Saturday Discussion Question: A Lefty Under Pressure

I narrowed it down to the college guys, then I chose Paxton just because he has bigger stuff than the other two and if your going to go against a Yankee lineup that is going to try and grind out ABs I like the guy that can get K’s. I don’t think anyone on the list at this point could strike out more guys than Paxton could against that lineup.

1 Tyler Skaggs
2 Robbie Erlin
3 Danny Hultzen
4 Drew Pomeranz
5 James Paxton
6 Alexander Torres

BTW, this is a great idea to post every now and then. I’d love to see a question like “If it was the bottom of the 9th, your team down 2 runs, who would you want at the plate?” and you could list 5 or 6 prospects to choose from. I hope we see these every once in a while.

the 3 things I want command, experience above A ball and the ability to keep the ball in the park. I think Hultzen meets those criteria best. Torres was intriguing but the command concerns make him more of a risk. A game in Yankee stadium you want to avoid the big inning - walks then homers on short porch. Hultzen also has a good chance to keep ML hitters off balance mixing in off speed and power pitches escpecially game 1 where there’s less of a book on him.
Erlen - too many HRA’s
Paxton-I want to see more innings above A ball
Pomeranz - might be undeselling but only 24 innings above A ball and some command issues but fully healthy could be nasty
Skaggs HRA’s and inexperience

Petco will neutralize his HR problem, and he flat out doesn’t walk people.

I would probably go:

Erlin
Hultzen
Pomeranz
Paxton
Skaggs
(gap)
Torres

I m higher on him then on Paxton, Skaggs,Pomeranz….

No way I m starting Erlin, Yankees stadium is hard to flyball pitchers.

with a flu so bad he barely remembered pitching shows me he has what it takes to pitch in a big game.

Polish and experience pitching (and succeeding) on a big stage make him the easy choice to me. My next choice would probably be Pomeranz, because I’d be confident he could eat 6 innings for me and hold stuff together, even though I’m probably lowest on his total package than anyone else on this list. As was mentioned above, Erlin’s flyball tendencies scare me away in Yankee Stadium, otherwise he’d be my second choice. I’m normally one that likes to buck consensus, but sometimes it just isn’t smart. Hultzen is my man.

Ask a major league manager this question, and the first thing he will do is rule out anyone that has no major league experience. Nerves are a potentially dominant factor in any pitcher’s ML debut, and this situation is specifically constructed to create pressure. In addition to that issue, a real manager would gamble on how a AA (to say nothing of college!) pitcher is going to fare against major league hitters only if he has no plausible alternative. And yeah, I’m suggesting that it is absurdly naive to ignore or even undervalue experience in this scenario.

1 Danny Hultzen - best combination of command, stuff, with 3 quality pitches
2 Tyler Skaggs - Also has the stuff, gives up the long ball.
3 James Paxton - Stuff is good enough to top the list, don’t know how he adjusts to quality hitters
4 Drew Pomeranz - no changeup will hurt him 3rd time through. If it was 4 innings then he might be my choice.
5 Alexander Torres - control issues against quality teams will kill you
6 Robbie Erlin - don’t believe in his stuff as much as others

I went with Robbie. Under the circumstances I think I would take the pitcher with the combination of experience and control, less chance for implosion in my opinion. With that said, there’s always those players that rise to the occasion. Mental makeup would probably be the most important factor in making the selection (i.e. Madison Bumgarner, Rick Ankiel) and I’m just some guy who reads about players on the internet and goes to the batting cages from time to time.

I’d choose the guy in the picture…