The Hook: Pair of Top Prospects Fall Again

Posts: 4543 · Posted: Jun 28, 2007 12:13 am

The Hook: Pair of Top Prospects Fall Again

While the seasons of Matt Cain and Anthony Reyes have been drastically different from a statistical angle, they've both been...

Posts: 7281 · Posted: Jun 28, 2007 10:34 am

Good article. Good thing I keep tabs on whatever is going on with Cain and the Cardinals's pitching. That just provided an in depth detail. Nice job.

Posts: 513 · Posted: Jun 28, 2007 12:01 pm

Great article....I've been keeping an eye on Cain. He had a great second half last year, and I hope Reyes does turn it around.

Posts: 6748 · Posted: Jun 28, 2007 12:06 pm

I'm beginning to feel bad for Cain. The kid couldn't possibly do anything different to improve his results. If he were on a team like the Red Sox - we're talking eight+ wins for him already.

Posts: 1705 · Posted: Jun 28, 2007 1:17 pm

Well... I was really just thinking to myself that it had been a while since I'd written anything other than the two start pitchers, and the fact that we had two potential front-line starters drop a combined eighteenth straight decision certainly seemed like something to write about.

The indicators are definitely there on Cain, but a lot of people (much of the St. Louis media included) don't seem to realize that Reyes' indicators have been significantly better than his results. In short, even if he keeps doing what he's been doing, that ERA is going to come down quite a bit and (hopefully) the offense is going to eventually score some runs for him.

Plus, it's never a bad idea to talk about a couple of guys who could help out in the second half.

Posts: 3474 · I - L - L...... I - N - I Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 3474

Jim Meyerriecks wrote:

Well... I was really just thinking to myself that it had been a while since I'd written anything other than the two start pitchers, and the fact that we had two potential front-line starters drop a combined eighteenth straight decision certainly seemed like something to write about.

The indicators are definitely there on Cain, but a lot of people (much of the St. Louis media included) don't seem to realize that Reyes' indicators have been significantly better than his results. In short, even if he keeps doing what he's been doing, that ERA is going to come down quite a bit and (hopefully) the offense is going to eventually score some runs for him.

Plus, it's never a bad idea to talk about a couple of guys who could help out in the second half.

Great article Jim.

Reyes is an interesting case. His peripherals suggest he's a better pitcher than the results indicate, but he also seems to suffer from the "Dave Bush Syndrome." He has this major problem of giving up big innings while otherwise pitching good. And pitchers that do that usually do so via giving up the long ball.

Which leads to an interesting discussion surrounding fly ball rates in the minors. Nate Silver of BP wrote in yesterday's chat that he suspects there might be a correlation between pitchers with good K:9 and K:BB rates in the minors that have large fly ball and HR percentages and their lack of big league success. Those type pitchers typically get ranked highly by the various prospect listings because they flash good "stuff", yet when they get to the majors, they get pounded. Why? Major league batters don't miss nearly as often as their minor league counterparts. So, in essence the theory is if a pitcher gives up a lot of fly ball outs, a significant portion of those outs will turn into HRs in the majors.

It's an interesting theory, and one that I personally will be closely watching. And if it is in fact true, that does not bode well for someone like Reyes, who definitely is a fly ball pitcher.

Posts: 1 · FIC Rookie Joined: 29 Jun 2007 Posts: 1

Anthony Reyes does not deserve your description of him as a "premium young starter," and he never has. It's true that he has had a dearth of run support, but few things deflate one's teammates more quickly than a pitcher who can be counted on to give up beaucoup runs in his first couple of innings on the mound.

The fact is, Reyes has pitched two good games in his MLB career. Thankfully for the Cardinals, one of them was Game 1 of the World Series last year. But aside from those games, there is almost no evidence Reyes is a promising prospect of any kind.

I'd much rather have Cain, on my baseball team or my fantasy team. It would be great if the Giants were to deal him for Reyes straight up, but it ain't happenin'.

Cheers

Posts: 1705 · Posted: Jun 30, 2007 3:34 am

Dexter Westbrook wrote:

Anthony Reyes does not deserve your description of him as a "premium young starter," and he never has. It's true that he has had a dearth of run support, but few things deflate one's teammates more quickly than a pitcher who can be counted on to give up beaucoup runs in his first couple of innings on the mound.

The fact is, Reyes has pitched two good games in his MLB career. Thankfully for the Cardinals, one of them was Game 1 of the World Series last year. But aside from those games, there is almost no evidence Reyes is a promising prospect of any kind.

I'd much rather have Cain, on my baseball team or my fantasy team. It would be great if the Giants were to deal him for Reyes straight up, but it ain't happenin'.

