Porcello to the Show

by
April 1, 2009

Yesterday, the Detroit Tigers announced that 20-year-old Rick Porcello had won a spot in their starting rotation. He will open the season with the Tigers despite having never pitched above Single-A, as Dave Dombrowski and Jim Leyland are betting on talent being more important than experience.

Is Porcello ready to make a three level jump and hold his own in the big leagues before he’s legally allowed to drink? There are reasons to think so.

When most people look at his 2008 line, the 5.18 K/9 jumps out – that’s a remarkably low strikeout rate for a guy with top notch stuff in the minor leagues. Most elite pitching prospects strike out more than a batter per inning, especially in the lower levels. Porcello simply wasn’t missing bats all that often, and that is seen as a red flag by many.

However, there can be different ways of dominating minor league hitters, and while Porcello wasn’t racking up the strikeouts, he was among the most dominating groundball pitchers in the minors. 65% of his balls in play were hit on the ground, easily leading the league. Porcello got a ton of ground balls while also avoiding walks, posting a very good 2.38 BB/9. He showed excellent command of his sinker, which allowed him to succeed without racking up a lot of strikeouts.

The combination of no walks and lots of ground balls is a recipe for success in the majors. It might not be as flashy as racking up huge strikeout totals, but it’s still a good combination. If Porcello can continue to command his sinker, he has the tools to pitch in the major leagues right now. Chris Volstad had a very successful run last summer with a similar skillset, and Porcello has better stuff than Volstad.

It’s certainly possible that Porcello will struggle, as a lot of 20-year-old pitchers do when thrust into the majors. However, don’t make the mistake of assuming that just because he didn’t rack up a lot of strikeouts in the Florida State League, he doesn’t have what it takes to succeed in the majors. Strikeouts aren’t the only way a pitcher can dominate. Porcello has the strikes and ground balls skillset, and that combination works in the big leagues.

You Aren't a FanGraphs Member
It looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed.
We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member.
1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other.
2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off.
3. Dark mode and Classic mode!
4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, in the order you want them.
5. One-click data exports! Export our projections and leaderboards for your personal projects.
6. Remove the photos on the home page! (Honestly, this doesn't sound so great to us, but some people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.)
7. Even more Steamer projections! We have handedness, percentile, and context neutral projections available for Members only.
8. Get FanGraphs Walk-Off, a customized year end review! Find out exactly how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don't be a victim of FOMO.
9. A weekly mailbag column, exclusively for Members.
10. Help support FanGraphs and our entire staff! Our Members provide us with critical resources to improve the site and deliver new features!
We hope you'll consider a Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it.




 

Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.

21 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Glen L
16 years ago

Plus the Tigers told him to work on his 2-seamer and his command and pitch efficiency, rather than blowing away hitters with his 4-seamer and breaking balls

-1
Mike R
16 years ago
Reply to  Glen L

I haven’t read anything that says the Tigers had implored Porcello to use the 2-seamer, however, there was an interview from last summer with Porcello that said he prefers to use the 2-seamer and that scouting reports of him when he was in high school weren’t wrong, just a bit off as he was not a guy that threw a lot of 4-seamers. He likes getting the ground balls.

-1