Yankees Prospect Watch: David Robertson

Last year I wrote a post comparing Mark Melancon with David Robertson, and argued that despite popular opinion, Robertson was the better pitching prospect.  Recently, I've done some more digging on Robertson and came up with a very surprising comparable player.

I'm sure there are several Braves fans out there thinking, "Oh, wow, Joey Devine.  Too bad he was the worst pitcher ever" or something like that, because we Braves fans only know the Joey Devine from 2006 who gave up a couple of grand slams at all the wrong moments, and then was quietly shipped off to Oakland the following year.  But, all the Oakland fans are sitting there thinking, "Oh, wow, Joey Devine.  He just finished 2008 with the lowest ERA (0.59) for a pitcher with at least 40 innings pitched in the history of the game" or something like that.  And they would be right.  

Devine posted some insane stats last year, and was only 24 years old at the time.  I looked through some stats from the last few years for relief pitchers, and there were only a handful of young pitchers that came close to Devine's numbers at his age.  At 24 years old, Francisco Rodriguez posted a 1.73 ERA, Joakim Soria posted a 1.60 ERA last year at the age of 24, and Rafael Soriano posted a 1.53 ERA as a 23 year old in 2003.  That's some outstanding company for Devine.  

So, depending on what you remember about Joey Devine, the fact that David Robertson compares so well to him should raise a few eye brows, especially among Yankees fans.  But what I really like about Robertson is that not only does he compare well to Devine, but he is actually better than Devine.  Robertson possesses a phenomenal ground ball rate, and in 138 minor league innings, he gave up just 1 home run.  Devine on the other hand gave up 7 home runs in just 116 innings in the minors.

But, Yankees fans are probably saying right now, "Yeah, but Robertson had a 5.34 ERA last year, and he gave up 3 home runs to boot.  That doesn't seem very Devine-like to me".  And they would be right.  Robertson had some rough patches in '08 with the Yanks, and that could be cause for concern, but it doesn't bother me.  Even Devine went through some growing pains with the Braves.  Any time a pitcher comes up, he has a learning curve to go through, and Robertson was no exception.  But among those growing pains are glimpses of the future, as Robertson posted a 1.46 ERA though his first 11 appearances in '08.  

There's no guarantee that Robertson will repeat the sub-1.00 ERA Devine posted last year, but I think he could be very good, and has a very good chance of becoming a very dominant relief pitcher, and maybe the closer of the future for the Yankees.        

...Read more

Dialing Up the Yankees' Dellin Betances: Projections and Comparisons

If you grew up in Brooklyn, your favorite team growing up was the Yankees, and you had the stuff to be a Major League pitcher, where would you want to spend your career?

With the Yankees, of course. And that's how the story of Dellin Betances begins. He may or may not spend his career in the confines of the New Yankee Stadium, but he'll pitch there at some point, and he'll be pretty good at it. But even as I type up this post, I can hear Yankees fans saying, "Yeah, but how good?" And I can't blame them for wanting to know.

Betances has the pure talent to be a stud. Before I get into all the details, I want to suggest a few comparable pitchers, and then discuss what kind of stuff Betances brings to the mound.

Betances compares really well to Kerry Wood, followed by Billingsly, and then Harden. By the age of 22, each one of them posted an ERA at or below 3.40, so that's a great set of pitchers to be grouped with, and I think Betances has just as much potential as any of them. None of them was particularly good at keeping the ball on the ground, but they don't give up a lot of home runs, indicating that even when they leave a ball high in the zone, hitters don't usually catch up with it. In a perfect world I would like to see Betances post a GB% closer to 50%, but I'll take his current rate since he is relying so heavily right now on his fast ball to avoid contact.

Speaking of contact, I want to outline Betances pitching repetoire for just a moment. While most scouting reports say that his fastball sits in the low to mid 90's, I've read from several sources that he can reach 97 or 98 mph. Betances also has a change up and a curve that he has been working on since being signed by the Yankees, but it looks like both pitches are still very much works-in-progress. His future development of a good secondary pitch will probably dictate his ability to maintain his K/9 rate while keeping his GB% at acceptable levels. The pace that he is able to locate a curve or change up for strikes will probably determine how quickly he establishes himself in the majors, although I think his fastball is good enough to at least get him there in a couple of years.

While I don't like to deem a pitcher's body as "projectable", Betances has plenty of size, standing 6'7" and weighing in at somewhere around 230 pounds. His ability to repeat sound mechanics will likely determine his durability, but it doesn't hurt to be a 20 year old in a giant's body if you want to be a professional athlete, so he gets a plus for simply being a huge guy.

Anyways, now that we've covered the basics, let's talk about projections. If we follow the path of progression followed by Harden, Wood, and Billingsly, Betances could find his way to AAA by the end of 2009 with perhaps a chance of a call-up late in the season, and a shot at a starting spot in 2010. By then the Yankees should have a rotation that includes a much improved Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain, Chien-Ming Wang, and Ian Kennedy. That would give the Yanks a very solid front 3, with nice depth at the #4 and #5 spot.

If Betances stays on track, he should be fully capable of posting an ERA under 4.00 in the majors by 2010, and possible below 3.50. That would make him at least a 12-14 game winner, with a chance at 15 or more. It's hard to say how he'll do long term since both Wood and Harden have been injury prone, but he definitely has a chance at being a #1 starter, and possibly a Cy Young caliber pitcher. I don't want to over extend my projection, but I like what I've seen from Betances so far, and I think the best is yet to come.

...Read more

Ian Kennedy - a young Greg Maddux?

Maybe, maybe not...

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: if you’re a Yankees fan, you’ve got to be pretty excited right now with all these young pitchers coming up through the farm system. It reminds me a lot of when the Braves started their streak of division titles back in the early 90’s. They had a young John Smoltz, a young Tom Glavine, a very young Steve Avery, and later added a young Greg Maddux. Between those four guys and a long list of offensive talent that included Terry Pendleton, Chipper Jones, Andruw Jones, Fred McGriff, David Justice, Gary Sheffield, Javy Lopez, Rafael Furcal, and many others, the 90’s was the time to be a Braves fan. They don’t have the pitching anymore, and it’s unlikely they’ll be able to dominant the National League East anytime in the near future unless they address that need. But right now, the Yankees have Chien-Ming Wang, Joba Chamberlain, Phillip Hughes and Ian Kennedy, with the possibility of adding depth through trades or free agency. The market value of just those four pitchers is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of at least $40 million a year, if not more. Depending on how Chamberlain and Hughes perform, that number could be closer to $60 million, and possibly $80 million by the time their shot at free agency rolls around. I never thought I’d say it, but it almost looks like the Yankees are turning into one of those low budget home-grown-talent teams based around a well planned scouting approach. Obviously, the Yankees still need an established dominant pitcher for the play-offs, but if they keep the work loads of their younger pitchers relatively light, then I think one of their young prospects will step up and be a great Game 1 starter.

With Chamberlain and Hughes, the debate isn’t so much about if they’ll be any good, but rather how good they will eventually be. They’ve both proven themselves during their time in the minors, and they’ve both been impressive in the appearances they’ve made for the big league team, so the only real question is how long will it take to fulfill their potential.

When it comes to Ian Kennedy, there really doesn’t seem to be a clear cut decision about how good he is. The Yankees recently tried their very best to use him as trade bait in the Johan Santana mess, so it would make sense that they would try to convince the Twins and everybody else that Kennedy is a rising star. However, they couldn’t run the risk of over-hyping Kennedy and then have the Twins scoff at their sales pitch, or even worse they ran the risk of over-hyping Kennedy and then face the possibility of him never meeting the expectations of a deceived and unforgiving Yankees fan base. Either way, I think the Yankees have had to be cautious about the impression they give about Kennedy. I think the best thing they could probably do is put him in positions where he can succeed early, and then either trade him or hope he keeps developing (actually, I think that’s exactly what they tried to do this past season by working Kennedy into some late season starts, but the sample size was too small to convince other teams or Yankees fans of his potential). Regardless of what the Yankees hype-machine is or is not saying about Kennedy, we have his stats to tell us the real story. For quick analytical purposes, I’m just going to throw out a few pitchers with their minor league average stats and then we’ll take it from there.

Player K/9 BB/9 GB% H/9

Ian Kennedy 9.97 3.14 39% 5.62

Phillip Hughes 10.18 2.16 49.8% 5.56

Joba Chamberlain 13.79 2.76 53.7% 6.33

Tom Gorzelanny 8.98 3 43.3% 7.08

Ian Snell 8.46 2.13 43.5% 8.06

Kyle Davies 9 3.25 39.3% 7.56

Mike Pelfrey 8.53 3.17 53.5% 8.18

Out of these 7 pitchers, Kennedy ranks last in groundball percentage, and he ranks fifth in BB/9. His K/9 rate and H/9 rate are high, and scouts have praised Kennedy for being able to locate his off-speed pitches well, even making comparisons to Greg Maddux. But to be fair to Maddux, he went through the minor leagues at a much younger age and maintained a groundball percentage of almost 60% throughout his career. Also, while Kennedy was pitching through AA and AAA ball as a 22 year old, Maddux was pitching his second full season in the major leagues at the age of 22 with a K/9 of 5.06, a BB/9 of 2.83, and a GB% of exactly 60%. So the Maddux comparisons aren’t all that accurate. If anyone looks like Greg Maddux right now it’s Fausto Carmona, who just finished his second full season in the majors at the age of 23 with a K/9 of 5.73, a BB/9 of 2.55, and a GB% of 66%.

My biggest problem with Kennedy is that his power stuff isn’t good enough to blow major league hitters away and his off-speed stuff doesn’t result in enough groundballs, which tells me he’s leaving pitches high in the zone and isn’t getting much downward movement on anything. In the minors, those types of pitches were being popped up and usually didn’t amount to much, but major league hitters won’t be so merciful, especially in the AL East.

So what can the Yankees fans realistically expect from Kennedy? Probably #4 or #5 starter stuff for a few years, with a chance of becoming a solid #2 in the next 5 years. He’s much closer to being Mike Pelfrey or Tom Gorzelanny than Greg Maddux, which gives him a projected ERA for the next 2 years of around 5.00. That would probably put him in a good position to win 10 or 11 games next season pitching for the Yankees, while losing about the same number. Not bad, not great, just kind of average, but in a few years he’ll start to figure things out and if the Yankees can hold on to Hughes and Chamberlain until then, they might have two #1 starters pitching in the #1 and #2 spots and a solid #2 pitcher in the #3 spot, and that would make them a great playoff team.