Bundy throws 4 perfect innings

[Stotle]

i disagree with "haphazardly", though there clearly is some balancing with utilizing him to help benefit the team in a limited scope. As I assume he was on some strict innings count last year, I'm not sure the utilizing him out of the BP was necessarilly some poor decision either. He did well and helped the team and I don't see how facing ML hitters is necessarily a drawback severely impacting his overall development that some are making it out to be.

As for the point about being brought up sick tired, and/or unprepared and abused on only 3 days rest in that last start, I find it fairly ridiculous when considering the pitch counts and what was to be expected of him. He neither looked sick and/or tired, or flustered in the slightest. He looked ok for awhile but failed to execute some pitches against a very good team.

Unless Gausman is some fragile flower, I just don't see any reason to believe that he has been grossly mishandled. The guy pitched 3 years in college in a top program. That said, I have a lot of other questions and concerns about how they are developing him, but these short duration stints in the majors is hardly concerning to me.

I think he is good enough that he will succeed regardless of how he's handled. I still prefer an org have a developmental plan for supremely valuable assets and that they stick to that plan. As noted above, I don't think this is a huge setback, but it's clearly not putting his development first.

[calmunderfire]

All this development stuff is a little overrated. At some point (he is 23 and pitched in D1) it comes down to can you pitch effectively; are you any good? I've lost some interest and excitement every time I see Gausman in the Majors because his fastball command is sub-par.

So now I'm waiting eagerly for Bundy to eventually make his MLB debut. The reports are that he has plus velocity and with the ability to locate his fastball down in the strikezone consistently. We'll see.

[Stotle]

All this development stuff is a little overrated. At some point (he is 23 and pitched in D1) it comes down to can you pitch effectively; are you any good? I've lost some interest and excitement every time I see Gausman in the Majors because his fastball command is sub-par.

So now I'm waiting eagerly for Bundy to eventually make his MLB debut. The reports are that he has plus velocity and with the ability to locate his fastball down in the strikezone consistently. We'll see.

Tough grading scale if you don't want to worry about developmental time but want consistent mechanics and execution necessary for MLB command to be in place upon arrival.

[DrungoHazewood]

i disagree with "haphazardly", though there clearly is some balancing with utilizing him to help benefit the team in a limited scope. As I assume he was on some strict innings count last year, I'm not sure the utilizing him out of the BP was necessarilly some poor decision either. He did well and helped the team and I don't see how facing ML hitters is necessarily a drawback severely impacting his overall development that some are making it out to be.

As for the point about being brought up sick tired, and/or unprepared and abused on only 3 days rest in that last start, I find it fairly ridiculous when considering the pitch counts and what was to be expected of him. He neither looked sick and/or tired, or flustered in the slightest. He looked ok for awhile but failed to execute some pitches against a very good team.

Unless Gausman is some fragile flower, I just don't see any reason to believe that he has been grossly mishandled. The guy pitched 3 years in college in a top program. That said, I have a lot of other questions and concerns about how they are developing him, but these short duration stints in the majors is hardly concerning to me and i have quite a bit of doubt the situation with Gausman would be even marginally better if they had been omitted.

This pretty well sums up my thoughts on this.

[DrungoHazewood]

All this development stuff is a little overrated. At some point (he is 23 and pitched in D1) it comes down to can you pitch effectively; are you any good? I've lost some interest and excitement every time I see Gausman in the Majors because his fastball command is sub-par.

So now I'm waiting eagerly for Bundy to eventually make his MLB debut. The reports are that he has plus velocity and with the ability to locate his fastball down in the strikezone consistently. We'll see.

I'm sure Hunter Harvey will be your next great new thing when Bundy doesn't immediately have great MLB results.

[calmunderfire]

I'm sure Hunter Harvey will be your next great new thing when Bundy doesn't immediately have great MLB results.

I would expect Bundy to show that he has good fastball control. A top 3 pick should have that. Normally fastball control just doesn't appear out of the blue.

http://baseballprospectnation.com/2012/04/06/scouting-report-kevin-gausman-rhp/

This guy nailed the Gausman scouting. Emphasis on control and command just can't be fairywished with experience.

