GaryMrMets
07-06-2004, 12:33 PM
http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/sports/9087070.htm
Posted on Tue, Jul. 06, 2004
Bill Conlin | Some growing up to do
GAVIN FLOYD MAKES IT EASY FOR PHILS TO BE PATIENT
By Bill Conlin
bill1chair@aol.com
EACH PHILLIES LOSS brings a fresh salvo of demands and suggestions from the Greek chorus.
The most frequent demand - sensible on the surface because it costs no players - is to promote platinum-plated Reading righthander Gavin Floyd, who is 21 and in his minor league junior year. If this kid is the No. 1 pitching prospect in all of baseball, the chorus thunders, why isn't he here? Why is Larry Bowa forced to keep running suspects from the post-office walls of major league baseball out there, the Hancocks, Powells and Abbotts, until Vicente Padilla returns? If he ever returns.
Yo, the Cubs didn't hesitate with Mark Prior, did they? Ditto Ben Sheets in Milwaukee, Roy Oswalt in Houston and all those arms in Oakland that were fast-tracked to The Show.
Well, Prior has spent more time in the shop and up on the lift than a 1965 Jaguar XKE. Sheets has surrounded his high-strikeout games with a lot of clunkers.
So, should Floyd be here, saving this checkered season as it edges past midrace?
Two words to the chorus: Shut up. I'm with general manager Ed Wade and assistant GM Mike Arbuckle on this one.
Gavin Floyd is not ready. He's a work in progress and not nearly enough progress has been done to merit the long jump from Double A to the ground zero that is the mound of Citizens Bank Park.
Last Wednesday, the 6-4 righthander made his 16th start of a season where he's been handled so gently you wonder if his nickname is "Pretty Boy" Floyd. In those 16 starts, he has averaged just 5.75 innings per outing. For those clamoring to bring him up, he would fit right in with Bowa's staff. Just what the Phillies need, another starter who can't get you to the seventh inning because he's caught between his wuss, uh, pitch count and the reality of the score and situation.
It might be nice if some of the people who keep anointing Gavin as the next Prior and one of the Phillies' two great untouchables - tender-elbowed lefthander Cole Hamels is the other - would focus less on his upside and more on his results.
Wednesday's loss left Floyd's record at 3-5. Last year at Clearwater, he was 7-8, meaning same-age Easy Ramirez won six more games, and previously unknown but older Dominican righthander Ezequiel Astacio (since traded) won eight more than Floyd. It should be noted that Ramirez and Astacio cost the Phillies just under $4 million less in signing money than Gavin, who was the club's No. 1 draft pick, fourth overall, in 2001. Floyd's record is now an underwhelming 21-23. And despite the drop-dead overhand curve that is his money pitch and a late-moving fastball that is mostly in the low 90s, he is not a strikeout pitcher in the Prior mold. After a career moving one level at a time, Gavin has struck out 329 in 396 innings. By comparison, Brett Myers, the pitcher he most reminds me of, had 300 K's in 358 1/3 IP through his Reading season, a similar ratio. Myers had fewer innings because he worked only 27 innings in the rookie Gulf Coast League after signing in 1999. Unlike Floyd, however, Myers caught onto that underrated winning thing right away. When he was called up during the 2002 season - outpitching Prior in a brilliant Wrigley Field debut he has yet to equal - Myers was 37-18.
So don't toss ERA at me, which the Floydaholics love to do. His current ERA is still 2.84 even after giving up five earned runs during Wednesday's meltdown.
Here is the report on that outing filed by one of my excellent Reading scouts-without-radar gun:
First, there's no doubt that Floyd has great stuff. Good fastball movement, and a paralyzing breaking ball. But what I saw last night absolutely backs up what you said on DNL last week. He has a major league arm, but not major league maturity. He had a 4-1 lead in the 6th and was cruising. The ump started squeezing him and he gave up some walks and a hit to load the bases. Made some good pitches and got a guy to hit a sac fly that scored a run to make it 4-3. But on the throw home, Floyd cut it off and then made a really stupid decision to try and throw out the guy going back to first base on the sac fly. He overthrew it by 4 feet and that guy came all the way around to score, tying the game. Right after that he gave up a bunch of hits w/ 2 outs and it was 5-4 and you can tell he was pouting on the mound.
But I really like what [manager Greg] Legg did in the bottom half of the inning. The R-Phils had a guy on 3rd w/ one out when Floyd's turn to bat came. Instead of pinch-hitting for him and trying to tie the game they let him hit so that he could go out and pitch the next inning...to see how he would react. To his credit Floyd came out and got 3 good outs in the 7th...The R-Phils lost the game but Floyd was taught an important lesson.
So, sorry, chorus, but I'm going with Fast Eddie on this one, having witnessed an even worse Floyd outing in Clearwater last season, triggered by an umpire's shrinking zone. That stuff falls under the Dallas Green heading, "DEMEANOR!! A big-league pitcher has to have demeanor out there."
Da meaner, da better...
Before Floyd's start, a sign was unveiled honoring Mike Schmidt's retired Reading number, 24. Ryan Howard baptized it properly by bouncing homer No. 29 off it.
