Cade Povich 2024

[Frobby]

Povich was pretty awful again last night, and I hope he'll be sent down today in favor of a reliever until we need the spot for Eflin shorlty.   He seems to have the same problem in the majors that he had in the minors, i.e., his command just isn't consistent at all from one start to the next.   He's capable of tossing a good game once every 2-3 starts, but he just doesn't do it with any consistency.   

On the days where he's "off," he just throws a ton of non-competitive pitches that are either 6+ inches wide of the strike zone or 6+ inches too high.   There's not the slightest temptation for the batters to swing at those pitches.

I'm honestly not sure how a coach fixes the consistency problems Povich has.   

[Moose Milligan]

I've seen enough for right now.  He's got a lot of work to do this offseason, that's for sure.  Last night was awful to watch and I'm surprised the Dodgers didn't score way more runs than they did.

But last night I was having flashbacks to guys like Tyler Wilson and he reminded of the agony of watching guys like that.  

[LookitsPuck]

When Povich is good, he's definitely a major leaguer. But when he's not, he reminds me of Cole Irvin without the command. 

You'd expect to see favourable numbers after an 0-1 or an 0-2 count, but there doesn't appear to be a trend. So that comes across as an inconsistent, young pitcher. I'm still not writing him off. He's still only 24, so I do think an offseason with clear goals to focus on will do him well going into next year. 

[Just Regular]

Hopefully we go 2-for-2 on Eflin and Grayson, but in the event of absence, I think pitch Povich or pitch Suarez/Kremer has a lot of the same flavor as play Mayo or Ryan, or play Holliday or play Urias, should Westburg return in time.

Certainly it would be natural Friday-Saturday if they want Anderson, and maximizing the roster on a daily basis.

They were saying on the broadcast last night he was sad to miss Kershaw, but got a signed jersey.    

I'd even give him a short leave to go watch Kershaw throw against the Diamondbacks tonight.

[Aristotelian]

On 8/18/2024 at 10:00 AM, CaptainRedbeard said:

Very interesting that in his recent AAA starts, Povich threw a lot of sinkers and sweepers, but in his gem last night he completely cut out the cutter and the sinker.

He kept the higher sweeper usage, including against RH batters, so it seems to have replaced the cutter.

This all worked last night because he kept a pretty low percentage of fastballs at 45%, but was able to throw his soft stuff for strikes. 

Ultimately I don’t really think changes in pitch mix made the difference here. He looked like he did in the good Braves start, commanding the four seamer at the top of the zone and the curve at the bottom of the zone. That’s really the key for him. The changeup off the plate to righties was also a good pitch for him last night, and maybe the sweeper will be the in-zone pitch for him to go to other than the fastball. 

So that 91 mph fastball is a four seamer? Yikes, that's not gonna cut it. 

[e16bball]

Povich makes me think about a concept I’ve been bouncing around in my head this year. Essentially a piggyback, or a starter-stack if you will.

Down at Aberdeen, for example, they always roll out Luis De Leon and Michael Forret on the same day. I notice this because I’m interested in how both of them are doing. Both of them get their work in on that same date, and once they’re done, the bullpen handles whatever is left. 

Is it feasible from a roster standpoint to do the same thing with the 5th starter spot at the ML level? The goal would be to turn a very inconsistent rotation slot (that, somewhat unpredictably, places major strain on the bullpen) into a reliable source of bulk innings.

In essence, at full speed, we’d have Burnes, Grayson, Eflin, and Kremer pretty well entrenched as SP1-SP4. What I envision is Povich and Suarez functioning as essentially co-SP5s. You would start Povich and see what he has. It’s usually very clear early on whether he has it working or not.

If he’s going well, you let him spin 2x through the lineup and then turn things over to Suarez. In those cases, you might be able to damn near get through the end of the game with Suarez, depending on the circumstances. If it’s not going well with Povich, just treat him like an opener and turn it over to Suarez as the “bulk guy,” and he takes you as far as he can go.

The obvious downside is that you’re essentially using a 6-man rotation — with all the added strain on the bullpen but none of the extra rest for the starters. But I would wager that with this approach, you could probably expect to get a solid 7 innings on average out of your co-starters (some games more, some games less, depending largely on how much you got out of Povich). Does that become worth it?

[RZNJ]

2 minutes ago, e16bball said:

Povich makes me think about a concept I’ve been bouncing around in my head this year. Essentially a piggyback, or a starter-stack if you will.

Down at Aberdeen, for example, they always roll out Luis De Leon and Michael Forret on the same day. I notice this because I’m interested in how both of them are doing. Both of them get their work in on that same date, and once they’re done, the bullpen handles whatever is left. 

Is it feasible from a roster standpoint to do the same thing with the 5th starter spot at the ML level? The goal would be to turn a very inconsistent rotation slot (that, somewhat unpredictably, places major strain on the bullpen) into a reliable source of bulk innings.

