SubscribeI’m confident that Rick Porcello will take the next step in 2010. The real question is whether that next step will be a step forward or a step backward.
After only one year in the minors, Porcello managed this MLB line in 2009:
14 W, 3.96 ERA, 1.37 WHIP, 89 K, 170.2 IP
That’s pretty good for a 20 year-old rookie, good enough for a $5-6 value last year. But the predictions for 2010 are…pretty divided. Let’s take a look at the negatives first:
Rick Porcello takes a step back in 2010.
(CHONE: 5 W, 5.08 ERA, 1.52 WHIP, 69 K, 124 IP)
Someone recently pointed out to me that Porcello’s projection wasn’t showing up on the Price Guide. After a little digging, I found that that wasn’t quite true: Porcello is on the Price Guide for 2010, but he doesn’t rank in the top 250 pitchers that are shown by default. The reason why is nicely illustrated by CHONE’s projection above.
With a 5.00 ERA, Porcello winds up in the -$16 range for standard league. Why the pessimism for a pitcher who finished 2009 with an ERA below 4.00? Most likely it comes from Porcello’s very low strikeout rates over his two professional seasons. With so few strikeouts, there will be lots of balls put in play. More balls in play means more hits and more runs, and that’s going to show up in his WHIP and ERA.
Even without the impact on ERA/WHIP, it’s hard for a pitcher with so few strikeouts to be valuable in 5×5 fantasy. That projected line above presents no redeemable qualities for fantasy.
Rick Porcello takes a step forward in 2010.
(Fans: 12 W, 4.10 ERA, 1.43 WHIP, 110 K, 180 IP)
What the projections don’t know, however, is that Porcello is a somewhat unique pitcher. He’s a first round pick who has shot straight to the majors, which means he’s at least impressed some people — bad pitchers don’t jump from A-ball to the majors.
Mike at THT Fantasy makes a comparison with Ben Sheets. Like Porcello, Sheets was a 1st round pick who wasted little time in the minors. Although he started off his major league career with middling K/9 numbers, Sheets’s strikeout-rates improved and he turned into a very good MLB pitcher. It’s not an exact comparison, but it shows that it’s possible for Porcello to improve.
That’s the sort of thinking that is influencing the fan projections above. There’s a little bit of decline in rate stats, but that’s compensated by an improved K/9.
So what can we expect from Rick Porcello in 2010? I’m not making any bold predictions, but I will say that the potential downside makes him a risky pitcher to draft this year.
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Nice to see you write something about Porcello, but how come he isn’t included in the Price Guide projections? Am I missing something?
Oh shoot! Now I see that with CHONE frowning on him he doesn’t even show up in the top 250. Yikes!