TT: Gausman's time will come, but it's not now

[AlbionHero]

I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous. Gausman didn't get to where he is because he's a mental midget. We are not a last place team that can afford to just keep running him out there and highly doubt sending him back to the minors is going to "destroy his confidence." You what might though? Continually having your butt handed to you by big leaguers because you were brought up before you were ready. It sounds easy to say, he'll get better, but you don't provide any analysis as to why he will get better. What will he do different then what we've seen in spring training, Double-A and the majors? If we were just talking about guy who had one bad command day, I'd be happy to say that, but it's deeper.

I know some of you don't want to admit it for whatever reason, perhaps it's the eternal fan in some of you that thinks he's just needs another chance to dominate, but even if everything clicks and Gausman does well Saturday, he's yet to show the consistently that suggests he'll be able to do that the next time out.

I know that it sounds easy to just say "He'll get better"... but the way I look at it, you get better through facing good competition and being forced into situations where you have a lot of pressure put on you, and situations where you need to throw certain pitches to get guys out. Right now in AA, he won't be given those kinds of situations... he's too good for that league where he never has to depend on improving his slider since he doesn't need it. I think even at AAA, he'd be put into situations where he will be challenged and forced to throw a slider to get people out, and that would help him a lot. Like I said earlier, AAA is the place I think he'd be best at. But Buck and DD don't like putting top prospects in AAA, so that might not be an option. Right now, facing major league pitchers will FORCE him to learn how to pitch better since he can't just get through these lineups by throwing 97 mph fastballs and changeups. He needs to learn to pitch better, and you can't learn to pitch better by facing the chumps in AA. And yes, I realize these are important games... but its not like the other options in the #5 spot give us a much better chance. Why not have Gausman out there instead of all those retreads or has beens?

Plus, the scouting reports I've read from Fangraphs and Keith Law says he throws down in the zone TOO much in the minors, and that actually made him predictable... thats something he hasn't done yet in the majors. We aren't seeing the guy who was dominating in Bowie... if he gets it back down in the zone, I think he'll be fine.

[Tony-OH]

I know that it sounds easy to just say "He'll get better"... but the way I look at it, you get better through facing good competition and being forced into situations where you have a lot of pressure put on you, and situations where you need to throw certain pitches to get guys out. Right now in AA, he won't be given those kinds of situations... he's too good for that league where he never has to depend on improving his slider since he doesn't need it. I think even at AAA, he'd be put into situations where he will be challenged and forced to throw a slider to get people out, and that would help him a lot. Like I said earlier, AAA is the place I think he'd be best at. But Buck and DD don't like putting top prospects in AAA, so that might not be an option. Right now, facing major league pitchers will FORCE him to learn how to pitch better since he can't just get through these lineups by throwing 97 mph fastballs and changeups. He needs to learn to pitch better, and you can't learn to pitch better by facing the chumps in AA. And yes, I realize these are important games... but its not like the other options in the #5 spot give us a much better chance. Why not have Gausman out there instead of all those retreads or has beens?

Finally, we agree on something.

We were in just about every game Arrieta started. As frustrating as he can be, I'd rather throw him every five days then this version of Gausman. also, since Buck doesn't seem to want to throw him in relief, maybe give McFarland a chance to start? I'm not sure he has the stuff to get by two times through an order, but maybe he can give us a solid 5-6 innings. Obviously what we really need is Chen back or Wada to start showing something.

[TiredofLosing20]

The Gausman pitching up here doesn't look like the Gausman I saw video's of at Bowie. That guy had a 97-98 FB with late movement that he located down in the zone consistently. He had a change at 83 and a fairly tight SL. The one in the ML has a flat FB he leaves up in the zone, a change he doesn't locate consistently and a slider that doesn't slide. Maybe we should tell him to pitch like he's still at Bowie.

If this is true (and I believe you) then doesn't this point to possibly something else, ball, mound, adrenaline? I would give him another start or two. Lets see if he can correct. If we had better options maybe I would think differently.

[sfosfan]

One thing I came away with after watching Kevin make two starts: a greater appreciation for Chris Tillman. As Buck said, Kevin is facing the best hitters in the world. Everyone at this level can hit fastballs and you have to earn their respect by throwing other pitches for strikes. Guys like Kevin, Chris and Jake can live off their fastballs at every other level- just not this one. Tillman got knocked around at first, and even now will struggle to go 7 innings constistently, but he's not getting knocked around like before. Good for Kevin to go out there, get beat up and not let it affect his attitude or confidence in any way. Kevin will learn his adjustments through hard work, just like Chris. You can tell Kevin is on his way by his attitude. Unlike Jake who can still give you the deer in the headlights look in a post game interview, Kevin looks like he's always thinking. This kid is going to be huge!

[Three Run Homer]

Tony, you've convinved me that he should be sent down now, as opposed to keeping him around until Chen returns.

I'd be fine with giving Arietta or Jurrjens another shot at starting in the meantime.

