The title says it all.
I'm befuddled. Tyler Glasnow simply isn't one of the Pittsburgh Pirates best prospects, he was arguably the best pitching prospect in baseball entering this season.
Here's a guy who posted a career 2.03 ERA and 1.09 WHIP in his five years in the minor leagues. Nothing in the advanced metrics really suggested he would struggle this poorly aside from high walk rates. But he wouldn't have been the first prospect to struggle with command up the ladder though. His FIPs -- aside from his two-game AA debut -- were never above 3.50 after his rookie season, and even that was 3.81.
His major issue was command, and it's a problem that has been hurting already this young season. (He was also never a big ground ball guy, but the long ball hasn't been hurting him in the bigs, so I don't know if that is the issue right now.)
His big league debut in 2016 wasn't the one the Pirates were looking for, and despite a lot of people quickly writing him off, I thought the idea was silly. I'm still not ready to call him a bust by any means, but something is not right.
His first four outings of 2017:
1.2 innings
5 innings
4.2 innings
3.1 innings
Even in today's pitch-count, innings-limit world, that's not what you are looking for in a major league starter. That's 3.2 innings a start. And it's Glasnow's own doing.
After posting a career .172 batting average against in the minors, he's getting hit a .333 lick. While he is striking out people at a fine rate (over 10 per nine) he is walking opposing hitters at a 7.15 walks per nine rate. And he's throwing tons of pitches in doing so.
Last night he had four walks and four strikeouts. He landed just 51 percent of his pitches for strikes. 89 pitches and he couldn't make it out of the fourth - that is a lot of pitches. The 51 percent was below his already-low 56 percent mark on the season. Being rough around the edges with your control is one thing. Hitting the strike zone half the time through the first month of the season is worrisome.
So, I'm curious on thoughts on Glasnow. Again, I am not writing him off. His stuff is electric. But is he ready, despite being 23 and excelling at every level of the minors, for a big league rotation? If not, what do you do? His numbers in his Triple A run were outstanding aside from a 5.04 walks per nine (8-3, 1.93 ERA, 1.17 WHIP, 2.92 FIP and 11 strikeouts-per-nine). Do you let him just continue to get beat up at the big league level until he "gets it" or do we have another Jose Berrios on our hands?
Feel free to discuss.
(P.S. I drafted Glasnow in both fantasy leagues and am at a loss right now, so insight is welcomed!)
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