michael Pineda – After struggling through a rough patch right around the All-Star break in which he had a 7.64 ERA with 8 HR in 33 IP, Pineda has rebounded with four straight Quality Starts, with just 2 HR in 26 IP. The matchups are favorable for Pineda, as he has a road start in MIN and a home start versus OAK. The Twins and Athletics are the two bottom teams in the AL in HR. If you jumped off the bandwagon after his poor stretch, it’s time to get Pineda back in the lineup.

Javier Vazquez – When Vazquez followed up last year’s 5.32 ERA with a 3-6, 7.09 ERA start to 2011, it looked like he was done as a useful fantasy player, and perhaps as an MLB pitcher, too. But from mid-June forward, he has been a strong pitcher. In that span, covering 16 games and 101.2 IP, Vazquez has 18 BB, 93 Ks and 9 HR. In his rough stretch to start the year, Vazquez had 31 BB and 11 HR in 66 IP. On his May 15th start, Vazquez averaged 88.4 with his fastball and had just 3 swinging strikes in 90 pitches thrown. In his last outing, he averaged 91.3 with his fastball and had 10 swinging strikes in 113 pitches.

He’s a different pitcher now than he was earlier in the season. Vazquez has two home starts this week and he has a 3.61 xFIP with a 9.25 K/9 at Sun Life Stadium. And the pitching matchups are favorable, too. It all adds up to having Vazquez in the starting lineup.

Other scheduled two-start pitchers in Week 25 are listed below. Please remember that these are projected pitchers and changes can and will happen between now and next week.

Lee, Sabathia, Halladay, Haren, Kershaw, Shields, Weaver, Lincecum, Wilson, Kennedy, Greinke, Lester, D. Hudson, T. Hudson, Marcum, Carpenter, Bumgarner, Jimenez, E. Santana, Worley, Scherzer, Romero, G. Gonzalez, Garza, Fister, Beckett, Hellickson, Oswalt, W. Rodriguez, A. Sanchez, Vogelsong, Lewis, Kuroda, J. Garcia, Holland, Lohse, Nova, Chacin, Buehrle, Lilly, Niemann, Nolasco, Floyd, Ogando, Collmenter, Stauffer, Dickey, Colon, Porcello, Morrow, McCarthy, Luebke, Norris, Lowe, Humber, Harden, Capuano, Burnett, Lackey, Minor, Hughes, Myers, Bailey, Davis, Carmona, Morton, Wells, Karstens, Arroyo, Britton, Westbrook, Vargas, Pavano, Cecil, Lannan, Guthrie, Alvarez, Surkamp, Narveson, Pelfrey, Pineiro, Volquez, Miley, Eveland, Williams, White, Penny, Paulino, Beavan, Huff, Hunter, Millwood, Sosa, Happ, Delgado, Volstad, Wang, LeBlanc, Simon, Lopez, Gomez, Furbush, Slowey, Ohlendorf, Milone, Cook, Swarzak, McGowan, Hendriks, Diamond, Coleman, Schwinden, Axelrod.

Check back Sunday night for an update of two-start pitchers.

Now I want to provide some accountability and check in and see how previous recommendations turned out. There needs to be a two-week lag, since last week’s pitchers have not completed their second start yet. So here are Week 23 pitchers and how they fared.

Collmenter – Advised to sit. 6 Ks, 6.10 ERA, 1.452 WHIP, 10.1 IP, 7 ER
Garcia – Advised to start. 4 Ks, 14.09 ERA, 2.478 WHIP, 7.2 IP, 12 ER
Harden – Advised to sit. 10 Ks, 7.20 ERA, 1.800 WHIP, 5 IP, 4 ER
Vazquez – Advised to start. 2 W, 14 Ks, 0.69 ERA, 0.846 WHIP, 14 IP, 3 ER
Willis – Advised to start. 8 Ks, 5.14 ERA, 1.571 WHIP, 7 IP, 4 ER

For years I have preached about the immense depth at starting pitching.  You can find plenty of quality starters for cheap in your draft and, with the help of the waiver wire, can build a successful fantasy rotation without having to invest heavily in an ace or two.  With a nice complement of some quality relievers, you can go cheap on starters and, in turn, bulk up on better hitters.  In the end, your team dominates in the offensive categories, puts up a solid showing in almost all of the pitching categories, and leaves you at the top of your standings by season’s end. Read the rest of this entry »

Here is the latest update to Week 2 two-start pitchers. Again this list is subject to change going forward.

Pitchers not listed on last update

F. Hernandez, Price, Cahill, Burnett, Duensing, Pineda, Richard, Matsuzaka, Francis, Tillman, Penny, Litsch, Talbot.

Pitcher no longer scheduled for two starts: Stauffer

Of the new pitchers, Jeff Francis is an interesting one to examine. After missing all of the 2009 season recovering from shoulder surgery, Francis came back to pitch 104.1 innings for the Rockies last year. A free agent following the 2010 season, the former 17-game winner had to sign an incentive-heavy, $1 year/$2 million deal with the Royals.