[Il BuonO]

i disagree with "haphazardly", though there clearly is some balancing with utilizing him to help benefit the team in a limited scope. As I assume he was on some strict innings count last year, I'm not sure the utilizing him out of the BP was necessarilly some poor decision either. He did well and helped the team and I don't see how facing ML hitters is necessarily a drawback severely impacting his overall development that some are making it out to be.

As for the point about being brought up sick tired, and/or unprepared and abused on only 3 days rest in that last start, I find it fairly ridiculous when considering the pitch counts and what was to be expected of him. He neither looked sick and/or tired, or flustered in the slightest. He looked ok for awhile but failed to execute some pitches against a very good team.

Unless Gausman is some fragile flower, I just don't see any reason to believe that he has been grossly mishandled. The guy pitched 3 years in college in a top program. That said, I have a lot of other questions and concerns about how they are developing him, but these short duration stints in the majors is hardly concerning to me and i have quite a bit of doubt the situation with Gausman would be even marginally better if they had been omitted.

Easily the most comprehensive analysis of Gausman's situation. He had some rough starts last year with the team but when he can back his time in the BP boosted his confidence. He's talked about it.

My biggest concern is that he continue to develop the slider which seemed to be non-existent in the start against Detroit this year. Maybe he didn't have a feel that day, but at the end of last year and in ST it was coming along.

The development of pitching needs to be reassessed in time and not lumped in together with this organizations other failures.

[Stotle]

Easily the most comprehensive analysis of Gausman's situation. He had some rough starts last year with the team but when he can back his time in the BP boosted his confidence. He's talked about it.

My biggest concern is that he continue to develop the slider which seemed to be non-existent in the start against Detroit this year. Maybe he didn't have a feel that day, but at the end of last year and in ST it was coming along.

The development of pitching needs to be reassessed in time and not lumped in together with this organizations other failures.

Maybe throwing on three days rest he wasn't quite in sync and his release and execution suffered?

[MrOrange82]

Unless Gausman is some fragile flower, I just don't see any reason to believe that he has been grossly mishandled. The guy pitched 3 years in college in a top program. That said, I have a lot of other questions and concerns about how they are developing him, but these short duration stints in the majors is hardly concerning to me and i have quite a bit of doubt the situation with Gausman would be even marginally better if they had been omitted.

I'm only chiming in because Stotle has already laid out a bunch of the stats, etc. pertaining to Gausman in other threads (and more than once when I've questioned Gausman's progress/ceiling).

First off, he didn't pitch three years in college. He was drafted after his sophomore year. Accordingly, he didn't leave college with 350 innings of D1 experience under his belt. He threw 89.2 innings his freshman year, and 123.2 innings in his second. And to date he's only tallied 138.1 innings in the minors.

The short duration stints are concerning, IMO, because they're seemingly random, and they don't seem to reflect a coherent plan for his present/future development. Pitching him on three days rest against the Tigers won't "ruin" him, of course, but why on Earth did he need to make that start in the first place? I believe we already argued about the Tigers' perceived dominance of left handed pitchers (which really boiled down to three of their regulars having good starts to the season against southpaws).

But either way, Chen could and should have made that start. Yo-yoing Gausman on short rest just after he'd dealt with injury/illness issues made zero sense, regardless of whether the O's thought Chen might be vulnerable against the Tigers. And that should be especially obvious since Gausman looked pretty freakin' vulnerable against the Tigers, anyway (and there's really no other way to spin five ER and eight baserunners in four innings of work).

[CA-ORIOLE]

I'm only chiming in because Stotle has already laid out a bunch of the stats, etc. pertaining to Gausman in other threads (and more than once when I've questioned Gausman's progress/ceiling).

First off, he didn't pitch three years in college. He was drafted after his sophomore year. Accordingly, he didn't leave college with 350 innings of D1 experience under his belt. He threw 89.2 innings his freshman year, and 123.2 innings in his second. And to date he's only tallied 138.1 innings in the minors.

