http://losangeles.dodgers.mlb.com/news/art...jsp&c_id=la



Welcome to the bigs, kid. Now go get Albert Pujols out.

This is exciting for the Dodgers, WAU Dodgers, and anyone who likes baseball. I hope I can catch the game on Sopcast tomorrow.

Kid walks a ton of guys. They're stupid to rush him like this, even if he can get guys out at the MLB level.

Most of all Im sick and tired of hearing about his curveball, and specifically that one highlight from spring training. NOT. THAT. GREAT. There are a ton of guys with better curveballs, including Buchholz and Beckett. He has a big hook curve... whoop de doo.

I dont know if its possible for one of the top three pitching prospects in baseball to be overrated, but he's getting there.

Wow, you are an idiot. Time and time again, you've proven how little you know but don't shut up.

He's walked 15 guys this year in AA as a 20-year old. Roughly a 3:1 K:BB. His walk percentage is 8.6%, down from 16% last year in AA (As a 19 year old). He's given up ZERO HR, has a 47% GB% and is STILL K'ing 27% of the batters he faces.

Go back to irrationally hating Manny. Or at least show some sort of knowledge before you pollute this board with your drivel.

And, his curveball rates out about the same as Buchholz'.

He has walked a good amount of batters in his minor league career, with 87 in 202 innings. Of course, that's not too bad when you're striking out 264 in the same amount of time.

More than likely though, his K's will go down and his walks will stay close to the same, so it is somewhat concerning.

That's true unless you buy into the concept that his lower BB% this year really represents better control of his pitches, Westlake. If that's the case, then I suppose he's learned about all he can in the minors.

Wow, this is downright comical. We get it, you're the only one that knows about one of the top prospects in MLB. Seriously, you could have just put this in one of your fantasy threads instead of inundating the main part of the board with your stupid thread titles, and then add nothing to the topic. Is the Jay Bruce thread ready to go yet?

Speaking of which is Jay Bruce going to be called up any time soon?

I hope for Clayton's sake, he's not being rushed. A lot of talent gets wasted when organizations have their 20-21 year olds who have tremendous raw talent but with flaws make it to the bigs.

To paraphrase Caspir, does your vagina hurt? Donations are down for the Wine Cooler and Diaphragm Fund.

Wow. Why dont you go start another thread about nothing with a title that only you find funny.

20 year olds coming off years where they walked like 5 guys per 9 dont belong in the majors. Am I supposed to be impressed he got that rate down to something that's still-not-great-but-not-eye-bleeding-awful (3.19 BB/9) in a 40 inning SSS? He needs more innings in the minors. If not for performance reasons than just for psychological reasons. If he comes up and gets hit hard because of his control you could ruin him. It happens. His confidence could be blown. He's very, very young. The majors is a lot of stress... and not just throwing a ball past Albert Pujols (and hoping he doesnt line it off your nose). Getting relatives and friends tickets, tipping clubhouse guys, dealing with teammates & the media - oh, and just the usual stuff youre dealing with as a 20 year old kid finding yourself. Going through the minors is about more than just baseball.

Is Kershaw such a rare, crazy good talent he might be able to succeed anyway? Quite possibly. BUT... why the hell would you run that risk with such a rare, crazy good talent???

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Also, just want to make sure here... you start a thread touting a 20 year old pitching prospect who will be making his MLB debut. Your post contained thoughtful and insightful tidbits like " This is exciting for the Dodgers, WAU Dodgers, and anyone who likes baseball" and "I, for one, welcome our new 20-year old overlord." Then when I say I think theyre rushing him and point to his poor control you lay into me and implore me to "at least show some sort of knowledge before you pollute this board with your drivel." Drivel? Really? My bad. I guess my post had too much, you know, "content" for your tastes.

Let me try again:

I've gotta say, I'm with Curll on this one. The kid was only 19. No way can you fault him for having iffy control. Curll showed that it was coming around this year. Sure, he might still have 60-80 walks stretched out over 200 innings, but if he can match that with 200 Ks, why does it matter? He has immense, Lincecum-like strikeout potential, and has a much, much higher ceiling. I have believed for a while now that Kershaw was the best pitching prospect we've seen in a long time- better than Clay, better than Joba, better than Hughes, better than really anybody we've seen since King Felix in 2005. And Kershaw is probably more advanced than Felix was when he first arrived.

