As of May 16, two of baseball's elite pitching prospects have combined to start fourteen games in AAA. What's more, the two phenoms have combined for only two wins, while suffering seven losses. Still, one kid has industry types giddy, while the other has pundits from Fort Meyers to Tuscan scratching their heads. This is not to say the auspiciousness of either prospect has changed much in the past month and a half; each projects as a true #1 starter, an All-Star type who should dazzle for the next decade, perhaps longer. Still, after a quarter of the season, the campaigns of these future staff aces couldn't be more different. One, a 6'6" righty flamethrower, is sporting an ERA of 1.99 for the Gwinnett Braves, striking out 57 batters in 40.2 innings, while walking only 2.88 per nine. The other, a 6'6" southpaw sporting an equally impressive fastball, has struck out 26 in 29.1 innings for the Durham Bulls, however this comes with 16 walks and an ERA of 4.60.
In case you haven't deduced it already, the two players are RHP Tommy Hanson, a Braves farmhand who completely demolished the offense-happy AFL in 2008 (0.63 ERA, 49 K in 29.2 IP), and LHP David Price, a post-season hero despite his current banishment to minor league purgatory. They are arguably the best two ML-affiliated pitching prospects in baseball, at least until SDSU's Steven Strasburg is drafted (or until Nippon Ham Fighters' righty Yu Darvish and/or Cuba's Ardolis Chapman find their way to the United States). And the similarities between the two are striking: large, athletic frames, electric stuff, unflappable poise, ETA of 2009, etc., yet this only serves to highlight the radical difference in results these hurlers have seen in early '09. Each has a legitimate case to be a part of a big league staff right now, yet it appears that their respective teams have equally legitimate reasons for keeping them down on the farm; so what gives?
In fairness to Price, it should be noted that his pitch counts have been limited to <75. This has resulted, for better or worse, in many an opposing team simply 'waiting him out.' While this has no doubt exacerbated his control problems, Price does deserve his share of the blame for failing to get consistently ahead in counts and for being decidedly uneconomical with his pitches, that is, pitching away from contact. But is this enough to explain the minors' top pitching prospect posting an ERA above league average through a quarter of his team's games? Perhaps a foray into amateur pop-psychology is in order...
Indeed, many have done just that, positing a "let-down" effect after the resounding success Price experienced during last year's ALCS. Thus the Rays deserve lampooning for messing with the psyche and morale of their top prospect, right? Hardly. While there may be some truth to the earlier assertion, Price's control problems indicate that his transient demotion was not without merit, especially in light of his difficulty locating a slow-to-develop changeup (the mastery of which was one of the key reasons for his opening day absence in Fenway Park). The Rays deserve to be commended for this, particularly in the light of their early season struggles; Price was very effective in the high-octane, testosterone drenched ALCS deciding game, working primarily with his fastball (while mixing in a sweeping breaking pitch). This is not the Price one should expect to see over seven innings. For one thing, his fastball generally sits at 91-93 mph, a far cry from the 97+ he showed against J.D. Drew and Co. last fall. Additionally, going into last post-season, he was essentially a two-pitch pitcher--while it is not without precedent for major leaguers (esp LHP's) to succeed with only two dominant pitches (think Johan Santana (FB/change), former D-backs duo Curt Schilling (R, FB/split) and Randy Johnson (L, FB slider)), Price's repertoire is certainly not on that level yet. If he were to work out of the pen, he could absolutely get by with only two pitches. The Rays, however, are correctly adamant on starting him, and recognize that he would benefit greatly by threatening to mix in a changeup, granted he becomes comfortable enough to throw it with conviction.
The Braves, on the other hand, may be making a mistake keeping Hanson down. True, Braves currently have a team ERA of 4.00, good for forth best in the majors, and this is in no small part due to the efforts of their starters (Jurrjens 2.06, Vasquez 3.71, Lowe 3.80). However Kawakami has been less than impressive as the four starter, posting a 5.79 ERA, and Jo Jo Reyes has been exponentially worse in the five spot (6.58, 20 K:12 BB in 26 IP). Prior to the Mets posting an 8-2 record over their past ten, each of the top four teams in the NL East was mired in a state of dreadful mediocrity. Even now, with the Met's starting rotation (2-5) as unsettled as ever, Phillies pitchers giving up longballs at a record pace and Florida experiencing a serious swoon after a gang-busters start, the NL East is completely winnable. Atlanta is a mere two games back , one game over .500; with Hanson banging down the Turner Field doors, the Braves may have found the X-factor they need (see: 2006 post-AS Break MN Twins, Frankie Liriano).
Hanson sits in the low-to-mid nineties with the fastball, a pitch that he buries in on the hands of righties. In addition, he features a filthy slider with good depth, a 'plus' overhand curveball, and a straight change that scouts view as improving. He knows how to use his big frame to his advantage, both to generate velocity and to hide the ball during his delivery. Yet despite his seeming readiness, don't expect to see Hanson with the big league club for at least the next couple weeks. In fact, June 1 is likely the earliest he could make his debut, with the possibility existing that the team will wait until after the All-Star break to make the call-up. All this is circumstantial, of course; if the Braves are winning and remain within striking distance of the NL East frontrunner in the coming weeks (while continuing to get subpar production from the back-end of their rotation), the call may come earlier than expected. Conversely, if the Braves suffer a swoon in the coming weeks and club officials become leery of the team's potential to make a post-season splash in '09, they might view additional development time as advantageous to the future of the franchise. With uber-prospect Jason Heyward (OF), as well as fellow minor league starters Cole Rohrbough and Jeff Locke in the pipeline, its easy to be bullish on the Braves' future; this conservative approach may in fact represent the most likely scenario for Hanson and the team this season.
(note: With the call-up of Hanson's AAA staff-mate Kris Medlen on Saturday, a former reliever who dominated down the stretch for AA Mississippi last year after a rocky start, its become increasingly clear that the Braves are in no rush to graduate their top talent to the major league ranks just yet.)