[Tony-OH]

That's fair and all, but the reason he's here in the first place is because we're a contender, because if we weren't, he might not even sniff the bigs this year. So clearly the O's think he's a better option than Arrieta, Britton, Johnson, MacFarland, etc. So far that hasn't worked out. This "panic move" is because they didn't just want to put some scrub out there - they wanted someone with legit stuff and pedigree. You can argue the results, but the thought process is that of a contending team.

I agree that the Orioles didn't have a ton of great options, but in my opinion, you don't bring up a guy like Gausman unless he's ready. Either he's taken steps back since arriving (some guys get the major league yips) or someone did not evaluate him correctly in Double-A. He's very similar to the guy I saw in Bowie at the end of April, and I did not think he was ready then despite the stellar performance. Hitters tell you a lot of what you need to know, and major league hitters look way too comfortable against him right now and that's because he was not ready. You don't throw your top pitching prospect to the wolves before he has all the tools and knowledge to know how to fight them.

DD brought in guys like Jurjenns and Garcia for this very reason, and although Jurjenns didn't look that impressive in his debut against the Rays and has been just ok in AAA, i'd rather those guys be given longer auditions before going to a prospect that clearly was not ready yet. Maybe it's just a different way of looking at things, but I just think a guy who has allowed 8.1 H/9 in just 61.1 minor league innings under his belt was a guy they should not have gone to yet. I'd rather have a freshly confident Gausman given a shot in July then a guy who will come back up with questions in his mind after his current shellacking.

[olehippi]

Reading through the posts its pretty obvious that almost everyone believes Kevin Gausman definitely IS NOT "ready for primetime." He looked lost during his first start, and totally shell-shocked after his second. The utter failure of his efforts can't be good for Gausman's psyche. And, I don't think throwing him to the wolves one more time is a smart move.

Buck Showalter was 100% correct when he stated just a week before the call-up that Kevin Gausman "was exactly where he's needs to be"....in Bowie. So....what the heck changed? And who made the decision to call him up? I can't believe it was Buck's idea.

And what does this do for Arietta's already fragile psyche? He was in the BP, and originally projected to start last Thursday against Toronto. Instead Gausman was called up, and Arietta sent down. An odd decision, IMO.

[sfosfan]

I really question how anyone can feel confident about the O's drafting and developing a pitcher, even with a top 5 pick when they haven't done it in 15 years.

Gausman has shown me enough in two starts to think he will be nothing more than a marginal ML pitcher.

The good ones just don't have their FB absolutely destroyed by every hitter in the lineup. I'm sitting there watching the radar gun in absolute amazement as it keeps reading 95+ and the hitters look like they are taking BP. They didn't have any trouble pulling his 95+ fastball. And they recognized every off speed pitch and just layed off or teed off on his slider.

He has a lot of work to do.

That's a long time and i don't disagree in that there's a history of problems when it comes to developing pitchers. BUT the current organization is doing better. Chris Tillman would probably not have had success with this team 5-10 years ago. Jason Hammel would not have been acquired, or turned into at least a solid #2 starter. How about Patton? McFarland? Hunter? These guys werent' thought of as strong performers in other organizations, but found success here. Something is working, and I think it's time to cast away those old issues and have some more faith- like the O's fans used to have (if anyone else is old enough to remember them that is). Good times are ahead. :boogie:

[Tony-OH]

Tony, you've convinced me that he should be sent down now, as opposed to keeping him around until Chen returns.

I'd be fine with giving Arietta or Jurrjens another shot at starting in the meantime.

Well, it appears that Gausman will get at least one more start against the best lineup in baseball. I have all the respect in the world for Buck and DD. In most cases, I agree with their line of thinking, but I just disagree in this case.

At 22-years old Justin Verlander was given 118.2 minor league innings where he put up a 1.29 ERA with a 26-136 BB/K ratio (2BB/9 - 10.2K/9) while allowing 6.1 H/9 before being given two starts at the end of the year. Compare that to Gausman who was given 61.1 innings while putting up a 3.11 ERA with a 8.5 H/9 - 1.0 BB/9 - 9.5 K/9 and was given a start in May the year after being drafted. Gausman allowed more than two more hits per nine than Verlander and obviously gave up much fewer runs. Verlander allowed one earned runs in his last seven AA starts (32.2) while allowing just 11 hits. That's dominating, and that's when you know a guy is ready.

[sfosfan]

Tony, you've convinved me that he should be sent down now, as opposed to keeping him around until Chen returns.

I'd be fine with giving Arietta or Jurrjens another shot at starting in the meantime.

There's certainly nothing left for Kevin to learn at Bowie, and probably not much harm in giving Kevin one more start. Kevin can go down to AAA and work on the lessons he learned up here. Arietta as the stuff, but hasn't shown that he gets it yet, and Jurrjens has not duplicated his past success yet so not sure how much better those two would be here.

