Starting Pitchers - Can the kids improve?

[MongoLikeSox]

Just a reminder that Wincowski, Seabold, Crawford and Bello may need some time to get better.

Roger Clemens ERA after his first 12 starts was 5.94
Greg Maddux had a 2 year, 32 start ERA of 5.59 to start his MLB career.
Tom Glavine's first year was 9 starts and 5.54 ERA, and followed that up with a year that saw him at 5.51 ERA after his first 24 starts before something clicked and finished string to lower it to 4.56.

And then there's guys like Pedro who started off in the pen before moving to the rotation. (he excelled at both and did so right away.)

Point is, if we're gonna be injured and lose games, getting the rotation of the future in shape for beyond this year is not a bad way to go. Some of these guys will get better.

[Sea Dog 23]

And with improved offense the young pitchers get a morale boost.  Crawford had just one rough inning Saturday, but we only gave him one run, and he needed to pitch a shutout with our AAA lineup.

[longgame]

I think these guys have some potential, but clearly aren’t up to the job yet and probably shouldn’t be getting this much MLB use at this point, but with a broken pitching staff they have to. 

[MongoLikeSox]

Chris Murphy fell out of his tree today, too. 4R in 1/3 inning. Baseball has a way of doing that, doesn't it?

[Sea Dog 23]

A rumor out this morning is Waccha moving on -soon- .  We shall see.  Eovaldi could be anther piece to fall.

[MongoLikeSox]

A rumor out this morning is Waccha moving on -soon- .  We shall see.  Eovaldi could be anther piece to fall.

I'm betting Hill is a part of that mess on deadline day, too.

[MongoLikeSox]

I think these guys have some potential, but clearly aren’t up to the job yet and probably shouldn’t be getting this much MLB use at this point, but with a broken pitching staff they have to.

I think it was John Smoltz who was talking to another ex-MLB pitcher about how most young pitchers take x-number of starts to learn out how to pitch in the big leagues. It was some big number, too, like 27 or 35, IIRC. If Smoltz's theory is correct, I'm confident that it would include some variance. I only looked at a small sampling of some great pitchers, but 3 out of 4 of them fell into that model.

None of those guys had a 10.50 or 11.31 ERA or anything like that, but the numbers Winckowski (4.38) and Crawford (4.50) seem more reasonable. It's pretty easier to imagine Winckowski's control returning to form and we've seen what that new(ish?) curveball did for Crawford. Can Seabold gain control he needs? If not, he might have a career much like Ryan Weber's.