Cheers

Sure... I don't think you could name a person in America who wouldn't much rather have Cain. Apart from the fact that he's actually enjoyed success at the big league level for the past few seasons, he's also three years younger. However, to say that Reyes' status as a prospect has been completely tarnished by what equates to a disappointing full season (he's made a combined 36 appearances and 34 starts in his big league career) is being a bit too harsh. As for the run support, let's completely discount wins and losses from the following:

Anthony Reyes Career Minor League Statistics:

3.22 ERA, 1.05 WHIP, 40 HR All., 480:96 K:BB, 9.59 K/9 IP in 450.3 IP

His AAA Statistics from 2005-2007:

3.03 ERA, 0.99 WHIP, 23 HR All., 234:48 K:BB, 8.97 K/9 IP in 234.7 IP

Now his big league statistics, which reflect a few positives and a lot of negatives:

5.40 ERA, 1.35 WHIP, 27 HR All., 130:62 K:BB, 7.16 K/9 IP in 163.3 IP

His K/9 is down a little bit, which is to be expected as he adjusts to the higher level. He's still fanning more than 7 batters per 9 innings, which is just fine.

He's struggled a little with his control at times. I think we've seen that from most young pitchers (Cain included). Since I'm still making the case that Reyes has front-line potential, I'll point to a few current aces. In Roy Halladay's first full season, he walked 79 in 149 innings (Halladay is now known as one of the league's best control pitchers). Brandon Webb walked 119 in 208 innings in his second season. Both have won Cy Young awards (not saying Reyes has that type of ceiling). Jake Peavy walked 82 in 194.1 innings in his first full season.

Reyes allows home runs. That's part of the problem with being a fly ball pitcher. On the positive side, the 56 home runs yielded in Busch Stadium ranks it among the league's best pitcher's parks in terms of suppressing power.

Pitchers who would qualify for the ERA title (from an IP standpoint) who currently range from a 1.35 (Reyes' career big league WHIP) and 1.42 (Reyes' current season WHIP):

Matt Morris
Tom Glavine
Jarrod Washburn
Curt Schilling
Matt Belisle
Barry Zito
Julian Tavarez
Daniel Cabrera
Jason Hirsh
Roy Oswalt
Chad Durbin
Randy Wolf
Aaron Cook
Kyle Lohse
Braden Looper
Noah Lowry
Chad Gaudin

Now, while Oswalt's the only true ace of that group... here's what I'm getting at. Four of those pitchers have an ERA over 5.00 (Daniel Cabrera & Kyle Lohse [5.02], Matt Belisle [5.03], and Jason Hirsh [5.21]). Reyes' current ERA is a whopping 6.40 on the year. The numbers aren't adding up.

As for two good games, I would have to assume that you're referring to the World Series as the obvious one. You could have meant several other games as the other:

- 6 innings of 1 run ball in a pressure packed game against the Padres in the final week of last season (I assume this is the one you're referring to)
- 6.1 innings of shutout ball with 9 strikeouts against the Pirates last season
- 5 innings of two hit shutout ball against the Reds last season
- The other obvious one. Eight innings of one run ball against the White Sox in a 1-0 loss. The Cardinals lost the surrounding four games by an aggregate score of 50-23, including 20-6 and 13-5 to the White Sox the previous two nights
- 5.2 innings of 4 hit shutout ball against the Royals in his first start last season

Excluding his first (shortened) season, Reyes has had only two or three great starts, another handful of very good ones, quite a few decent/average starts (3-4 runs in 6 innings), and about four or five really bad ones. Yep... sounds like a young pitcher to me.

Reyes still has plenty of work to do to live up to his (MLB) draft status as well as the fact that he was considered the Cardinals' top prospect heading into 2005 and 2006. However, the minor league numbers were certainly there, and he's certainly not the first heralded young pitcher to struggle in his first couple of opportunities at the big league level. In closing, consider an ace that the Cardinals traded away... Dan Haren:

2003 - 5.08 ERA, 1.46 WHIP, 9 HR All., 43:22 K:BB, 5.32 K/9 IP in 72.6 IP

You may recall that he was shuttled back and forth between the majors and the minors quite a bit in his second season(2004), in part because he allowed ten to the Cubbies in his first start of the year. He turned out OK, and has arguably been Oakland's best starter two years running. With the sole exception of HR allowed, Reyes put up better numbers across the board in his rookie season (last year) than Haren did in 2003. His ERA was .02 better. His WHIP was .07 better. His strikeout rate and walk rates were significantly better.

There's still plenty of hope for Reyes. It should be interesting to see if the Cardinals give up on him too soon.