Ryan Anderson Relief Squad: Starting Pitchers

I know this was suppose to be an every day thing .. but hey. I lied. You can all have your money back…

Anyways. Here are my starting pitchers for the “Ryan Anderson relief squad”. The biggest I think you can take away is I like A) pitchers who get strike outs and B) pitchers who get ground balls. There are few if any better traits to maintain as a pitcher in baseball.

Of course these our my selections and while you could argue for other pitchers these are the ones that I selected. Pitchers that I believe will be ones to watch this year and could have moderate success while still being “under rated” within my own eyes.

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RHP, Seon-Gi Kim

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2009 is quickly looking to be one heck of a class year for the Bob Engles international crew. Seon-Gi Kim signed from South Korea has put up some really great numbers and not only that he has shown solid mechanics and his velocity has supposedly gone up a few ticks.

Being 6’2 and still growing a bit into his frame there is a bit of projectability, though it would be interesting to see where he’s sitting now velocity wise.Obviously there isn’t a lot of information coming out on Kim yet.

Much like Ivan Ramirez we are still waiting to learn more about him. But over this coming year I expect to start hearing little bits come here and there.
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LHP, James Gillheeney

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I like Gillheeney for a collection of reasons.  Well obviously my favorite is that he produces a ton of  swings and misses. Strikeouts are awesome. The fact that in 30 innings split between two different levels he amassed 40+ strikeouts is really exciting. Sure, it’s only 30 innings and that’s not a very significant sample size. It’s still really cool. He has four average pitches and I don’t imagine the strikeout rate to continue to be this high, but who knows.

There is also the fact that he produced a really weird consistent above average infield fly ball rate at each level. Forget that it was above average in 100+ innings, it was wildly above average in 30+ innings. It’s just a fun little fact.

Lastly he also had an above average bunt rate against him. I don’t know what the scouting report is on this guy, maybe he had a bum knee or some type of injury that prevented him from fielding. There is also the possibility that hitters had so much trouble making contact that they just decided to start bunting off him.

Regardless of whether he continues to get strikeouts or not, as a fly ball lefty he has potential with Safeco field with the solid defense behind it.
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LHP, Anthony Vasquez

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Vasquez is kind of opposite of Gillheeney in the sense that he gets tons of ground balls (+45%) opposed to fly balls. Then you also have the whole things where he still gets an above average swing-and-miss rate he doesn’t strike out a lot of hitters.

Vasquez real stock lies with his command, which is excellent, pounding the strike zone and understanding how to pitch. This is very apparent by his +5 SO/BB ratio. As I said he doesn’t strike out a lot of batters but when you don’t put a lot on via the walk, issuing only 24 BB over 171 innings, you don’t have to worry too much about runners on base.

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LHP, Edlando Seco

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Seco is most likely a bullpen arm. Between age, command of pitches and lack of a developed secondary pitch (slider).

While Seco could get to AA and maybe even AAA on his “stuff” with a few minor adjustments.  But, I see the organization having a short leash with him. If he continues to struggle they may wait a year but I see them making that call to put him in the pen and potentially fast track him (ala Dan Cortes).

Again, he can strike out batters at this level the question is how much trouble will he get himself at the next few levels. His fastball velocity sitting in the low 90s and touching the mid 90s and while thats fun and exciting when the pitcher has limited understanding of whats happening and where it’s going it’s far from being effective.

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RHP, Yoervis Medina

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Medina is exciting in the sense that he is a real prospect and could be looking to start the season with High Desert. As a ground ball pitcher I could see the possibility of Medina surviving the experience.

Medina could be one of the better  ceiling/floor pitching prospects in the Mariners organization right now, sitting behind James Paxton. It should be interesting to see how he fairs in a drastic environment such as HD.

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