Porcello vs. Matusz Faceoff w/poll
by Wilbur Wood on Mar 18, 2010 11:36 AM EDT
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Rick Porcello vs. Brian Matusz and Porcello vs Martin Perez (who do you like?)
Interested in the relative outlooks that the prospects hounds here have on Rick Porcello compared with a couple of other young pitcher. Porcello is a polarizing young player as he gets outstanding plaudits from many for
"ARL", holding his own at the MLB level. On the other hand the low K rates have convinced many that his ultimate ceiling is not that high. Others compare Verlander's lower K rates early in his career and the 9 K's that Porcello got in his last 2009 outing.
So I'd like to pulse where folks stand via a poll of Porcello vs. two young pitchers.
First Brian Matusz, who has some MLB experience and will embarking on his 1st full MLB season and then secondly a high ceiling young prospect, Martin Perez. (the poll will run just for the Porcello/Matusz comparison so please put your views on Porcello/Perez in the comments sections as I don't want to tie up the home page with multiple threads).
Comments and color on this discussion is very welcome.
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My $0.02 worth
Porcello = #2 starter on decent teams, #3 on a championship
Matusz = Ace on almost any team, possibly top 10 SP in all baseball
It’s Porcello’s K rate that will keep him from being a top starting pitcher, he K’d 72 in 125 innings in the minors and 89 in 170 IP last year with the Tigers. Had he shown the ability to K a lot of guys in the minors I’d agree that he could grow into it but I’m not sure he will. Sure Verlander didn’t K a lot of guys when he first came up but he did in the minors…
Agree / disagree
I agree that Matusz is a great pitcher, possibly a top 10, but I’m probably a little more tempered in my odds on that happening if anything.
Disagree with your take on Porcello. I can’t believe what this kid has done and continues to do, yet we keep hearing the same points come up that have been coming up since he was drafted. You’re really blowing right by the context of those minors numbers here IMO – and it gets even more askew w/ the Verlander comp. Porcello went from HS to making his pro debut in High-A in the course of just a few months… made his MLB debut at age 20. Verlander was still a sophomore @ ODU at that age, which leads to the next point that Verlander was a polished college pitcher when he went through the minors 2 years older than Porcello.
Made the comp before and I still like it – Rick Porcello has a great chance of being Greg Maddux-lite.
I think that Porcello is being underrated
How many pitchers drafted out of high school could post a 4.32 xFIP in their second professional season?
He was plagued by an unlucky HR/FB, his GB rate was impressive, and the K rate should improve as his offspeed stuff gets better. Prospects with impressive GB rates have often been underrated by scouts. Porcello’s raw stuff indicates that he should miss more bats going forward, and given the sink on his fastball, he seems like a good bet to at least be a good worm burner for a long time.
If you’re that good at inducing ground balls, then you can get away with a K/9 in the 6-7 range and still be an ace, just look at Brandon Webb. I think that Porcello could be in for a monster year in 2010.
I like baseball.
I write for Beyond the Box Score and The Hardball Times Fantasy
+1
I may still be inclined to side with Matusz long term but it’s certainly no knock on Porcello.
Who loves orange soda?
by Kenan and Kel on Mar 18, 2010 3:11 PM EDT up reply actions
Re:
I like Matusz > Porcello > Perez.
I think Matusz has better stuff from the left side. He may take a year or two to adjust to the majors — but I think he has a superior ceiling and he’s fairly close to reaching it. That said, I am one of Porcello’s biggest critics and think he has been getting by (in a lot of ways) on pitchability and luck. He kind of reminds me of Mike Pelfey — who put up similar numbers in his MLB debut with a similar minor league / draft profile. For both guys, I don’t think the fastball is good enough to blow past people but instead they managed to get weak contact with it. It obviously caught up with Pel in his second year. Porcello’s secondary stuff is better than Pelfrey’s so that may help him out in the long-term — but I think it remains to be seen if it will really be so much better to make him a #2. I still think a #3 or #4 is more likely for him. I love Perez but I think an MLB team would be crazy to take him above either of the other two at this point. Currently, he’s just a youngster with a few starts at AA and a lot of potential. Both of the other two have a longer track record of health and success at higher levels.
That said, if you were asking for fantasy purposes, I think the value between Perez and Porcello is probably pretty close (would still take BM above both). In my opinion, Porcello wont be THAT valuable as a fantasy pitcher because he doesn’t K many people and I’m not that confident that Detroit will be that good over the next few years. If Perez has a good year at AA (and possibly AAA or the MLB) at the age of 19, you can bet his prospect stock will go through the roof and he might be worth a lot in fantasy. Thus, they are pretty close for me in terms of fantasy value.
Even with the headstart
I’ve got to take Matusz. I think he’ll be the better pitcher and it won’t take long at all for him to be better. He’ll play in a tougher division, he’s older and he’s playing catchup, nonetheless give me Matusz.
Funny stuff going on with this Poll
It was sitting at a dead heat (literally 50/50, excluding my own vote for Matusz) with about 70 votes cast about 2-1/2 hours ago, with the comments favoring Matusz somewhat.
In a little over 2 hours Porcello has out-tallied Matusz by a margin of 87 to 5.
Vote late, Vote often I guess.