While winless in his first two starts, Francis has pitched into the seventh inning both games and has a 1.98 ERA along with a solid 3.28 xFIP. He’s getting more swings out of the zone (31.3 O-Swing%) and batters are making less contact than normal. It makes him an interesting candidate for his two starts this week and he potentially has some favorable pitching matchups.

In his first game this week, Francis squares off against Brian Duensing and the Twins. In his first start, Duensing’s velocity was down 2 mph from his average last year. Plus Minnesota is next to last in the American League with a 2.62 runs per game average.

Francis’ second start comes against rookie sensation Michael Pineda. Dave Cameron reviewed Pineda’s first start and concluded that Pineda has some work to do with his off-speed offerings to lefty batters, who managed two doubles and a triple in his game against the Rangers. The Royals can stack a lineup full of lefties to face Pineda, including the red-hot Alex Gordon, along with Chris Getz, Melky Cabrera, the Kila monster and Wilson Betemit.

While those names might not strike fear into many hearts and minds, that group has led the Royals to a 6-3 start to the season. Available on the waver wire in most leagues, Francis is a potential pickup to stream for his two starts this week.

Much has changed for Michael Pineda since he was a lanky, projectable 16-year-old who signed with the Mariners out of the Dominican Republic in 2005. The right-hander now stands 6-foot-7, 260 pounds, pops mitts with upper-90s gas, and is considered a potential ace by the prospect pundits: Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus’ Kevin Goldstein, ESPN’s Keith Law and our own Marc Hulet all rank Pineda as a top-25 farm talent.

The M’s have named Pineda their fifth starter to begin the 2011 season, and the 22-year-old is primed to make an instant fantasy impact. Seattle will be careful with Pineda’s innings, but King Felix’s sidekick has it all — K’s, control, a quality defense and a friendly home ball park.

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We’ve dissected the Cliff Lee deal like it’s already done, and from both sides of the deal, so let’s continue on in that vein and look at the pitcher that the Mariners are most likely to call up to replace Lee as early as tonight in Seattle. Even if it’s not the Yankees, the Mariners look like they want to trade Lee before the All-Star break to get the most possible value, so Pineda should be up soon.

The green and gray certainly hope that Michael Pineda day doesn’t end up pinata-like, but by all accounts it should be more of a commencement than a trial by fire. The 21-year-old came into the season as the fifth-best Mariner’s prospect by resident maven Marc Hulet’s standards. Here’s what he said at the time:

A beast on the mound at 6’5” 250 lbs, Pineda was let down by his elbow in ’09 as his season was interrupted in mid-May and he did not return until August. The elbow soreness that he experienced is cause for concern going forward, but the right-hander has a bright future ahead of him if he can put the issue behind him. Just 20 in ’09, Pineda posted a 2.73 FIP in 10 appearances (eight starts) in high-A despite playing in a good hitter’s league. He allowed just 29 hits in 44.1 innings of work and showed outstanding control for his age with a walk rate of 1.22 BB/9. His low-90s fastball and good (but inconsistent) slider helped him post a strikeout rate of 9.74 K/9. It will be interesting to see if the organization returns Pineda to high-A in 2010 or pushes him to double-A.

What happened this year is exactly what Mariners fans hoped for and Hulet pointed to as his most important chore this year: Pineda proved he was healthy by not only dominating Double-A on his second attempt (9.1 K/9, 2.0 BB/9), but by also mowing down Triple-A hitters after a promotion (12.3 K/9, 2.3 BB/9). He looks ready to go.

In fact, looking at his career numbers (8.6 K/9, 2.0 BB/9), it might be tempting to label him a control artist with okay stuff, but it has been his work at the higher levels, and this year, which has pushed him into elite territory as a prospect. If the rankings were to come out today, he might just be first, if only because his lowest strikeout rate above Double-A was this year’s 9.1 at Double-A.

As for how he might fare in the bigs, there are two minor pink flags to consider. First, Pineda did have the elbow injury last year, so he didn’t accrue many innings, and only put up 138.1 innings combined in 2008. He’s already at 96 innings this year, and 120% of 138.1 is 165. Even if this is no hard cap on his innings, it’s reasonable to assume that he won’t put in another 100 innings in the second half and will have his innings limited at some point.

The other minor flaw in his repertoire has been the slight tendency towards fly balls as he’s risen in the minor leagues. His overall groundball percentage is decent (46%), but this year, the numbers haven’t looked as good. This year, 42.3% of his balls have guzzled grass, and at each stop from high-A to Triple-A, his groundball percentage has dropped. A number like his Triple-A groundball percentage (36.6%) would be a problem in the major leagues. Even this pink flag has its own caveat, however, as SafeCo is a safe haven for flyballers. According to StatCorner, the park has a 93 park factor for home runs by right-handers, and that number drops to 87 for lefties.

Given the lack of offense behind him, and the chance that the Mariners limit his pitches as well as his innings, Pineda does not make for a good choice for wins. On the other hand, the park should help him continue to develop, and nothing terrible leaps out from his pristine numbers. He’s a strong pickup in deeper leagues, and if he performs well in his first start against a good offense from New York, he’ll even be relevant in mixed leagues for his strikeouts and ratios alone.