San Fernando is playing winning baseball in September (11-3 record) thanks in part to a revamped rotation that includes a resurgent Rick Marriott but also a pair of rookies, 27 year-old Zhuo-cheng Sa and 22 year-old Augusto Gonzalez.
Sa signed as a minor league free agent all the way back in 2055 after being cut by the Portland Lumberjacks upon exiting their international complex. His movement and control bumped bigly across 2057-2058 and he made 107 starts in our farm system. He’s a guy we’ve always had our eye on, nearly adding him to the 40-man roster the last few seasons but his low upside thanks to mediocre stuff and wrecked durability rating kept him off other teams’ radars. This year he was finally healthy and pitching to a 3.10 ERA in AAA when our big league rotation imploded, affording him the opportunity to start for the Bears. Sa has responded by eating 79.2 innings with a 3.73 ERA and 4.45 FIP. He’s likely to burn his second option to begin next season since we can’t count on a wrecked pitcher of this caliber as one of our five Opening Day starting pitchers, but he’ll provide important depth and is likely to pop up from time to time if he can stay healthy.
Of greater importance is the emergence of Gonzalez. He was given a C+ grade and ranked our third best starting pitching prospect last year. Since publishing that TN he’s bumped a point of stuff and control potential and now has the looks of a MOR starter. After cruising through AAA for four months, Gonzalez has made 8 starts for the Bears while compiling a 3.66 ERA and 3.11 FIP across 46.2 innings. That should secure him a rotation spot next season, with further room for growth evidenced by his point of unmet potential across his entire four pitch arsenal.
