2019 #12 Prospect: Keegan Akin - LHP

[Frobby]

Just now, Aristotelian said:

Tillman may prove the point. He had some good years but he came into camp out of shape in 2015 and I am convinced that was the beginning of the end for him. Was terrible from start to finish that year and was never the same.

Never the same?   Tillman was 16-6 with a 3.77 ERA in 2016.   He strained his shoulder late in the 2016 season and that was the start of his woes, but I don’t see what that has to do with whether Tillman was out of shape in 2015.    

[Aristotelian]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

Never the same?   Tillman was 16-6 with a 3.77 ERA in 2016.   He strained his shoulder late in the 2016 season and that was the start of his woes, but I don’t see what that has to do with whether Tillman was out of shape in 2015.    

Sure, he bounced back a bit but W/L should not even be a thing, and 3.77 was worse than 3.34. O's were poised for a big year in 2015. Everyone blames the failure to bring back Cruz but Tillman came in to camp out of shape and Norris hid his back injury. The pitching was so bad we didn't really have a chance.

[Enjoy Terror]

There are some supremely fat pitchers that have been very successful. I don’t think it says much about conditioning.

[Luke-OH]

10 hours ago, Frobby said:

I’m having trouble reconciling the pitching grades with the rankings.

FB: Kremer 50/50, Akin 55/55

CH: Kremer 35/40, Akin 55/55

SL: Kremer 40/45, Akin 50/50

CU: Kremer 50/50, Akin —/—

Command: Kremer 40/45, Akin 45/50

It seems Akin is better at everything, now and in the future, except that Kremer has a fourth pitch.    That’s nice, but two of Kremer’s pitches are not as good as Akin’s third best pitch.    Just based on that, I’d have to give Akin the edge here, if the grades are accurate.   So what are the reasons to the contrary?

I’m a bit higher on Kremer’s command than Tony. 

And just something to remember is that I’m writing the Akin report and Tony is writing the Kremer report. So while we are on a similar page on these guys, we grade a little differently. So a better apples to apples would be comparing Kremer’s grades to Lowther’s (Tony did both)and Akin’s to Baumann’s (I did both).

[wildcard]

Tony overall current rating of Akin is 40.  So is it safe to say that if Akin began the season in the O's rotation they would be rushing him?

[weams]

50 minutes ago, wildcard said:

Tony overall current rating of Akin is 40.  So is it safe to say that if Akin began the season in the O's rotation they would be rushing him?

And yet he will get a chance, indeed an extended one, regardless of  results according to Mike Elias. 

[mdbdotcom]

2 hours ago, wildcard said:

Tony overall current rating of Akin is 40.  So is it safe to say that if Akin began the season in the O's rotation they would be rushing him?

Throwing the innings that allow the team to not rush the more highly rated prospects is an important job. Any success achieved is a plus. Besides, today's poor starter is often tomorrow's valuable middle reliever.

[wildcard]

1 hour ago, weams said:

And yet he will get a chance, indeed an extended one, regardless of  results according to Mike Elias. 

I didn't hear Elias say that Akin would begin the season in the O's rotation.  I think he said that Akin would be in the rotation in 2020 and he would be patience with him as he learns in the majors.

[mdbdotcom]

7 minutes ago, wildcard said:

I didn't hear Elias say that Akin would begin the season in the O's rotation.  I think he said that Akin would be in the rotation in 2020 and he would be patience with him as he learns in the majors.

I didn't read where weams said Akin would start the season in the majors.

[Tony-OH]

19 hours ago, MurphDogg said:

I'm not sure how much of his conditioning problem is just having a fat face. Athletes that don't look like athletes don't get the benefit of the doubt when it comes to conditioning. Some guys are just naturally bigger, and to quote Moneyball, we aren't selling jeans here.

Maybe he could be putting more of an effort in, but I am truly curious whether at least part of it is just a sub-conscious bias on the part of evaluators, where if he didn't look the way he looks and had the same up and down struggles, he would be seen as streaky and uneven while building up to the grind of throwing every fifth day for six months and not as poorly conditioned.

Tough to judge with the impact of the MLB ball, but Akin actually had the same FIP in 2019 with Norfolk that he had in Bowie at 2018.

Lol. Do you think we don't have additional information and just use our sub conscious bias to put out concerns like that? New around here? Honestly, this takes a shot at my credibility and I honestly don't like it. If you wanna disagree with our take, feel free, but don't try and disparage our information by saying we are using some kind of subconscious bias. 

That's disrespectful and I think we've earned the right not to have people take shots like that on this site.

[Tony-OH]

2 hours ago, wildcard said:

Tony overall current rating of Akin is 40.  So is it safe to say that if Akin began the season in the O's rotation they would be rushing him?

Not really. He might be one of the best five starters and he might be better next spring. There were starts last year that he would have graded out as a 50, but he just wasn't consistent enough. I'd like to see him be more consistent before going into the major league rotation, but who knows what he will look like next spring?

[Frobby]

12 minutes ago, mdbdotcom said:

Throwing the innings that allow the team to not rush the more highly rated prospects is an important job. Any success achieved is a plus. Besides, today's poor starter is often tomorrow's valuable middle reliever.

I think this comment sells Akin a little short.     He’s got flaws and may not succeed as a major league starter, but I certainly don’t see him as a mere placeholder.    He’s arguably the most highly regarded O’s  pitching prospect to complete AAA in the last 4-5 years (recognizing that John Means wasn’t that highly regarded, and Dylan Bundy never pitched AAA).    

[wildcard]

10 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Not really. He might be one of the best five starters and he might be better next spring. There were starts last year that he would have graded out as a 50, but he just wasn't consistent enough. I'd like to see him be more consistent before going into the major league rotation, but who knows what he will look like next spring?

Yes, I can see that ST could be important to Akin.   But the way Elias has been doing things it should not matter if Akins is one of the best 5 starter in camp.   He has been preaching not  rushing players.   So if he feels Akin would benefit from a month or more in AAA that is what I think he would do.   

It up to Elias to add enough stop gap starting depth this off season to allow that to happen IMO.

[Frobby]

1 minute ago, wildcard said:

Yes, I can see that ST could be important to Akin.   But the way Elias has been doing things it should not matter if Akins is one of the best 5 starter in camp.   He has been preaching not  rushing players.   So if he feels Akin would benefit from a month or more in AAA that is what I think he would do.   

It up to Elias to add enough stop gap starting depth this off season to allow that to happen IMO.

I’d be shocked if Akin was on the OD roster, but I think if he starts the year decently in AAA we’ll see him before Memorial Day, and maybe before May Day.

[mdbdotcom]

22 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I think this comment sells Akin a little short.     He’s got flaws and may not succeed as a major league starter, but I certainly don’t see him as a mere placeholder.    He’s arguably the most highly regarded O’s  pitching prospect to complete AAA in the last 4-5 years (recognizing that John Means wasn’t that highly regarded, and Dylan Bundy never pitched AAA).    

I quoted the wrong comment. Wasn't meant as a criticism of Akin, but to point out the value of the role i described.