Are the Young Guns Ready?

It’s still early.  At this point anything written about the young baseball season of 2008 must be prefaced with that phrase.  As Chris Shelton proved to us three years ago, April results are just April results.  It doesn’t guarantee success down the line.  If that were true, we’d already be getting the MVP trophy engraved with Connor Jackson’s name, and Troy Tulowtizki would be hacking it up in some out of the way minor league town.  It’s too soon to close the book on any issue, but when you are talking about a player making his debut, or auditioning for a job, when do you decide enough is enough?

If you wait too long to admit that your star prospect isn’t glistening under the bright lights you could cripple your team for the rest of the season, because the one place April does count is in the standings.  If you pull the plug too soon you could cripple that player’s mental psyche and ruin him for the rest of his career.  If your patient, sometimes it pays off.  If not it can be damning.

Boston was rewarded handsomely last season for the handling of Dustin Pedroia.  Hindsight does wonders for ones perspective on an issue, so it’s quite easy to say that Boston made the right decision keeping him in the Major Leagues, but he came dangerously close to being demoted.  At the end of April Pedroia was hitting a pedestrian .182/.308/.236 with just 3 extra base hits, two RBI, and ten hits.  We now know that he broke out in May to the tune of a .415/.472/.600 line, but if they were to have sent him down to Pawtucket on say, April 25, it would have been a sound baseball decision.

Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t.  It’s a dangerous game, and there are no right answers when dealing with prospects.  When is enough, enough?  That’s the million dollar question right now for the Red Sox and Yankees, as they both may soon have to make decisions regarding their respective pair of young pitchers. 

During the Johan Santana Sweepstakes, Ian Kennedy (23), Phil Hughes (21), Clay Buchholz (24), and Jon Lester (23), were each the deal breaker at some point, and there’s a reason for that.  Each of them have the stuff to excel in this league, the question is just when. 

Brian Cashman decided to gamble on Kennedy and Hughes in a big way.  Not only by withholding them from the Twins in exchange for Santana, he placed the hopes, and possibly his job, on the line based on the promise they showed while in the minors.  In other words, if these two kids with the golden arms don’t bring them back some diamonds at the end of October, they’ll be considered busts, and he’ll be looking for a job. 

The early results have been so bad that the Baby Boss, Hank Steinbrenner, has already issued his first warning shot, stating that if things don’t improve that he will move Joba Chamberlain from the bullpen into the starting five.  Whether or not that will actually happen is another thing, as he’s already backpedaled on his statement, but it’s just another added layer of unnecessary pressure for the two kids.  This may not be the wisest baseball move, but his sentiments aren’t entirely misguided.  Basically, what he was trying to say is that if things don’t improve something will have to be done, and he’s absolutely right. 

Chamberlain or not, if things don’t change, not now, but right now, a change is going to have to come.  Kennedy is currently 0-2 with a 9.64 ERA, and has walked as many batters as he’s struck out (13).  There is some promise in that line, though.  He’s only pitched in 14 innings, leaving his K/9 ratio a little under 9.  Hughes, the guy that everyone expected to be the star of this field, currently sits at 0-3 with a 7.85 ERA, 10 strikeouts and 11 walks over his first 18.3 innings. 

I expect something to happen sooner rather than later in New York.  Steinbrenner is listening to his baseball people now, but how much longer can he sit back quietly as these kids get shelled twice a week?  If your answer is some variation of ‘not very’, then you’re probably correct.  This isn’t Texas Hold’em and Hank isn’t bluffing, a move will be made.

The situation in Boston isn’t quite nearly as bad.  The pressure isn’t really on their pair of young guys.  Well, let me rephrase that, there’s always going to be pressure when you play in Boston, but with plenty of veteran talent on the front end of the rotation, Lester and Buchholz have a little bit of breathing room to grow.  This has allowed them to pitch without an obscene amount of pressure, and they’ve fared much better than Hughes and Kennedy because of it. 

Buchholz is currently 1-1 with a 4.79 ERA, 18 strikeouts, and 8 walks over his first 20.7 innings.  That’s not a horrible line for a rookie, but it’s well below the expectations he set for himself last season by going 3-1 with a 1.59 ERA, 22 strikeouts, 10 walks over 22.7 innings.  It’s probably unfair to judge him based on that standard, considering that the circumstances were so extraordinary.  Come on, the guy threw a no-hitter in his second major league start, what are the chances of that happening again?

Lester comes in somewhere in the middle of the pack.  I’ve never been big on this guy, but my personal bias aside, there’s no denying that he may be in the worst shape of the bunch despite having the second best ERA of the group.  He is currently 1-2 with a 5.40 ERA, but the alarms should be going off when you realize that he’s walked 19 batters while striking out only 16, and has already given up 5 homers over his first 31.7 innings.  Or in other words, he’s averaging one home run per start, which is, well, awful.   I love this guy’s story as much as anyone, but outside of his “heroic” performance in last year’s World Series, he’s yet to display the stuff needed to be a dominate major league pitcher. 

So what do they do?  If you’re the Yankees do you begin to a manufacture a deal to bring in a veteran arm and allow the young ones time to marinate some more?  Or do you continue to serve them and allow hitters to feast on them every fifth day? 

There are no right answers.  You don’t want to send a kid down and not allow him the opportunity to break out, but at the same time, if you’re built to win now, like both of these clubs are, there is no such thing as playing for tomorrow.  You either learn to win now, or you wait and someone else will do it for you. 

Right now, I believe that only one of these pitchers is ready for the big leagues, and that happens to be Mr.  Buchholz, but who knows, it’s only April.