I thank anyone who has offered opinion or will do so later.
In my own mind I will deem the matter a dead heat, again with own leaning towards Matusz.
I register this observation for the benefit of anyone coming to this thread and attempting to infer a value proposition from the polls. Always a good idea to monitor the polls that you’re interested in to see if any wild skewed voting occurs.
Fat man is no more,
Bursting on through Heaven's Door
Come on in, says Bill
HA
Someone probably linked a Tigers board or something. No way that’s just late voters who ALL favor Porcello.
This kind of logic always astounds me.
Do people think that if they vote for their own pitcher, it’ll make that pitcher better?
I can’t really talk, I gave a wholly biased vote to Matusz. It’s just crazy to me (especially when it comes to votestuffing the community list) that people get so protective over their own prospects.
I'd take Porcello
I like Matusz quite a bit, but give me the 21 year old with an excellent ground ball rate. I also think the Ks will come for Porcello.
mmm
i think this is a great topic!
i rate perez behind the other 2.
matusz is probbaly the safer bet to be a better pitcher, but i think porcello has the higher ceiling.
i rate them both evenly, so i’ll have to vote for the player with the higher ceiling.
Voted Matusz but........
I like Matusz a lot but I think ppl are selling Porcello short. Matusz is almost 2 full years older and has college expierence. I’m getting sick of all the talk about Porcellos low K rate. In 3 years it will be laughable how much was made of his low K rate in high A at 19 and MLB at 20. It’s not like we have never seen a 20 year old be effective in the ML (Kershaw, Gooden, Feller etc). There is not many but those guys had a true SO pitch to fall back on when they got behind or got into trouble. The fact that he didn’t post a high SO total and was able to be an effective ML SP (at 20) speaks volumes to how well he understands pitching.
I live in the Detroit area and saw 16-18 of his starts including his ML debut. The kid is the real deal. He can pump his 4 seam FB up to the mid 90’s (topping at 97) and he almost never tried to reach back and blow it by guys when he got into trouble instead relying on making good pitches and hitting his spots. The SO will come. Also he just started throwing a CB in 2008. It is a very promising pitch. His CU will come along even more.
In terms of raw stuff right now and control I went Matusz but Porcello will be a #1 and it’s not outta the question he ends up better then Matusz. The above posters who said he’s a 2/3/4 and comparing him to Mike Pelfrey is just ridiculous. It makes me wonder if these guys EVER seen Porcello throw 1 pitch. Porcello’s understanding of how to pitch ML hitters at 20 makes me think his ceiling is very very high. The K’s will come, he will never post 200k’s a season but the 160-170 range is very attainable. Look what Brandon Webb ( and I’m not comparing Porcello to Webb) was able to do w/ a great sinker and 170 ks. I think he won a couple Cy Youngs w/ this profile.
I voted for Matusz, but it's a tough choice
Porcello is two years younger and has more room for development left. But in the end I’ll still take a lefty with strikeouts.
5.2 4 2 1 2 8
For fantasy purposes I would take the lefty nine out of ten times but 8 strikeouts when it really mattered says a lot about Porcello – he could be very special.
Matusz is also closer to passing the injury nexus so I’d probably take him for the next two or three years, but if I’m rolling the dice it’s Porcello I want long term.
"I didn't really say everything I said."-Yogi ism
I go Porcello
I think the strikeouts will come. Matusz may have a slight edge in stuff, but Porcello’s already had ML success at a ridiculously young age, and is almost two years younger. It’s close, but I’d go with RP.
Porcello didn't look impressive to me
He didn’t pitch ahead in the count enough for me, relied too much on his fastball, and the command was good for a 20 year-old, but not great.
I don’t say this to diss him, but to say that he’s already effective, and when he rounds out his game, he’s going to be awesome.
The slider showed flashes, and was definitely improved by the end of the season. The fastball was a very effective pitch, despite using it a lot from behind in the count. The change looked solid to me, and I think will be more effective as command improves.
Porcello
Come on. Porcello by a lot in my mind. Porcello actually faced MLB hitters full-time last season compared to Matusz who mostly faced minor leaguers. If Porcello was facing minor league hitters, he’d dominate them more so than Matusz. Take off the prospect goggles as this is really comparing apples and oranges.
Apples, oranges and FIP
Let’s ignore Matusz’s 100 innings in the minors and only compare their major league numbers
FIP
Matusz 4.08
Porcello 4.77
K/bb
Matusz 2.71
Porcello 1.71
FB/mph
Matusz 91.5
Porcello 90.9
GB%
Matusz 31.2
Porcello 54.2
Now it’s fair to say the sample size for Matusz was small, only about 50 innings. But in that small sample he pitched as well as Porcello if not better, with the Detroit pitchers one big edge in groundball rate. One of Porcello challenges this year is he will no longer have Polanco at second to swallow up a lot of this ground balls and Scott Sizemore doesn’t have as good of range.
The best argument for Porcello isn’t that he pitched better in the majors — he didn’t. The best argument is that Porcello is 22 months younger and is more likely to improve because of that youth.
That's silly
To bring age into this saying, “The best argument is that Porcell is 22 months younger and is more likely to improve because of that youth”, is silly when both are young.
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