The short duration stints are concerning, IMO, because they're seemingly random, and they don't seem to reflect a coherent plan for his present/future development. Pitching him on three days rest against the Tigers won't "ruin" him, of course, but why on Earth did he need to make that start in the first place? I believe we already argued about the Tigers' perceived dominance of left handed pitchers (which really boiled down to three of their regulars having good starts to the season against southpaws).

But either way, Chen could and should have made that start. Yo-yoing Gausman on short rest just after he'd dealt with injury/illness issues made zero sense, regardless of whether the O's thought Chen might be vulnerable against the Tigers. And that should be especially obvious since Gausman looked pretty freakin' vulnerable against the Tigers, anyway (and there's really no other way to spin five ER and eight baserunners in four innings of work).

Yeah, I'm not going to re-argue the Chen should have made the start against the Tigers again and Chen did end up having a successful effort against he Royals in the next game. I also think there were multiple reasons behind the decision.

No issue with Gausman making a spot start under the very limited/controlled circumstances that he did. Physically he looked perfectly fine. Don't buy the poor, abused and sick Gausman stuff at all. He didn't look great, but he actually didn't even allow an extra base hit in that game. In the end he just didn't locate well enough, but he wasn't horrible either.

[calmunderfire]

But either way, Chen could and should have made that start. Yo-yoing Gausman on short rest just after he'd dealt with injury/illness issues made zero sense, regardless of whether the O's thought Chen might be vulnerable against the Tigers. And that should be especially obvious since Gausman looked pretty freakin' vulnerable against the Tigers, anyway (and there's really no other way to spin five ER and eight baserunners in four innings of work).

I think you are over-analyzing. He can throw 98 mph. It's about fastball control. Can you locate where you want to? Gausman never had good control was never projected to have good control and probably never will have good control.

[CA-ORIOLE]

Wake me up when Bundy gets to the bigs and has some extended success.

Same with Gausman and Ed-Rod and Harvey. Because last time I checked, every Orioles top pitching prospect is destined to fail at the major league level. That's been the track record, and that's an indisputable fact. Until it isn't anymore, which would be nice.

Tillman has done ok. We may not have drafted him, but I think it's a reasonable fact that we had the major part in developing him.

[Il BuonO]

Maybe throwing on three days rest he wasn't quite in sync and his release and execution suffered?

Maybe. It doesn't lend creedence to the idea that his development has been totally screwed up making one spot start even if I didn't agree with it.

I agree with the idea he needs more innings and sustained success but not necessarily that what has happened taken place previously is all bad.

[Stotle]

Maybe. It doesn't lend creedence to the idea that his development has been totally screwed up making one spot start even if I didn't agree with it.

I agree with the idea he needs more innings and sustained success but not necessarily that what has happened taken place previously is all bad.

I guess I'm conservative. Maybe too much so. I don't see a lot of teams treating their prized pitching prospect in the manner the O's have treated Gausman. I don't particularly care that he isn't being ruined; I would like to see the organization place a higher premium on doing what's best for him and his development, rather than using him to plug holes they failed to otherwise account for.

[CA-ORIOLE]

I guess I'm conservative. Maybe too much so. I don't see a lot of teams treating their prized pitching prospect in the manner the O's have treated Gausman. I don't particularly care that he isn't being ruined; I would like to see the organization place a higher premium on doing what's best for him and his development, rather than using him to plug holes they failed to otherwise account for.

Haven't the Cardinals employed similar strategies with guys Wacha and Miller (among others)? Are those guys/situations not comparable ? I guess I'm just not opposed to putting guys out there in these short durations as part of an iterative/evaluation process.

Our development has been a mixed bag (ok a poor bag) but it also seems to me we've had a few guys do very well in AAA only to find out they didn't really have the tools to succeed in the majors as starters. This is part of my concern with developing AAA pitchers and Gausman kinda falls in there for me.