Archive for julio urias

The transition from the minors to the majors is a difficult one for all players, but sometimes pitchers can make it look easier than it really is. Noah Syndergaard comes to mind from last year. Michael Fulmer put on a really good run at the start of the season this year. However, pitchers generally experience some rough patches as they transition to the majors, and that has been more true this season than in any year in the past decade. Despite contributions from players like Fulmer, Jon Gray and Steven Matz — and debuts by more high-end talent than we have seen in two decades, including players like Lucas Giolito, Alex Reyes, Blake Snell, and Julio Urias — this year’s class of rookie starters looks to be the worst-performing class of the last decade, and this year’s increase in offense might be behind those struggles.

Back in 2012, in a class led by Yu Darvish and featuring Mike Fiers, Lance Lynn, Wade Miley, Matt Moore, and Jarrod Parker, rookie starting pitchers produced a collection 53.7 WAR, the most in major-league history. The class wasn’t just about quantity, either: the group averaged 2.2 WAR per 200 innings pitched, itself one of the higher figures in history. The 2013 class produced just 35.3 WAR, averaging 1.8 WAR/200 IP, while the 2014 class — headed by Jacob deGrom, Collin McHugh, Marcus Stroman, and Masahiro Tanaka matched the 2012 group with 2.2 WAR/200 IP, and produced 44.4 WAR in fewer innings. Last year’s group was solid in quantity, recording 40.4 WAR as a group, but only a 1.7 WAR/200 IP. This year’s class has produced just 27.4 WAR in total and 1.5 WAR per 200 innings. The graph below documents total WAR by rookie pitching classes since the 1986 season.

The 2004 season, which marked the first year of penalties for steroid testing, wasn’t a great year for rookie pitchers, and it was actually pretty poor year for rookie hitters, as well. Why? Perhaps teams wanted to see what their current players would do under the new testing rules. Perhaps mere randomness is the cause. Elsewhere on the graph, we find a low point during the 1994 strike, which is unsurprising given the relative lack of games that season. Even with 10% of the season left, 2016 isn’t going to shape up as a banner one for rookie starting pitchers. After the introduction of steroid testing, there looks to be a not-so-steady, but evident incline in the contributions of rookies.

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A year ago, Kris Bryant’s failure to make the Cubs Opening Day roster made a good deal of news because (a) Bryant, 23, had dominated the minors and was clearly ready for the majors, and (b) by holding him down for a couple weeks, the Cubs prevented Bryant from recording a full year of service time in 2015, which also prevented him from recording the necessary six years of service time for free agency before the end of the 2021 season. Bryant was the number-one prospect in baseball at the time, but he was not the only player kept in the minor leagues at least in part due to service time considerations. Carlos Correa, Maikel Franco, Francisco Lindor, Carlos Rodon, Addison Russell, and Noah Syndergaard all spent time in the minors last year before succeeding in the big leagues. There has been little uproar this year regarding service time shenanigans. While there is no Bryant-like player, the potential for some service-time manipulation is still there.

To identify players who are ripe for manipulation it’s best to begin with the very best prospects. Of the players mentioned above, six of seven appeared among Kiley McDaniel’s top-200 prospect list last year; only Franco appeared outside the top 20, down at 38 overall. Taking a look at Baseball America’s top 20 prospects this season, we can get a good start in identifying players.

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Dodgers lefty prospect Julio Urias has made 17 starts this season. Julio Urias, as you may have heard, is 17 years old.

Fifteen of his starts came before his birthday less than two weeks ago. The Mexico native spent the majority of the season playing professional baseball — and full-season ball, at that — at the age of 16. Naturally, people are intrigued. Naturally, he’s received a fair bit of hype — especially with a 2.68 ERA, as well as just 16 walks to go with 62 strikeouts in 50.1 innings.

But is that hype justified?

Sort of.

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