FTW, Rookies & Keepers

Rick Porcello & Trevor Cahill: Past, Present, Future.

Heading into 2009, Baseball America did everyone a favour and ranked the top-100 prospects. After dominating Olympic competition, Oakland’s Trevor Cahill and his heavy fastball jumped into the top-20 as the 11th overall prospect, just behind super-prospect Neftali Feliz. Twenty-year old Rick Porcello wasn’t all that far behind as Baseball America ranked him the 21st overall for the second year in a row.

It’s Porcello, one year removed from his 7-million dollar prep-bonus, that’s adapted to the level of competition quicker — or so it appears. Porcello’s currently 6-and-2 with a sparking 3.48 ERA which is head and shoulders above Cahill’s 4.48 ERA and 2-and-5 record. Their Fielding Independent Pitching ERAs aren’t nearly as pretty, but Porcello once against bests Cahill with a 4.67 to 5.61 advantage. Neither Porcello nor Cahill has been as dominant as expected; both posted painfully low strike-out numbers, especially given their pure stuff.  Porcello posted surprisingly low strike-out totals in his first professional season, failing to tally 6-K per 9 in High-A.  Porcello‘s continued to post mediocre strike-out totals in the show, notching only 5.57 K per 9, thus far.  Porcello‘s succeeded on the strength of a ridiculous 54% ground-ball rate and by limiting free passes.

Cahill on the other hand, …what the hell happened to Trevor Cahill?

Cahill doesn’t throw quite as hard as Porcello, but he’s got a solid repertoire of pitches to go with his heavy two-seamer. Prior to his 2008 promotion to Double-A, Cahill was consistently notching 10+ K-per-9. Even after his promotion (as a 20-year old,) Cahill managed 34 strike-outs in 37 IP or 8K/9.  Upon Cahill‘s arrival in Oakland, he’s either been told to pitch to contact or has been abandon by his secondary offerings, as he’s seen his K-per-9 level off at 3.95 batters per 9. Coincidentally, 3.95 batters per nine is also the number of free passes Cahill’s allowing in the majors, good for a 1.00 K:BB rate.  It’s not the walk rate that’s been surprising though, it’s the drastic decline in strike-outs — even the most conservative models didn’t peg Cahill as a sub-4.00 K/9 pitcher.

It’s almost certain that both of these future aces will be demoted at some point to fine tune their mechanics, but viewing their future through the paradigm of a re-draft fantasy baseball league should be interesting at the very least.

When it comes to pure stuff, Porcello notches out Cahill based on pure velocity. Both pitchers throw hard, but Porcello has no issues firing his fastball upto 95mph whereas Cahill generally tops out in the 93-94mph area.  Porcello also changes speeds marginally better, as his curveball and slider drop below 80mph.  Both pitchers rely on their two-seamer heavily and while Cahill has the potential to get more vertical and horizontal movement, it’s Porcello that throws the pitch with consistency.  Cahill‘s clearly experiencing major issues with his release point, and replicating pitches as we use http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfx/ to compare their most recent starts on May 27th.

It’s pretty clear that Porcello‘s (bottom) finding and replicating his release point fairly well for a young kid, a 6-foot-5 kid at that.  Cahill (top) on the other hand is having issues finding his release point, with almost a full 2 inch disparity on some pitches.  Of all Cahill‘s problems, this is a minor one, but it may be contributing to his trouble finding the zone.

Cahill (top) is all over the map, but he’s keeping the majority of his strikes down in the zone.  Trevor’s still leaving more than his fair share of change-ups up in the zone, but for the most part he’s keeping his ‘strikes’ down in the zone. Porcello on the other hand, pounded the zone against the Royals en route to six strong innings of 4-hit baseball.

It’s pretty clear that both Cahill and Porcello threw an insane amount of two seamers, even if Porcello‘s 2-seamer was often misclassified. Porcello‘s two seamer shows a tonne of movement, but doesn’t match the difference between Cahill‘s 4-seam and 2-seam fastball.  Cahill‘s 4-seamer has quite a bit of backspin, and a tremendous amount of tailing action to it.  Porcello’s off-speed offerings, along with a greater change of speed, also have superior movement. In the end, based on their two latest games, it’s clear that Porcello‘s exhibited superior refinement. However, if Cahill can clean up his delivery and release point, he does have the arsenal to drastically lower his walks while increasing his strike-outs.

There’s some evidence that Cahill‘s beginning to put it together after a rough start to the season, even if he’s faced lack-luster competition thus far.  As sinkerballers are prone to do, Cahill’s had two blow-ups where he failed to make it through 3 innings while giving up 7 ER ( @Detroit, May 24th, and vs. Tampa, April 24th.) 

Excluding those two outings leaves Cahill with a line of  55.1 IP, 15 ER, 46 H, 22 BB, 25 K or a 2.44 ERA, and a 1.23 WHIP!

While randomly eliminating two data-sets for shits and giggles isn’t exactly statistically professional, Trevor Cahill has proven to be capable of putting together solid outings.  More importantly, prior to last night, Trevor Cahill had put together two straight 5 strike-out performances in 6.0 & 7.1 IP against Arizona and Seattle.  Having a good outing versus Arizona is nothing special, but overlooking Cahill‘s performance against a mediocre Mariners team would be a mistake.  The Seattle Mariners had already seen Trevor Cahill twice and after being held to a single run in each of those games, they should’ve been comfortable with his entire arsenal.  Cahill‘s continued domination of the M’s showcases his elite stuff, rather than extended beginners luck.

Much like Cahill, Rick Porcello had a couple early season jitters but has been lights-out since allowing 4 ER to TOR and KC, and 6 ER to the Yankees. Since his Yankee blow-up, Porcello’s allowed 1-run three times, 2 runs once, and shut-out then Twinkies. Porcello has also seen his strike-out numbers increase, and stabilize at 5 or 6 K per 9.

Neither Cahill or Porcello is initiating that many swings-and-misses inside or outside of the zone.  I wouldn’t expect either of these future aces to surpass 6 – 6.5 K per 9 with their current philosphy, however they both have room to improve in the K-department. It’s pretty clear that both of these kids are really starting to put it together, but like most rookies they’ll be proned to blow-ups.  Quantifying composure is obviously a difficult thing to do, but Cahill should have the edge over Porcello at this point.  A few terrible starts for Porcello could spell the end of his 2009 Big League season, as the Tigers would prefer not to ‘Bonderman’ yet another future star.

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