Olney: Porcello starts early, eyes early results

[froggyvk]

This is ESPN Insider -- MLB - Rick Porcello of the Detroit Tigers has eyes on a fast start - ESPN

Rotoworld blurb:

Rick Porcello started playing catch on December 1, a month earlier than he normally beings his offseason throwing program.
Porcello's velocity improved as the season went along last year, and he pitched a gem in the ALCS against the Rangers. He's looking to hit his stride sooner in 2012. "I'm really trying to get myself to midseason form at the beginning of April," said Porcello. "I want to give myself the best chance to do well right off the bat, and not be concerned about mechanical things or arm strength. I just go out there and compete. I feel great, there is definitely a noticeable difference. There's no tightness. My workload is more right now. I'm on track."

[Yoda]

Still younger than Strasburg and barely older than Matt Moore... so easy to not realize that at times.

That being said, he really needs to show a good bit of improvement this year.

[Brian]

I hope he can pitch like he did at the tail end of last season. If he does he'll be fine.

[T&P_Fan]

Year 4, the young tag has worn off. He is pretty much a big league veteran, so we need to see some improvement. I hope he found a way to get left-handers out.

[John_Brian_K]

What is an acceptable line for him this year?

I mean holy cow he is only 23 and he has won 14 games twice in his career already.

If he gives us 14-16 wins with a 1.29 WHIP and a 3.9 ERA and a 180+ innings I will be happy. Anything more than that is gravy IMO.

[thefunk]

Porcello has a chance to be exactly what the Tigers need. A #4 starter who wins 16-17 games for us this year. He's been the brunt of some unfair expectations.

[alwaysthrowheat]

Still younger than Strasburg and barely older than Matt Moore... so easy to not realize that at times.

That being said, he really needs to show a good bit of improvement this year.

I think I remember seeing he was the third youngest starter who threw enough innings to qualify last season.

[tiger337]

I'm hoping he pitches deeper into games and increases his strikeouts. So, I guess I'm hoping for 200 innings and 6 k/9 while maintaining his walk and ground ball rates. I don't really look at pitcher wins, but if he does that he should contribute to more team wins.

[froggyvk]

I think I remember seeing he was the third youngest starter who threw enough innings to qualify last season.

Yep, behind Bumgarner and Pineda.

Age 21: Madison Bumgarner
Age 22: Rick Porcello, Michael Pineda
Age 23: Mike Leake, Mat Latos, Jhoulys Chacin, Trevor Cahill, Clayton Kershaw

[alwaysthrowheat]

Yep, behind Bumgarner and Pineda.

Age 21: Madison Bumgarner
Age 22: Rick Porcello, Michael Pineda
Age 23: Mike Leake, Mat Latos, Jhoulys Chacin, Trevor Cahill, Clayton Kershaw

So it's safe to assume he'll still be in the bottom 10% this season too.

[froggyvk]

So it's safe to assume he'll still be in the bottom 10% this season too.

Yep. Actually, if you keep going, of players who qualified for the ERA title, 6 pitchers were 24, 6 were 25. So 93 total qualified for the ERA title, and 15% of them were 25 or younger.

[Nastradamus]

People look at ERA too much and fail to realize that he has steadily improved each and every year. IMO, he is likely to do so again this year, as he certainly hasn't reached his potential and seems to have the right attitude and work ethic to succeed when combined with his talent. People act like Trevor Cahill is some ace caliber pitcher but Porcello is barely a #5, but Porcello has arguably, if not certainly, outperformed Cahill. Yet it we had Cahill as our #4 instead of Ricky I bet everyone would rank our rotation higher than they do now. Rick's first year was his worst, not his best as often represented on this board.

[Brian]

If he could squeek out 15-16 wins I'd be thrilled.

[Eric Cioe]

Who gives a crap how many games he wins? He won as many as Felix and more than Lincecum last year. Pitching wins have almost no indication of quality of pitching. Porcello would tell you that.

I'm with Lee: increased strikeouts, increased innings, same walk rate. What I'm guessing it will take to get there is a tightened slider / usable changeup, plus increased effectiveness of the 4 seam fastball. I don't know if he can do it. 500+ IP into his career, I've seen flashes that last maybe a game or three, but never anything sustained.

[John_Brian_K]

Who gives a crap how many games he wins? He won as many as Felix and more than Lincecum last year. Pitching wins have almost no indication of quality of pitching. Porcello would tell you that.