Maybe I'm overrating him, but I really honestly don't think I am.

Edit: Of course, I was also very, very high on Billingsley, who still hasn't mastered his control.

1) I dont doubt Kershaw will have a great career. I called him one of the top 3 pitching prospects in the minors in my first post.

2) Im not faulting him for having poor control... I expect that from a 20 year old to some degree. Im saying he shouldnt be called up this soon.

3) I do think he's being overrated because of his K numbers. As far as recent prospects I would definitely take King Felix, Liriano, Verlander, Lincecum and Clay over him. Try me again in a year, but I like to see kids perform in the higher minors a little. Double A is often where the wheat and chaff seperate. Below AA you can get by with poor control. Guys with nasty sliders but sub par fastballs get tons of Ks below AA, but get rocked when they reach it b/c AA hitters can lay off pitches outside the zone. There's a ton of reasons this happens other than these two, and there are scores of guys who looked phenomenal in the low minors and struck out tons of guys but when they reached levels with patient hitters they were exposed a bit and didnt look so special. Do I think Kershaw will be exposed? Probably not, no. Its just too early to tell given the data in front of me, though, and now I see a guy who hasnt pitched a ton of minor league innings and skipped some steps and I discount him for it, just like I do with Joba. His control could be a problem going forward. We'll see if he still dominates once the league sees him. Dodger Stadium should help a lot, though.

4) Regardless of anything else, IMHO there is simply no reason for a team to promote a 20 year old stud pitching prospect to the major leagues. I dont care if his name is Jesus Christ. Now they have this special treatment thing for him... I dont like it. The worst thing you can do to young pitchers is put them on a special plan. Pitchers are creatures of habit. Dont f*** with the kid's throwing program. All kinds of bad things can happen when you do that. Let him develop slowly and you remove a ton of risk. I like to wait until a guy is more than ready 90% of the time. From his developmental standpoint - and hey, also because you just added a friggin 20 year old to the 40 man roster. At this rate he's going to reach free agency after his age 25 season! That's poor management of organizational resources, which is typical of the Dodgers in recent years. If you could plot out a chart with Kershaw's prime seasons on it... well, you just guaranteed youre paying out the a** for those.

5) 20 year olds are still not past the injury nexus. Imagine if hurts himself trying to overthrow because he's in the majors and is trying to impress? Phil Hughes recently did so. Liriano might have as well. Dont give these guys an excuse/opportunity.

6) If the Dodgers were in a tight race down the stretch I would throw most of these reasons out the window and go for it. Its May. This move did not have to be made.

Ohmygod, wouldn't it be amazing if they did an interview with Kershaw and he was exactly like DWO. Please let this happen, universe.

Okay.



Yes, yes you are. "Kid walks a ton of guys." Right there. In your first post in the thread. Took me, like, 3 seconds to find. You were complaining about his control.



That's probably fair. He could've maybe gotten some time at AAA. I don't think he really needed it, as he's looked good in his 15 starts at AA. That's not really as small a sample size as you're trying to make it out to be... He pitched nearly 70 incredibly dominant innings there, and very clearly improved on his control while not sacrificing his K-stuff. Sure, maybe he should've been taken to Las Vegas to see some time at AAA. Yes, that's a good idea, sending him to one of the most extreme hitter's parks in baseball. Should do wonders for his confidence, taking a gamble like that. In all seriousness, maybe he would've been able to continue his success there. I honestly think, though, that he would've been ready either way by the All-Star break, so why bother risking it?



But he played at AA. He was exposed, briefly, in 2007. He improved his command, and has been as dominant at ever there. See above. I think this 3rd paragraph of yours is certainly valid in many circumstances (like, say, Jake McGee), but not in Kershaw's.



Seriously? You still discount Joba? The guy who spent 120+ innings striking out 35% of minor league batters, while walking just, like, 7%? And who has proven himself as probably the single most dominant arm out of the Yankees bullpen? You discount that guy? I sort of think you're alone in that.

And, one of the guys you said you'd take over these guys you're insanely discounting spent, like, negative two innings in the minors. I could be exaggerating that, not really sure. (For comparison's sake, Kershaw spent 207 innings in the minors. If he was rushed, so was literally every other non-discounted pitcher you named, except for Liriano.)



