2054.01 - The Long Beach Independent - The Curious Case of Wayne Dorsey

[Lane]

DORSEY IN ROTATION?

April 1, 2054
Long Beach, CA

In a busy off season that saw Long Beach acquire a variety of players, one of the most surprising acquisitions was pitcher Wayne Dorsey. Surprising not because of who he is, but because he was announced as a starter in the initial press release, and following a strong spring showing, he has now made the Long Beach rotation. The 31 year old right hander has seen BBA action since 2044, but had made only five starts in that time, despite having two solid breaking pitches in addition to his fastball that regularly touches triple digits.

Dorsey was a successful starting pitcher in high school and in the Las Vegas minor league system, but transitioned to the bullpen almost immediately after joining the Hustlers' staff. We wouldn't dare judge such an accomplished general manager as Matt Rectenwald, especially given that Dorsey was a member of the bullpen for the back to back to back championships that Las Vegas won from '47 to '49.

Scouts have long agreed that Dorsey tires easily and didn't seem to be cut out for a traditional starters workload. However, the Surfers front office is known for blatant disregard of such concerns, regularly running out "flawed" pitchers to start that many others around the league would relegate to the bullpen.

Of course it doesn't hurt that over the past 3 years, Dorsey has worked to improve the movement on all of his pitches, and scouts now rate him as elite in that category.

We would be remiss to not mention his potential struggles against left handed batters. Scouts rate him 9/11/9 against righties, but just 8/9/8 against lefties. Surfers management is clearly not too worried about this, but they would be smart to pay attention to matchups as the season gets rolling.

It's certainly an interesting move from the front office, and at $7 million for one year, with a player option for another year at the same price, it could turn out to be one of the best bargains of the offseason.

[tylertoo]

Curious if you have him on a pitch count.

[Dington]

Looks like he could work out as SP. So far so good.

[Lane]

Curious if you have him on a pitch count.

80 for now. could see myself pushing to 90 at some point, but i have enough stamina in my bullpen to deal with short starts from him and the oft-injured Ricardo Rivera (also 4 stamina)

[ae37jr]

His high control, low stuff(yes, 8-9 stuff is low right now) will help him manage a low pitch count. That should compensate for a stamina point or two.

[Lane]

His high control, low stuff(yes, 8-9 stuff is low right now) will help him manage a low pitch count. That should compensate for a stamina point or two.

absolutely. he did 6.1 innings in 81 pitches against Valencia the other day

[recte44]

I tried this with him at points. Could never find consistency.

[Lane]

yeah, it looks like he's got slightly better control now, and of course that movement bump as well. we'll see if he can find any consistency now.