But why not Weavierize Kevin? Putinig Steve Johnson in the rotation and Kevin in the pen wouldn't be a bad thing. Kevin may not get much more out of the minor leagues.

[Tony-OH]

Reading through the posts its pretty obvious that almost everyone believes Kevin Gausman definitely IS NOT "ready for primetime." He looked lost during his first start, and totally shell-shocked after his second. The utter failure of his efforts can't be good for Gausman's psyche. And, I don't think throwing him to the wolves one more time is a smart move.

Buck Showalter was 100% correct when he stated just a week before the call-up that Kevin Gausman "was exactly where he's needs to be"....in Bowie. So....what the heck changed? And who made the decision to call him up? I can't believe it was Buck's idea.

And what does this do for Arietta's already fragile psyche? He was in the BP, and originally projected to start last Thursday against Toronto. Instead Gausman was called up, and Arietta sent down. An odd decision, IMO.

I forgot about that quote. Kind of interesting. If I had to guess, and what the hell, why not, I'd say this was a Peterson/DD decision. I heard from one scout that Delmarva pitchers were barely throwing breaking balls because they are being forced to throw all fastballs and changeups. In one game, Hader threw one breaking ball. It sound as though Peterson is taking the fastball-changeup approach to the extreme. While I completely understand and agree with forcing young pitchers like Hader to throw the changeup more to develop it, I wonder if this will come at the expense of the breaking balls? I don't really know the answer and I know that Peterson has forgotten more about pitching then I know, but the scouts had wondered that as well.

Since Gausman already had such a good changeup, you would think they would adjust that philosophy and make him throw more sliders. Besides, in Double-A, you need to be working on three pitches at the very least in my opinion.

[sfosfan]

I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous. Gausman didn't get to where he is because he's a mental midget. We are not a last place team that can afford to just keep running him out there and highly doubt sending him back to the minors is going to "destroy his confidence." You what might though? Continually having your butt handed to you by big leaguers because you were brought up before you were ready. It sounds easy to say, he'll get better, but you don't provide any analysis as to why he will get better. What will he do different then what we've seen in spring training, Double-A and the majors? If we were just talking about guy who had one bad command day, I'd be happy to say that, but it's deeper.

I know some of you don't want to admit it for whatever reason, perhaps it's the eternal fan in some of you that thinks he's just needs another chance to dominate, but even if everything clicks and Gausman does well Saturday, he's yet to show the consistently that suggests he'll be able to do that the next time out.

:agree:

I keep seeing similarities with Chris and Kevin. When Chris Tillman got sent down, he had issues and most of it was mechanical. Once that cleared up, Chris came up and had success. Now Chris is learning how to make adjustments, and he's not getting lit up. Kevin seems to be where Chris was at AFTER he got called up- mechanically pretty clean. Kevin can sharpen up his slider, but it's a major league pitch now. But the issue of confidence isn't really an issue. But, if Kevin isn't helping the team then at some point he doesn't deserve to stick around. Two starts though could be a bit early in making that call, especially with Chen on the dl.

[DrungoHazewood]

Gausman has shown me enough in two starts to think he will be nothing more than a marginal ML pitcher.

Well done, sir. You are truly a button-pusher extraordinare. An agitator and board-baiter without peer. Only the finest of cynics could take a consensus top prospect, one almost universally labeled a TOR candidate, one who is approaching 100 mph in the 5th or 6th inning, and put a Josh Towers ceiling on him less than 10 innings into his MLB career.

[Can_of_corn]

I forgot about that quote. Kind of interesting. If I had to guess, and what the hell, why not, I'd say this was a Peterson/DD decision. I heard from one scout that Delmarva pitchers were barely throwing breaking balls because they are being forced to throw all fastballs and changeups. In one game, Hader threw one breaking ball. It sound as though Peterson is taking the fastball-changeup approach to the extreme. While I completely understand and agree with forcing young pitchers like Hader to throw the changeup more to develop it, I wonder if this will come at the expense of the breaking balls? I don't really know the answer and I know that Peterson has forgotten more about pitching then I know, but the scouts had wondered that as well.

Since Gausman already had such a good changeup, you would think they would adjust that philosophy and make him throw more sliders. Besides, in Double-A, you need to be working on three pitches at the very least in my opinion.

Wasn't Buck quoted as saying that if it was up to him Gausman would have made the team (Bullpen) out of Spring Training?

[weams]

Isn't a 12-15 mph difference between his fastball and change too much???

It seems that ML hitters would be able to pick up that much difference even if his arm speed is identical.

I think he needs something in the 88-90 mph range (cutter??) to get some weak contact with.

I'm really frustrated with the string of top 5 picks that gets to the majors... and I ask myself where is the electric stuff. I can't remember so many 95+ mph fastballs hit so hard by so many marginal hitters (Bernadino) as I've seen with Gausman's first two starts.

Good God. Leave him off the cutter injury wagon. I have no desire to see him lose his fastball also.