I'm with Lee: increased strikeouts, increased innings, same walk rate. What I'm guessing it will take to get there is a tightened slider / usable changeup, plus increased effectiveness of the 4 seam fastball. I don't know if he can do it. 500+ IP into his career, I've seen flashes that last maybe a game or three, but never anything sustained.

I do.

[tiger337]

I do.

I'm interested in team wins. If he goes from 14 wins to 16 wins because the team won games 9-8 and 10-7, then I wouldn't consider that an improvement on his part. If he won 14 games but improved his IP and K rate, I would consider that a good thing. It would give me more confidence that he could help his team win in the playoffs and in the future.

[DaYooperASBDT]

Feed that young man some more steaks! He's still filling out hopefully. Certainly there are "skinny guys" who generate plenty of velocity, but perhaps a little more muscle would help him maintain FB velocity deeper into games? I know that has been an issue for Rick at times. He's still only 23, as others have mentioned.

Porcello also mentioned that he tweaked his delivery, wonder if that might add one or two MPH?

[catswithbats]

I like that he started his throwing program earlier this year. Kind of Verlanderish of him.

[Bondo]

The more and more I think about it I really think Porcello will eventually be a mid rotation or better guy. Last year his k rate went up from 4.5 to 5.1 and that was with a slow start(as mentioned by Olney). The one thing I have felt Porcello needed to do was improve his endurance and stamina. If he holds his velocity more throughout the game combined with the slider he was displaying towards the end of the year i could definitely see that k rate spike to the 6-6.3 range. With his walk rates and gb ratios staying somewhat same you'd be talking a nice #3, maybe more depending on infield defense/luck. I think he eventually will settle somewhere in the 6.5-7.2 range, maybe with a spike over that once or twice in his career. With an above average d behind him and sustained walk rates I could see a Adam Wainwright type player emerging. For that to happen though he really would need to sharpen up that slider and change, which I think at this point has pretty decent odds of happening. I guess we'll see.

To be honest, other than Fielder, he's the guy I'm most excited to watch this year. I think alot of People, including me, have been down on kid rick of late. For good reason. But maybe if he gets out of the gate last year like he wanted he has the year last year that we are hoping for this year, then suddenly everything changes. Life can be funny like that, everything is a variation or two from being either a success or a disaster. The exciting thing to me is he is only entering his 23 aged season. Hell Wainwright didn't become a full time starter until his 25th. Time I feel is on his side if he can avoid the injury bug. I do though put him after Max as far as injury concern in our rotation.

[HardyA34]

Porcello is still so young, the hope of improvement is still very much legitimate as he continues to learn how to pitch. The most important thing for him is whether or not he can miss enough bats to raise his k rate. If he can do that, with his ground ball rate, he can become a very effective pitcher. Although with an infield of Cabrera, Peralta, Inge and Fielder, he may have to decrease that ground ball rate to nill...

[Charles Liston]

If I can only choose one all-purpose number, and one that is readily available from daily box scores without advanced metrics, I'll take WHIP. You can't succeed in the long run if your WHIP is over 1.40, because that corresponds roughly to an opponents' OBP of .350. I'd like to see him at 1.20, he'd be a solid contributor at that level.

[cruzer1]

I could be mistaken, but wasn't he playing with a cutter last year? That should help him vs. lefties.

[DaYooperASBDT]

If I can only choose one all-purpose number, and one that is readily available from daily box scores without advanced metrics, I'll take WHIP. You can't succeed in the long run if your WHIP is over 1.40, because that corresponds roughly to an opponents' OBP of .350. I'd like to see him at 1.20, he'd be a solid contributor at that level.

He's keeping the walks down, and avoiding the long ball. He also kept right handed batters to a nifty .248/.295/.355 (.650 OPS). But lefties destroyed him last year (.321/.368/.488) - an OPS of .857

Hoping his recent adjustments will allow him to better handle the lefty hitters.

[DaYooperASBDT]

Also, the 4th and 5th innings were not kind to him (8.04 ERA in the fourth, 6.31 ERA in the fifft)

[alwaysthrowheat]

Also, the 4th and 5th innings were not kind to him (8.04 ERA in the fourth, 6.31 ERA in the fifft)

He was pretty bad the second time around in the order.

[zimm]

Who gives a crap how many games he wins? He won as many as Felix and more than Lincecum last year. Pitching wins have almost no indication of quality of pitching. Porcello would tell you that.

I'm with Lee: increased strikeouts, increased innings, same walk rate. What I'm guessing it will take to get there is a tightened slider / usable changeup, plus increased effectiveness of the 4 seam fastball. I don't know if he can do it. 500+ IP into his career, I've seen flashes that last maybe a game or three, but never anything sustained.

personally, i'd like to see him add a splitter, a la roy halladay. it's been a big reason why his k rates have gone up since he went to philly.

