by qksilver69 » Fri Mar 25, 2011 10:22 am
Good luck with the work on the Japan stuff Ted, hope you make progress.
On the Rays & developing prospects, I think the Hellickson projection was pretty spot-on. I always said I love him as a prospect but that I doubted he'd have a useable card for this year because I expected a Sept call-up and not sooner. Well they called him up in August, a bit ahead of where I thought, but the card, for 12-team league purposes, is not really useable, at least as an SP.
My point in the end is that the smart teams like TB are [b:0d66f93433]not[/b:0d66f93433] rushing players when they are not forced to or not in contention. And looking at all the pitching that TB has, I just don't see a scenario where Moore gets more than a cup of coffee this year and like Hellickson lasy year, he's unlikely to get a card for next year. If Hellickson was called up just 1 week later last season, he never gets a card.
Moore is 22 and pitched in A and high A last year. Alex Torres is 23 and pitched AA all last year, and is a LH SP with a high ceiling and a similar control issue to Moore. My bet on Moore was that Torres is ahead of him in the promotion order unless Moore makes a big jump ahead.
Miller is only 19 but has exceptional fastball command for his age. And the Cards are in a very different scenario from TB.
1) Their rotation is paper-thin after losing Wainwright
2) Carpenter is a free agent after next year
3) They have no payroll to speak of if they intend to re-sign Pujols
4) They must show Pujols they are committed to winning with him if they want to convince him to re-sign in the offseason
5) They have no other SPs in front of him in terms of development
All of that to me means there is a shot, albeit still an outside one, that STL is forced to call Miller up this year. Would not be the smartest thing to do, but I can easily see it happening, and I think there will be a ton of pressure for them to put him in the rotation next spring no matter what, assuming he pitches AA-AAA this year.
As a comparable, Miller's stats are equal to Rick Porcello at age 19, the year before Porcello was called up, at the same level of ball, but Miller has a much higher K rate. And similar to DET, STL has the situation where they may be forced to promote him if he is dealing in AAA in July and they are in contention.