Jeremy Guthrie

by Harold Baines on Jun 4, 2007 1:34 AM EDT Comment 17 comments

As a former 1st round pick he's always been a guy whose performance never reflected his stuff. Some said he needed a change of scenery. He left Cleveland this year for Baltimore and was given chance in the rotation do to injury and has excelled. He has a 2.76 ERA in 58.2 innings with 10 BB's to 36 K's. He has a good (93-96) fastball with movement that he locates real well. His breaking stuff is solid (curve, slider, change) and when he can throw it for strikes he's been mowing down line-ups like the Red Sox and Angles, but he's been holding his own when it's a little off. Some criticize him for being more of a pitch-to-contact (lots of ground balls) than a strike-out guy despite the good fastball. He's been described as extremely intelligent and has an interesting background, taking years off for missionary work before going to Stanford leading to him not pitching professionally until he was 24.

It's obvious he never felt comfortable in Cleveland with the cloud of 1st round draft pick disappointment hanging over his head and where he said every start felt like an audition. It's interesting that he's actually pitched well in every appearance this year except for 1.1 innings in Cleveland where he gave up 6 ER. If not for that he'd have a 1.88 ERA. Asked what the biggest change pitching coach Leo Mazzone has brought to his performance he said confidence.

What are your thoughts on him? Will he adapt once the league knows about him? What do you see his ceiling as?
I'd be especially interested to see what Cleveland fans think of him.

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Guts

His hit rate will obviously increase, but from what he's shown, especially with his control, a lot of us in Birdland think he can remain in the rotation for a while. At least until the end of the year, preferably in Jaret Wright's place.

As far as makeup goes, he's one of the most poised, intelligent players I've ever seen. If he solidifies himself in the future and maintains a solid roster spot, I think he'd get as many "good guy" props as Sean Casey.

by Lt Melmo on Jun 4, 2007 3:20 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

also,

7.8 HR/FB% and .255 BABIP before today's game, and both of those will have lowered significantly after the game(8 IP, 0 HR, 3 H). I think he'd be able to finish the season with an ERA in the 4.00-4.30 range.

by Lt Melmo on Jun 4, 2007 3:23 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

What ever...

...happened to that supposed $20MM bonus (as suggested in Moneyball) that he demanded to leave Stanford? He only got $3.5MM.

I would personally like to thank Dave Littlefield for banishing the ghost of Scott Kazmir from Shea Stadium.

by uga007 on Jun 4, 2007 9:30 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Was going to...

make a diary on this.

He looks really good this year, and I think he should enjoy a few years of 4.00 ERA pitching in the AL.

His stuff is the best it's been since he was drafted .

by SenorGato88 on Jun 4, 2007 11:50 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Me too

Also had been planning to post a diary on Guthrie, but just never got around to it.

To me, Guthrie is this year's Leo Mazzone special. I love what he's done in terms of simplifying his approach. He's always had better-than-average stuff, but now he's not overthinking too much and feels comfortable on the mound.

Going forward, I think he can be a very fine pitcher and solid #2 behind Bedard for the O's.

by Yakker on Jun 4, 2007 2:25 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Unfortunately, I cannot remember all the details..

But Buck Martinez on XM Radio talked about Guthrie a few weeks ago. Some interesting facts came out of that discussion.

Guthrie did not really start focusing on pitching until his Junior year of HS. His HS team changed coaches for his Senior year, so he pitched for 2 different coaches in HS (which hurt his development a bit). He was drafted by Steve Phillips, and wanted $1MM to sign out of HS. Phillips refused to offer that much, so he went to BYU. He pitched for BYU for 1 year, then took off a year to do a Mormon mission (thus further hurting his development). He came back to the US and went to Stanford. After being drafted by Cleveland, he suffered another setback with some arm problems.

Basically, what I got out of that timeline was that Guthrie really has not had a very good development track. So what we have is a guy that really pitched on pure talent in Cleveland, and Cleveland gave up on him too early. He's probably never going to be a superstar, but I think his results so far this year are real because he's finally had a few years in a row of pitching full-time (first time in his life).

by guru4u on Jun 4, 2007 12:03 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Guthrie

He's got a really herky-jerky delivery though. Very ugly. He just looks like a reliever.

by limozeen on Jun 4, 2007 1:32 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Not at all anymore...

I guess he used to in Cleveland, cause I remember my first thought being that he looks completely different mechanically.

Still, my memories of him in Cleveland are very vague.

by SenorGato88 on Jun 4, 2007 1:49 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

really?

If he really did clean up his mechanics I guess I feel better about him long-term. Still not great periphs though. Seriously, when I saw him in ST two years ago he looked like a five-eleven Keith Foulke or something. Very ugly looking.

Also, there's no way he's 6'1".

by limozeen on Jun 4, 2007 3:09 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

What happened from 03-05?