[HardyA34]

If he can increase the k rate while maintaining the walk rate, we have have a legitimate 2/3

[catswithbats]

I could be mistaken, but wasn't he playing with a cutter last year? That should help him vs. lefties.

I read somewhere that he started throwing it at the end of the season/in the postseason.

[The Truman Show]

His improvements in FIP aren't going to be worth a damn if he doesn't solve his lefty problem. Bonderman always failed to live up to his FIP because of getting crushed by lefties, and Porcello is following that same path.

[DET Mr Malefic]

His improvements in FIP aren't going to be worth a damn if he doesn't solve his lefty problem. Bonderman always failed to live up to his FIP because of getting crushed by lefties, and Porcello is following that same path.

Pre-injury Bonderman was a better pitcher than Porcello has shown though. If Porcello pitches in 2012 like 2006/pre-injury 2007 Bonderman I'd be very pleased, in spite of the fact that your criticism is fair.

[froggyvk]

I read somewhere that he started throwing it at the end of the season/in the postseason.

I noticed it sparingly before then. About once a game he'd throw an 89 mph pitch with slider-type Pitcher F/X, so I thought cutter. I didn't know for sure, but it was too much of a tweener pitch to fit in definitively with either fastball or slider.

[MotorCityKitty]

Still younger than Strasburg and barely older than Matt Moore... so easy to not realize that at times.

That being said, he really needs to show a good bit of improvement this year.

Whenever I am in a heated discussion about porcello this is always an argument of mine, we forget he's so young! But I agree he needs to show a certain level of improvement this year. Can't keep making the young argument forever

[The Truman Show]

Pre-injury Bonderman was a better pitcher than Porcello has shown though. If Porcello pitches in 2012 like 2006/pre-injury 2007 Bonderman I'd be very pleased, in spite of the fact that your criticism is fair.

Yeah but he has a ton of work to do to get that far.

[Eric Cioe]

personally, i'd like to see him add a splitter, a la roy halladay. it's been a big reason why his k rates have gone up since he went to philly.

But Halladay was adding that split to two plus pitches (sinker and curveball) and one plus plus pitch (cutter). Porcello needs to add something else first.

His improvements in FIP aren't going to be worth a damn if he doesn't solve his lefty problem. Bonderman always failed to live up to his FIP because of getting crushed by lefties, and Porcello is following that same path.

Yikes, hadn't thought of it that way.

I could be mistaken, but wasn't he playing with a cutter last year? That should help him vs. lefties.

I noticed it sparingly before then. About once a game he'd throw an 89 mph pitch with slider-type Pitcher F/X, so I thought cutter. I didn't know for sure, but it was too much of a tweener pitch to fit in definitively with either fastball or slider.

I'll have to keep an eye on this. I think a hard slider or cutter would compliment his sinker better than anything else. I think with a 91 mph sinker and an 89 mph cutter he could have a lot of success. I also think that would make any changeup or slower breaking ball he throws look a lot better.

[alwaysthrowheat]

Everyone throws a cutter nowadays. It's the new trend. It's made some mediocre pitchers good (Brandon McCarthy), and some good pitchers great (Dan Haren).

[itsallgood8989]

What is an acceptable line for him this year?

I mean holy cow he is only 23 and he has won 14 games twice in his career already.

If he gives us 14-16 wins with a 1.29 WHIP and a 3.9 ERA and a 180+ innings I will be happy. Anything more than that is gravy IMO.

I'm hoping he pitches deeper into games and increases his strikeouts. So, I guess I'm hoping for 200 innings and 6 k/9 while maintaining his walk and ground ball rates. I don't really look at pitcher wins, but if he does that he should contribute to more team wins.

I honestly think these two ideas are a reasonable goal for Rick and I am optimistic that he will accomplish both of these ideas....

[Antrat]

[DaYooperASBDT]

Everyone throws a cutter nowadays. It's the new trend. It's made some mediocre pitchers good (Brandon McCarthy), and some good pitchers great (Dan Haren).

The cutter has really helped Chad Durbin.

[cruzer1]

I'll have to keep an eye on this. I think a hard slider or cutter would compliment his sinker better than anything else. I think with a 91 mph sinker and an 89 mph cutter he could have a lot of success. I also think that would make any changeup or slower breaking ball he throws look a lot better.

I agree.

[Casimir]

I know I fall into the trap of forgetting how young Porcello is while being critical of him more often than not.