Felix Hernandez, who- again- was one of the guys you said you're not discounting, made his major league debut at 19. And hey, genius, pitchers tend to develop a tad differently than batters. It's documented that they start their primes after about 60 MLB starts, rather than at a certain age. Sure, the "age prime" of 27-32 makes for a good pitcher, too, but it's not like these teams are losing out on a pitcher's best years. They sort of control when those best years will come. And, if the recent mass-rookie-signings have taught you anything, it's that the Dodgers will try to lock the non-Boras-represented Kershaw up very, very soon.



This is true for literally every pitcher. No age is past the injury nexus. You want him to not overthrow and try to impress. Is he not going to do that when he makes his MLB debut at the age of 67, which you seem to be advocating?



That's the beauty of it. There's no pressure on Kershaw. If he struggles, even a little, Schmidt will be up in a month. The more likely scenario, I think, is that he thrives and never looks back.

To slightly sidetrack this thread, pitcher aging is a pretty interesting subject. There was just an article up on The Hardball Times looking using Pitch F/x data from the last year to look at fastball speeds that came up with this aging curve



Tom Tango did this article (http://tangotiger.net/adjacentPitching.html) which doesn't come to any real conclusions but is a good read. He looks at progession of a pitcher's components through aging and estimates K rate peaks around 25

That's why I qualified it with "to a degree." I also went on to talk about his control issues. I think I made it pretty clear that I believe he will probably always walk a good amount of guys. I was saying he could certainly improve with more time in the minors. My problem isnt his control in the minors, though. My point was his control probably will be a problem in the majors at age 20.



I do discount Joba and Lincecum, fwiw. You probably would have thought I was crazy for discounting Liriano, too. After all, he certainly looked like a HOFer for what, like four months? I like the sure things. Give me the guys who come up slow and steady over flash in the pan rushed strikeout machines any day. I always prefer those kind of prospects. I think its a legitimate position to hold. Players are rarely hurt by being kept in the majors too long. Players are hurt every year by being rushed.


Cite please. Plus, Im sure there arent that many comps for Kershaw...

Also, do you really want to cite the Mariners handling of a minor league pitcher as an example? They rush everyone. So far theyve been lucky, but Felix has certainly had his struggles... in large part b/c he was rushed, IMHO.

Please note I never said I wasnt discounting those guys - I just liked them better as prospects than Kershaw. I also said that could change based on what Kershaw does this year. I dont agree with the way Liriano, Felix, Lincecum or Joba were handled, either. Ive been pretty consistent on that point.



Wait, so its not foolish, b/c youre assuming that the Dodgers will sign him to a long term deal early? That is hardly a certainty. At the very least they hurt their leverage in such a negotiation then.

The mass-rookie-signings amount to what? like fifteen guys at most. Meanwhile others - like Papelbon and Pedroia for two - have said they arent interested in that. Ryan Howard is another. I dont think you can assume he'll want to give the Dodgers a discount here. Especially if he turns out to be special.



I dont think you know what the "injury nexus" is, then. There is an increased risk with young arms, and especially at Kershaw's age. Organizations have a duty to the player, and to the team's future, to protect young arms like Kershaw. I still see zero reason this kid needs to be in the majors at this point. The fact he is exciting to watch is not sufficient. If you have a reasonable option to throw instead, you should, for as long as you can. The way the Red Sox are handling young pitchers is a good model for the way I think it should be done. Really, though, I dont think the possible benefits of having Kershaw in the majors outweigh the risks. Especially when you consider the special usage pattern they have in mind, the way he will have to be pampered to some extent and the likelihood of a transition period where he struggles.


If you actually want to continue this discussion lose the f***ing tone. I dont like being sarcastically called "genius" or having the word "insane" implied to my evaluation of a player. Ive never treated you like that and I dont think there was a call for it here. Im certainly not going to get into a pissing contest with you two over this. I fail to understand why my opinion is so incredibly offensive to the two of you. Are you guys related to Kershaw? Own him in a fantasy league? What's the deal? B/c it certainly seems more like you have an axe to grind with me for some reason. I guess that's my bad for trying to talk baseball, though.