Foreshadowing, one hopes...
Posted on Tue, Jul. 06, 2004
Bill Conlin | Some growing up to do
GAVIN FLOYD MAKES IT EASY FOR PHILS TO BE PATIENT
By Bill Conlin
bill1chair@aol.com
EACH PHILLIES LOSS brings a fresh salvo of demands and suggestions from the Greek chorus.
The most frequent demand - sensible on the surface because it costs no players - is to promote platinum-plated Reading righthander Gavin Floyd, who is 21 and in his minor league junior year. If this kid is the No. 1 pitching prospect in all of baseball, the chorus thunders, why isn't he here? Why is Larry Bowa forced to keep running suspects from the post-office walls of major league baseball out there, the Hancocks, Powells and Abbotts, until Vicente Padilla returns? If he ever returns.
Yo, the Cubs didn't hesitate with Mark Prior, did they? Ditto Ben Sheets in Milwaukee, Roy Oswalt in Houston and all those arms in Oakland that were fast-tracked to The Show.
Well, Prior has spent more time in the shop and up on the lift than a 1965 Jaguar XKE. Sheets has surrounded his high-strikeout games with a lot of clunkers.
So, should Floyd be here, saving this checkered season as it edges past midrace?
Two words to the chorus: Shut up. I'm with general manager Ed Wade and assistant GM Mike Arbuckle on this one.
Gavin Floyd is not ready. He's a work in progress and not nearly enough progress has been done to merit the long jump from Double A to the ground zero that is the mound of Citizens Bank Park.
Last Wednesday, the 6-4 righthander made his 16th start of a season where he's been handled so gently you wonder if his nickname is "Pretty Boy" Floyd. In those 16 starts, he has averaged just 5.75 innings per outing. For those clamoring to bring him up, he would fit right in with Bowa's staff. Just what the Phillies need, another starter who can't get you to the seventh inning because he's caught between his wuss, uh, pitch count and the reality of the score and situation.
It might be nice if some of the people who keep anointing Gavin as the next Prior and one of the Phillies' two great untouchables - tender-elbowed lefthander Cole Hamels is the other - would focus less on his upside and more on his results.
Wednesday's loss left Floyd's record at 3-5. Last year at Clearwater, he was 7-8, meaning same-age Easy Ramirez won six more games, and previously unknown but older Dominican righthander Ezequiel Astacio (since traded) won eight more than Floyd. It should be noted that Ramirez and Astacio cost the Phillies just under $4 million less in signing money than Gavin, who was the club's No. 1 draft pick, fourth overall, in 2001. Floyd's record is now an underwhelming 21-23. And despite the drop-dead overhand curve that is his money pitch and a late-moving fastball that is mostly in the low 90s, he is not a strikeout pitcher in the Prior mold. After a career moving one level at a time, Gavin has struck out 329 in 396 innings. By comparison, Brett Myers, the pitcher he most reminds me of, had 300 K's in 358 1/3 IP through his Reading season, a similar ratio. Myers had fewer innings because he worked only 27 innings in the rookie Gulf Coast League after signing in 1999. Unlike Floyd, however, Myers caught onto that underrated winning thing right away. When he was called up during the 2002 season - outpitching Prior in a brilliant Wrigley Field debut he has yet to equal - Myers was 37-18.
So don't toss ERA at me, which the Floydaholics love to do. His current ERA is still 2.84 even after giving up five earned runs during Wednesday's meltdown.
Here is the report on that outing filed by one of my excellent Reading scouts-without-radar gun:
First, there's no doubt that Floyd has great stuff. Good fastball movement, and a paralyzing breaking ball. But what I saw last night absolutely backs up what you said on DNL last week. He has a major league arm, but not major league maturity. He had a 4-1 lead in the 6th and was cruising. The ump started squeezing him and he gave up some walks and a hit to load the bases. Made some good pitches and got a guy to hit a sac fly that scored a run to make it 4-3. But on the throw home, Floyd cut it off and then made a really stupid decision to try and throw out the guy going back to first base on the sac fly. He overthrew it by 4 feet and that guy came all the way around to score, tying the game. Right after that he gave up a bunch of hits w/ 2 outs and it was 5-4 and you can tell he was pouting on the mound.
But I really like what [manager Greg] Legg did in the bottom half of the inning. The R-Phils had a guy on 3rd w/ one out when Floyd's turn to bat came. Instead of pinch-hitting for him and trying to tie the game they let him hit so that he could go out and pitch the next inning...to see how he would react. To his credit Floyd came out and got 3 good outs in the 7th...The R-Phils lost the game but Floyd was taught an important lesson.
So, sorry, chorus, but I'm going with Fast Eddie on this one, having witnessed an even worse Floyd outing in Clearwater last season, triggered by an umpire's shrinking zone. That stuff falls under the Dallas Green heading, "DEMEANOR!! A big-league pitcher has to have demeanor out there."
Da meaner, da better...
Before Floyd's start, a sign was unveiled honoring Mike Schmidt's retired Reading number, 24. Ryan Howard baptized it properly by bouncing homer No. 29 off it.
Foreshadowing, one hopes...