Jon Rauch's future

by playingwithfire on Mar 17, 2006 4:44 PM EST

Once thought to be one of the best RHP prospect...

Once thought to be one of the best RHP prospect. He is now battling guys like Ramon Ortiz, Brian Lawrence(hurt, which is why they got Astacio), Pedro Astacio, Tony Armas Jr. and Ryan Drese for 3 rotation spot for the Nationals. I have my doubt about his chances at making the rotation, he's not having a good spring so far(6+ERA). My question is, what is his ceiling now? And how likely is he to get there?

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Damaged Goods

Once they open up the hood of the sports car, all bets are off.

There is a famous quote in many Western movies....

"God may have created men equal, but Colonel Colt made 'em so!"

refering to the invent of the hand gun, I presume.

Well, the torn labrum is the colt of the pitchers. No matter how good you were once they have to repair it the chance of coming back to normal are about 10%. That's just normal. Now say the pitcher comes back and can throw 95% as good as good as did pre-injury, which usually would be considered a rousing success....he's still better than about 80-90% of the pitchers he's been surpassing he's beaten to get to the major leagues. Now, if he's lucky, he's league average.

Now, I'm not Will Carroll so I don't have all the stats that can support these. All I am going on is personal experience and what I saw from alot of guys fighting the same battle.

What's Rauch's ceiling now? I would think about 85% of what you thought it was before. But the longer he can throw, with a team being patient with him and allowing his shoulder to heal as much as it can and strengthening it OVER YEARS without re-injury, increases that.

Hopefully he achieves that.

"Strikeouts are good...groundballs are better. Home runs are okay...but walks SUCK!" Mike Caldwell

by Torncuff on Mar 17, 2006 5:17 PM EST reply actions

Don't look now but ...

Billy Traber is fairing pretty well for the Nats so far this spring, other than Miguel Olivo taking him deep the other day.

I saw Rauch pitch last year and he looked good. Not enough movement on his fastball but it was a rainy day so that may have played a factor. Still, had good velocity and location. This of course was before the injury, so only time will tell.

by StickRat on Mar 18, 2006 2:40 AM EST reply actions

Saw that...

I grabbed Traber as a f/a last year in our sim league but dropped him. Grabbed him again earlier this spring. I like him to have a big comeback this season.

by CrimsonLiederhosen on Mar 21, 2006 4:10 PM EST up reply actions

Rauch

Personaly I found a lot of similarities between Rauch and Patterson's minor league record and I'm going out on a limb and say that if Rauch can stay healthy this year and get a rotation spot he's capable of John Patterson numbers(maybe slightly worse) last year.

by playingwithfire on Apr 2, 2006 3:45 PM EDT reply actions