Chien-Ming Wang is scheduled to pitch for Triple-A Scranton tonight as part of his rehabilitation stint. Wang was downright awful to open the year, posting a 34.50 ERA in 3 starts. Wang’s been dropped in most leagues without a deep bench or a bunch of DL spots, so he’s definitely worth considering.
If Wang is lights-out tonight, it’d make sense to to take him off the DL but Brian Cashman, who’s heading up to Scranton to take in Wang’s start, isn’t quite sold. Cashman said, “I wouldn’t think that he would be ready after one outing, We’ll see what we see. I wouldn’t be surprised if he needed more.”
Thankfully Wang’s not injured, he’s just not as strong as he needs to be. Primarily a sinkerballer, Wang’s margin of error is paper-thin. During his successful ’06 and ’07, Wang maintained a 93mph average on his fastball. This kept Wang’s ERA under 4.00 and his WHIP around 1.30. More importantly, Wang was inducing two to three times more ground-balls than fly-balls.
In 2009, coming off of a 2008 foot injury, Wang only managed to average 90.5mph on his fastball. Wang’s velocity had already decreased almost a full-mph in 2008, but his velocity drop in 2009 was catastrophic.
Unfortunately there’s no empirical data on Wang’s first start, but the NYTimes reports he was consistently hitting 91mph. Yahoo’s Chris Ryan is also reporting that Wang topped out at 93 mph.
These speeds are still too low to predict to a return to the 19-game winning form of 2006/2007, but it is an improvement over Wang’s 2009 numbers.
As it stands, everyone’s enthralled with Wang’s 19-Win seasons but I’d limit my optimism. Wang wasn’t nearly as efficient prior to his broken foot in 2008 as people seem to remember. Prior to his injury, Wang was getting hit a lot harder as batters were taking him for a 4-5% increase in Line Drives. Wang’s control also seemed to abandon him, as his normally steady 2 batters walked per nine increased to nearly 3.5 BB per 9.
Weighing the risk/reward of Wang doesn’t do much for his case. From this point forward, the only category that Wang will excel in is Wins. Wins are also generally considered the most volatile of the pitching categories, and while the Yankees should be great — there’s nothing to say that Wang’s the pitcher that gets credited with the W, especially in the tough AL EAST.
With all said, if you’re thinking about Chien-Ming Wang — watch his velocity. He needs to consistently hit 92-93mph without spiking his walk-rate in order to be effective. Wang’s got a lot of potential as a sinker-baller in a stadium that’s yielded it’s fair share of early-season home-runs. Wang’s an innings eater, and if he’s healthy — expect 9-11 Wins?
