MVN - Most Valuable Network

Tigers’ Best Pitching Prospect: Rick Porcello

Rick Porcello finds himself in the interesting situation of being the Tigers’ consensus number one prospect despite never having thrown a professional pitch that counted. Pessimists will say that is an indictment of what’s left of the Tigers’ farm system after the Cabrera trade. While that may be true to some extent, his status as the number one is also a testament to his considerable skill as a pitcher.

According to Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus, one scouting director admitted he would have considered taking the right-hander as the number one pick if he had the option. Josh Beckett was a common comparison for Porcello, as in “the best prep pitching prospect since…” I don’t put a lot of stock in that, however. His advisor, Scott Boras, probably started that ball rolling by bring up the contract Beckett received as a comparison to what Porcello would require. People tend to not be all that creative with their comparisons on matters like this. Still, when people who get paid to watch these things say you’re the best prep pitcher in almost ten years, I take that as a good sign.

If you read Goldstein’s own profile of Porcello, you’ll see his reviews could also be classified as raving. Even when he’s talking about “The Bad”, you get the feeling he’s struggling to come up with things and just wants to get back to talking about this kid’s potential. Goldstein’s fellow writer for Baseball Prospectus, Bryan Smith, also gushed about Porcello, consistently pegging him as going to the Royals (second overall) in his mock drafts.

Maybe you don’t have a subscription to BP, though, and couldn’t actually read any of the linked articles above. That’s okay, the free content was similarly taken with Porcello. John Sickels basically said you couldn’t build a much better pitching prospect when he profiled Porcello, and put him behind only David Price when he rated the draft’s pitching prospects.

Carlos Gomez, the one-time mechanics guru for Hardball Times and Baseball Think Factory (as ChadBradfordWannabe) who has since been hired by the Arizona Diamondbacks, had nothing but praise for Porcello either. In fact, he gave Porcello the “Drafty” for best pitching mechanics of the 2007 draftees after viewing video of his delivery. If you haven’t read Gomez’s piece before this, I strongly recommend it. I mean, it’s nice to read about how dominant and promising Porcello is, but nothing makes me feel better about him than hearing about a delivery that is nearly flawless. I know it’s not a guarantee against injury, but it’s still very refreshing considering the Tigers have already lost Casey Crosby to Tommy John surgery for a while.

I don’t want to leave out Baseball America, and I’ll let them speak for themselves by linking to their scouting report. You can tell Porcello is good because his scouting report is part of their free content. You may be shocked to find out they, too, say a lot of very nice things about him and what he takes to the mound.

I’m very encouraged by the fact that there seems to be a consensus about his scouting report from all these sources and more. Everybody talks about his fastball “sitting at” 93-95 mph and his ability to dial it up to as high as 98. They then go on to say he has two breaking balls, a power curve and a slider, and that he has a good feel for when to throw each of his pitches. If you’re somebody who frets over Bonderman’s lack of a changeup you may be happy to know the repertoire doesn’t end there. Porcello does have a changeup, and people are generally impressed with it considering he probably would have done just fine in high school without ever throwing it. The reports agree on more than just his stuff, though. They marvel at his poise and intelligence, and his feel for pitching at such a young age. He’s also blessed with a nearly perfect pitcher’s frame, 6′5″ and 190 pounds, which everybody drools over and is very similar to that of Justin Verlander (listed at 6′5″ and 200 pounds). Basically, everyone is taken with this kid in a big way.

But all this copy was generated six months ago, and most of it was before the draft. Now that they’ve seen him, what do the Tigers think? Well, Lynn Henning did a story in which he talked about Porcello with the Tigers’ director of player development, Glen Ezell, and minor league pitching coach, Jon Matlack. It further confirmed the earlier scouting reports about Porcello’s stuff, and Ezell said Porcello was “far, far advanced beyond just about anyone 18 years old” he had ever worked with. Matlack was at least as taken with the kid and liked that he seemed both intelligent about pitching and coachable.

I haven’t been following prospects all that long, but I’ve certainly never heard a Tiger prospect praised as universally as Porcello. Verlander showed he was special pretty quickly, but he had to work some things out with his delivery after the draft and there was talk of him being an overdraft at first since he wasn’t always impressive at Old Dominion. Andrew Miller’s delivery was pretty commonly criticized and there were always concerns about his control, even if everybody said he’d work things out and be a star. Nope, even with such stiff recent competition, the praise for Porcello is unprecedented in my experience. Of course, Verlander and Miller were coming out of college so they were probably being held to a little higher standard.

Well, I have a feeling Porcello is going to find out just how high the expectations are for him fairly quickly. It’s considered a near certainty he’ll start in a full season league. While most say West Michigan will be his destination, it doesn’t sound like Lakeland is being ruled out. If he does start at West Michigan, a midseason promotion wouldn’t surprise anybody if his performance suggests he’s ready. Some even expect his path to mimic Clayton Kershaw, the Dodger lefty who started in the Midwest League last year before being promoted to AA. I wouldn’t rule that out, but it’s important to remember Kershaw got in nearly 50 innings of rookie ball when he was drafted in 2006. Porcello signed too late to throw any minor league innings last season, so the comparison may be a little off.

Wherever he pitches, you can bet I will make every effort to see him as often as I can. My wife and I are planning a trip to spring training, and there isn’t a player I’m looking forward to seeing more. Yes, there’s Miguel Cabrera, but I know what he can do. And once the regular season starts, if Porcello is in the Midwest League I guarantee I will see him start at least once. After all, Lansing, Midland and Dayton are all within a couple hours of Toledo. I’ll make that trip to see Porcello on a weeknight if I must. (You know, for the benefit of you the readers.) After all, a talent like this doesn’t come around all that often and it won’t be long before we, the prospect watchers, will have to share him with the whole country.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 14th, 2007 at 10:57 pm and is filed under rick porcello. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.