Off Topic
Can Valle Beat Injury and Age?
March 31, 2048: Fool’s Gulch, AZ – He looks good, that’s what everyone says. Throwing easy gas. All five pitches going where he wants them to go. Having a good time hanging around with the gang.
Yes, Yellow Springs fans, the baseball world is saying that at age 34, Carlos Valle appears to be back in true form. It’s that’s true, the Yellow Springs rotation is going to be pretty danged good. Not that they weren’t pretty good last year, of course. It could, after all, be that a season-ending injury to Carlos Valle last year had a silver lining—that being the promotion of eventual Rookie of the Year Loan Duval. But, really, we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
The real off-season news around the Yellow Springs rotation were the trades of subsequent Conspiracy Theory Darling Roy Minty to Phoenix and long-time veteran Ernesto Ramos to Brooklyn. It’s unusual for the team to trade a young pitcher like Minty, especially one as productive as Minty was, but there was going to be a logjam anyway and some in the front office had concerns over the right hander’s ability to make it through a season unscathed. Ramos was in the last expensive year of deal, and the club wanted to be out from his salary—which they subsequently used to sign Sawyer Slizz, but more on that later in the series.
Anyway, it all kind of made sense.
And it made sense because the past couple seasons have seen the team’s development process (code name: Yellow Springs College for Baseball Success, or YSCBS) has managed to work up a trio of youthful starters to go with Valle and lefty ace Dave Lee. Those are Duval, of course, and Jerry Bourque, and, finally, António Hernández. Below them in AAA are another collection of young arms that fans would probably enjoy watching if it weren’t for these five.
Let’s take a look:
#1 – Carlos Valle: Yes, we all know him. Three-time Nebraska winner. Came back late last year to pitch the only post season game the Nine actually won. If you need me to go on about him here, well, it’s probably not going to help. Valle has 202 career wins and 2,300 strikeouts. Barring total melt-down, he seems like a lock for the Hall of Fame. He threw eight innings of 1.08 ERA baseball in spring training. Knock on wood, he should spend the year climbing back up that long list of top pitchers that Randy keeps.
#2 – Dave Lee: We’re expecting Dave Lee to be the #2, though given the vagaries of the schedule, you’ll probably see him swap back and forth with Duval. Lee went 16-9 last year, and posted a 3.89 ERA. His BABIP was up a bit (.311), but his FIP was a competitive 3.12 (78 FIP-). We think he’s a perfect example of that tweener who really isn’t a top-flight #1, but can fake it in certain moments. [aside – just what is an “ace” right?]
#3 – Loan Duval: This right hander from Haiti burst upon the scene as a 22-year-old last year, posting a league-leading ERA of 2.29, and winning 14 ball games despite being called up as the emergency backfill for Carlos Valle. He had started only six games in his minor league career—all six in Indy after he apparently woke up one morning and found a changeup that bent the knees of even the most experienced of hitters. He spent the off-season decompressing and dealing with the pressure such rapid rise creates. We’ll see if hitters can adjust to him this season, or if he can avoid a Sophomore jinx.
#4 – Jerry Bourque: It will probably never get old to note how Bourque turned down millions of YS9 dollars to go back to school, only to get drafted by the club again and sign for pennies on the dollar. That said, Bourque’s story is compelling. When he did get back to the organization, he got lost in the shuffle, pushed to a minor league pen job, and kind of left to rot. You’d be unsurprised if, at that point, the kid had just given up and went back home to make bricks or something. Instead he worked harder, and made the parent club’s bullpen in 2046 then grew into a starter’s role in 2047. He posted an 11-9 record last year, with a sneaky 3.61 ERA. A true feel good story.
#5 – António Hernández: It won’t surprise too many if Hernández has a rocky first month or two if the season. He’s a kid, after all. Just getting used to the idea of the bright lights and big cities of the BBA. But his talent is hard to ignore, and given the interest that buzzed around him as a trade chip in the off-season, it also won’t apparently surprise too many people if by mid-season the kid from Honduras is getting big league batters out. He throws 98, after all, and has a big league curve and change combo that has scouts stopping to watch. At 22, the future is now.
The Next Line
If, god forbid, one of the top five does go down, there is still depth—which is why both Minty and Ramos could be dealt.
Perhaps the most intriguing of the collection is 25-year-old right hander Iván Molina—who has been bouncing around the organization since being signed five years ago as a minor league free agent. He added a splitter to his arsenal a year or two ago, and began to start games. That said, he’s also well suited to be a late-inning pitcher. We expect to see Molina in Yellow Springs this year, but we’re not sure what role it will be in.
Next is 20-year-old RHP Sergio Herrera—who is probably best suited as a reliever, but who has been quite workable as a starter. He’s not known to be able to go deep into games, but that’s not really that important when you have a pen as solid as Yellow Spring’s.
Three more intriguing choices are Alberto “Slippery Pete” Romero (he of the $51M fame), and AA-ball pitchers Edgardo Mota and Dani Martínez. Both Martínez and Mota have been developing well and would appear to project into a #3 kind of slot at the big leagues. Romero had a blazingly fun spring camp line, throwing 15 innings, striking out 14 and walking … wait for it … 13. He allowed only four hits, though, and posted a 2.40 ERA. We’re not sure what the future holds for Romero, but it sounds like it’s going to be fun. One suspects the Nine might hire a guy to wear a bull outfit if he ever pitches in Ohio.
OVERALL GRADE:
Well, we’re tempted to just say this is an A-Grade rotation and be done with it. And that might wind up being true. There are wildcards here, though, not the least of which is that there exist a lot of very good rotations these days. Pitching around the league tends to be pretty solid. We also have to take into account various uncertainties. Is Valle going to truly recover? Can he avoid the issues of aging? Will Antonio Hernandez settle into his role? Can Duval power through a second season.
So it’s not as easy as simply stamping the rotation with a bright A or A+.
For now, let’s call it a B+.
With a Gold Star for potential.