Anyone have any insight into his troubles from 03-05? That seems like a pretty rapid descent from being a good prospect (I assume).

by jbm on Jun 4, 2007 5:56 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

More thoughts on Guthrie!

Hello jbm,

As mentioned in my other post, the Indians had trouble deciding on whether Guthrie fit better as a starter or as a reliever, but his K rate didn't excel in either role. That partly was the problem.

In addition, as mentioned, part of the problem was also the fact that Guthrie had trouble adjusting to AAA after initially succeeding in AA, albeit with a low K rate at AA for a guy with his stuff. From what I remember reading and hearing, Guthrie would often think too much on the mound and even "overthink" each AB, trying to guess what the hitter was looking for, and then not commanding the pitch he wanted to throw, either resulting in falling behind in the count and/or getting hit hard when he did come over the plate.

The Indians mentioned around 2005 or early 2006 that Guthrie probably wasn't as advanced in his ability to pitch (i.e. knowing how to go about attacking and getting AAA and ML hitters out,) as they originally thought when they drafted him out of Stanford. Like I said before, losing 2 years of development time from his Mormon mission probably didn't help his development as a pitcher, along with the fact he had to be on a strict development timeline due to the fact he was signed to a ML-contract, mostly due to Guthrie's draft status and the fact he had Scott Boras as an agent. That's why the Indians more-less ran out of time with him.

In addition, I do recall he did have a bit of arm trouble as well, but it seemed more to me like he was having trouble with his mental approach on the mound and executing his game plan rather than his losing his stuff - his stuff was always considered above-average, even when he was struggling.

Just my 2 cents.

Hopefully, this is helpful! :-)

Take care and have a great day!

The "cream of the crop" doesn't always rise to the top.

by indiansfan on Jun 4, 2007 7:48 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Thanks for the info

It's all ways helpful to hear "the rest of the story" when trying to make sense of the stats. Those issues also make the Mazzone effect seem more plausible in explaining his improvement.

by jbm on Jun 4, 2007 9:30 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

You're welcome - happy to help! :-)

The "cream of the crop" doesn't always rise to the top.

by indiansfan on Jun 4, 2007 11:39 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Thoughts on Guthrie!

Hello everyone,

I haven't seen much of Guthrie this year, outside of his one appearance in Cleveland where he very much looked like the Guthrie who was here since 2002, one who had good stuff, but whose command and approach were iffy most of the time, which often led to his being ineffective more often than not.

guru4u - The Indians would have loved to have kept Guthrie, which is why they tried to slip him through waivers, but weren't able to (it probably wasn't a big surprise to the Indians that he was claimed either from what I read.) Unfortunately, Scott Boras, Guthrie's agent at the time (and still might be, I'm not sure,) insisted on a ML-contract for him, which forced the Indians to speed up his development time faster than they probably would have if he hadn't been signed to a ML-contract. Guthrie also didn't seem as polished or as advanced as his Stanford numbers seemed to indicate; whether his Mormon mission that took 2 years of development time away had something to do with that, is debatable.

It looked like he would breeze through the Minors at first, including a very solid showing at AA, although his K rate was only 5.03, perhaps a sign of the forthcoming difficulties he would have at AAA, not really putting up a solid year there until his last year in the Indians' organization, 2006.

The Indians were unsure whether he would fit better as a starter or as a reliever; originally, they wanted him as a starter, but when he had trouble adjusting to AAA after a few years, even getting sent back to AA at one point, the Indians decided to try him as a reliever at the ML level, as well as the fact the Indians needed more relief help at the time, but with only moderate success at best, as his K rate really didn't improve much from his starter K rates.

The Indians were always high on Guthrie and felt that he could succeed at the ML level, but never could get the consistency out of him they expected. As I mentioned, they tried to send him through waivers to AAA, but he was claimed by Baltimore. It's nice to see he's finally finding ML success there.

Just my 2 cents. :-)

Take care and have a great day!

The "cream of the crop" doesn't always rise to the top.

by indiansfan on Jun 4, 2007 7:35 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Good to see...

...that at least one Cleveland fan is still rooting for the kid, though I wouldn't have expected any less from you. :-)

To me, Guthrie is the latest shining example of the Mazzone effect. Leo's done this for so many years that we start to expect it, but his "Keep it Simple, Stupid" approach really works well with some of these reclamantion projects.

There are other excellent pitching coaches out there (Peterson, Duncan, and Anderson come to mind), but Leo's still #1 in my book.

by Yakker on Jun 4, 2007 7:41 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Another Indian it seemed to work with was

mentioned in this thread and is on the same team as Guthrie - Jaret Wright (from his year in Atlanta - arguably his best overall season, and even showed glimpses of what made him such a talked about name in 1997 when he (and Chad Ogea) nearly led the Indians to a WS Championship.)

Thanks for the compliment Uncle Charlie - greatly appreciated! :-)

Take care and have a great day!

The "cream of the crop" doesn't always rise to the top.

by indiansfan on Jun 4, 2007 7:51 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs