Point Blank – June 30
Appreciating Montgomery, but for the right reasons...CC Sabathia is who he is (and so is Marco Estrada)...
A couple of weeks ago you could have used a designation for Seattle lefty Mike Montgomery that would have been historical in context – he might have been the first pitcher in the MLB annals to be labeled a “journeyman” before making his first start. Fast forward to today, and some might fall into the trap of changing that definition to “phenom”, with a 2.04 ERA and 2.99 FIP over his five starts, and off of a stunning complete-game shutout of Kansas City in which he had 10 Ks without a single BB, working at a 11.7 PPI.
Montgomery is not a phenom; it is possible that he could be around The Show for a long time and never top that performance. But he could indeed be around for a long time, and understanding the hows and whys of that will not just help you to develop a better power rating for him, but to also get a better feel for many young pitchers as they become a part of your handicapping thought processes.
A week ago there was a feature take on Ubaldo Jimenez, and how there were finally signs of a consistency that could be trusted. One of the keys was noting “The fact that he was also rushed, never working at the A level, and finding his way into the Colorado rotation in 2007, after only one full season in the Minors…” a path becoming rather common in these times. Major League teams are becoming enamored with hard-throwers, and while it brings some dynamic physical talents, it also had bred inconsistency. Montgomery may violate that, with the irony already that his moment of inconsistency may have been that brilliant showing vs. the Royals.
Here is the key – while many gifted prospects end up on an express elevator, Montgomery has had to take the stairs. He made 99 appearances at the AAA level, including 97 starts, before getting to throw the official MLB ball with that Rawlings stamp on it. That covered 605 1/3 innings, and it provided him with an education in pitching that precious few ever get. If a pitcher has not graduated from AAA by 300 innings it is usually a sign that he is simply not good enough, and Montgomery was right on that borderline, but as each season went by he got better at understanding his own talents, evolving from being a thrower to a pitcher. He did not give up after back-to-back seasons of 5-11/5.32 and 3-6/5.69 with the Royals, though they had seen enough of him. He then improved to 7-8/4.72 and 10-5/4.29 in two seasons in the Tampa Bay organization, and was off to a 4-3/3.74 this spring before the call-up.
You can use his telling of the tale, to Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times as something worth filing away - “When I got to Triple A for the first time, I still had that (thrower’s) mentality there. The numbers showed it. I got beat, and I got hit hard. Many pitching prospects have suffered a similar fate at the Class AAA level, which features plenty of experienced hitters. They would just wait me out until I got in the (strike) zone. I’d get behind in the counts and be in the zone, and regardless of your stuff you’re going to get beat if you continually do that. I had to go take a beating for a while to really understand. I think being in Triple A for the last three years, I’ve learned a lot of things about just myself. How to react to situations and stay calm, stay in the moment and understand there’s a lot out of control of the pitcher, and realizing that gives you a little freedom.”
So how should you categorize Montgomery? A guy that does not have quite enough pop to be anything special, but someone that has learned the craft well enough to command the strike zone and get just enough ground balls to hang around. Do not believe that the Kansas City result is going to be repeated, but also do not project him off of those poor AAA campaigns – it was in getting knocked around that he learned some valuable lessons, providing a sophistication to his game that many pitchers his age do not have.
About Last Night…
C.C. Sabathia has been written about often here this season, including an early focus projecting some difficult times for him (you can refresh your memory a bit here). Sabathia is a proper follow-up to Montgomery, because there are few pitchers in the Majors that have had as much time to learn the craft – barring injury, he will should reach the 3,000 inning plateau this season. And Sabathia indeed exhibits that with his command of the strike zone, working at a 1.7 BB/9 that is a full walk per game below his career rate, and would be his second best individual season if he maintains it. The problem is not throwing strikes; it is in getting hitters to not whack them. At this stage, accepting Sabathia for who he is, and not as a candidate for regression in a couple of categories that might ordinarily call for it, is important.
Here are a couple of those key subsets:
BABIP HR/FB
MLB 2014 .295 10.7
Sabathia 2014 .350 23.3
MLB 2015 .295 9.5
Sabathia 2015 .332 18.1
Note how remarkably steady BABIP has been across the diamonds, and also be prepared for this season’s HR/FB ratio to climb over the next two months of summer heat. Sabathia would appear to be a major outlier in each of these seasons, far enough to expect better things ahead. It would be wrong to assume that. He has allowed multiple HRs in seven starts already, including four times over the last five outings. This may simply be who Sabathia is at this point.
In the Sights…
The markets have a difficult read on their hand in the Eduardo Rodriguez/Marco Estrada matchup in Toronto, the former already flashing a glaring inconsistency, and the latter only being bettered by Max Scherzer for recent form. I see each starter bringing vulnerability, and with #964 Over 9 available at even money at some key stores, and -105 at others, there is value to get in play.
Rodriguez is another of those young talents that is working at this level after only eight starts at AAA, and while he set off fireworks with a 2-0/0.44 through three starts, which helps to set this market value, it has turned quickly. The Blue Jays are bashing left-handers at a .311/.376/.496 tune, leading the Majors by far in each category, and their .872 OPS is nearly 100 points better than #2 Detroit (.784). They roughed Rodriguez up for nine runs over just 4 2/3 innings in Fenway, when 11 of 24 batters that he faced reached base. Now they get a second look, which only Baltimore has had vs. Rodriguez so far, and the Orioles knocked him out of the game before the fourth inning had finished.
Then there is Estrada, providing a classical Zig-Zag element from the markets, who may be a step too late in wanting to get behind him. Estrada is who he is, a guy working to a 4.13 ERA and 4.08 FIP over 614 MLB innings, yet tonight he enters with the sizzle of having flirted with back-to-back no-hitters. Yes, his stuff was dynamic in those games, but it comes at a cost – he threw 247 pitches across those outings, #1 and #2 on his career chart. Color him even more vulnerable to fatigue tonight because he was not even projected to start this season, only working out of the bullpen until early May, hence stamina can be an even more pronounced issue.
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