Can Liriano Take the Crown Back?

Jake Peavy, CC Sabathia, Erik Bedard, Josh Beckett, not even Johan Santana will be the best pitcher in the Big Leagues this season.  A lot of you are probably sitting there shaking your head right now, and that’s fine, because even back in 2006 there were a lot of skeptics denying Francisco Liriano’s talent despite the overwhelming amount of evidence confirming he was the best pitcher in the major leagues, bar none.  Is it going to be easy?  Absolutely not, this guy is fighting his way back from Tommy John surgery, but if anyone can take the crown, it’s him.

Liriano’s fall from grace saw him land all the way at the bottom of the heap after blowing out his elbow.  Last year when everyone was gearing up for a new season, he sat alone wondering if his arm would ever allow him to take the mound again.

“Oh yeah, at first when I started playing catch, it hurt so bad I said, ‘I’m done playing baseball,” Liriano told reporters earlier this week at the Twins’ spring training camp.  “Thank God, a month after that it started getting better.  I was scared for a while.”

But he worked though it, starting at 45 feet, then on flat ground,  until finally, three months after throwing from 45, he moved back to 90 feet.  Even then, it wasn’t back to normal, he’s working on tweaking his delivery to reduce the stress on his elbow.  The team believes that the damage caused in Liriano’s arm was from the violent snapping motion that occurs when he throws his slider, the pitch that is believed by many to be the golden goose of his arsenal.

Much of his success did not come from his 97-mph fastball, no, it was his ability to pair it up with his 91-mph slider that literally made opposing hitters buckle their knees as they watched it fall into the pocket.  The hardest part for him will not be regaining his velocity, that’s already on its way back.  In his first appearance of the spring he clocked in at 91, so he should end up right back where he was, or very close to it.  What his success hinges on is whether or not he can adjust psychologically to the new restraints the club has placed on him.

Instead of relying heavily on the slider, a pitch he used to throw as many as 30 times a game, the club would like him to cut that number down to about 10, and use his change-up as his ‘out’ pitch. 

That’s a lot to overcome, but somehow I think that this kid can manage.  Santana didn’t take a page from Steve Francis’ playbook and nickname him the ‘Franchise’ for nothing.  Oh, and speaking of Santana, several people have evaluated the Franchise’s change-up as good as, if not better than, Santana’s.  Which is saying a lot, because many people in the game view it as the most devastating off-speed pitches in the business.  

That’s not all he has on Johan, though.  When Liriano went down he was smoking the league in –well- everything.  His 2.16 ERA, 10.7 SO/9 ratio, and 1.00 WHIP were all the best in the business.  Granted, he only saw 121 innings of action, but at the same time that’s a large enough sample size to get a solid grasp on his talents. 

Will he actually out pitch Peavy, Santana, CC, and company?  It’s a lofty goal, and it’s going to be extremely hard for him to get back to where he was, but remember that he was once already there, even if it was for a brief amount of time.  Unlike all the other people that come in and take the league by storm and then fizzle out, Liriano actually has the intangibles to remain atop his perch. 

Let the journey begin.