In essence, at full speed, we’d have Burnes, Grayson, Eflin, and Kremer pretty well entrenched as SP1-SP4. What I envision is Povich and Suarez functioning as essentially co-SP5s. You would start Povich and see what he has. It’s usually very clear early on whether he has it working or not.

If he’s going well, you let him spin 2x through the lineup and then turn things over to Suarez. In those cases, you might be able to damn near get through the end of the game with Suarez, depending on the circumstances. If it’s not going well with Povich, just treat him like an opener and turn it over to Suarez as the “bulk guy,” and he takes you as far as he can go.

The obvious downside is that you’re essentially using a 6-man rotation — with all the added strain on the bullpen but none of the extra rest for the starters. But I would wager that with this approach, you could probably expect to get a solid 7 innings on average out of your co-starters (some games more, some games less, depending largely on how much you got out of Povich). Does that become worth it?

The downside is that right now Povich isn’t very good.   Why would you give him any kind of regular role?    If you want to try something like that with the current roster I’d suggest trying to get 8-9 innings out of Akin/Suarez.

[LookitsPuck]

15 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

So that 91 mph fastball is a four seamer? Yikes, that's not gonna cut it. 

He usually lives 92-93 with his 4 seamer. That said, he does have the ability to gitty-up and hit 95. It does have good spin up in the zone.

Think right now they're really tinkering with his pitch mix and command at the same time. I do think he has the arsenal to be effective in the majors. The big question of whether he'll have the consistency. 

[Aristotelian]

17 minutes ago, e16bball said:

Povich makes me think about a concept I’ve been bouncing around in my head this year. Essentially a piggyback, or a starter-stack if you will.

 

This has been discussed before, I think when Hall was looking like a possible swing man and a bunch of posters got fixated on the tandem idea. You are basically using two guys for one roster spot. I also don't think two mediocre guys necessarily adds up to one talented guy. You get a bit of flexibility to manipulate matchups but not much more than that. If they are good enough to start, have them pitch 6 innings every 5 days. If they aren't good enough, then stick them in the bullpen.

[Say O!]

58 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Povich was pretty awful again last night, and I hope he'll be sent down today in favor of a reliever until we need the spot for Eflin shorlty.   He seems to have the same problem in the majors that he had in the minors, i.e., his command just isn't consistent at all from one start to the next.   He's capable of tossing a good game once every 2-3 starts, but he just doesn't do it with any consistency.   

On the days where he's "off," he just throws a ton of non-competitive pitches that are either 6+ inches wide of the strike zone or 6+ inches too high.   There's not the slightest temptation for the batters to swing at those pitches.

I'm honestly not sure how a coach fixes the consistency problems Povich has.   

It seemed like Povich stuff backed up last night after looking better (more mph on fastball, sharper breaks on sweeper) in prior starts since the recall.

On the broadcast, it was noted how poor his OPS against in two strike counts.  And there were several hits last night on two strikes as well.  (2nd inning Kiki Hernandez doubled and Taylor singled on 2 strike counts.)  Palmer noted how much Povich was missing the catchers target, particularly when ahead in the count.  I think this is where Povich poor command really hinders his effectiveness. 

[LookitsPuck]

Just now, Aristotelian said:

This has been discussed before, I think when Hall was looking like a possible swing man and a bunch of posters got fixated on the tandem idea. You are basically using two guys for one roster spot. I also don't think two mediocre guys necessarily adds up to one talented guy. You get a bit of flexibility to manipulate matchups but not much more than that. If they are good enough to start, have them pitch 6 innings every 5 days. If they aren't good enough, then stick them in the bullpen.

Yeah, and Hall has better overall stuff than Povich, but like Povich - there's the lack of consistency. I think if Povich came up and showed wipe out stuff for the first inning or 2 innings or he's really effective the first time through the order. We haven't seen that, yet. Could we? Yeah, it's very possible he could turn into an Akin, i.e. a converted starter. But even Akin didn't have the control/command issues or the lack of SO in the majors. Can Povich get there? Sure. I'm not writing him off. I still like him.

But this is why the Rogers pickup was poor, tbh. It forces Povich to be an answer this year. 

[e16bball]

9 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

The downside is that right now Povich isn’t very good.   Why would you give him any kind of regular role?    If you want to try something like that with the current roster I’d suggest trying to get 8-9 innings out of Akin/Suarez.

Sure, that works too. 

It’s not so much about Povich specifically, it’s mostly about the idea that I think many fringy starters are “badly inconsistent” moreso than they’re “consistently bad.” I think many of these guys can give you good starts, but they throw in some terrible ones too. 

Just using Povich as an example again, of his 11 starts, 6 of them have been 5+ innings with 3 or fewer runs allowed. In those 6 starts, he’s pitched a combined 33 innings with an ERA of 3.00. In the other 5 starts, he has thrown 19 innings with a combined ERA of 12.79. 

He’s an extreme example (and I agree it’s been much more bad than good lately), but the point is that I think this is how many of these fringy guys reach their bad overall ERA numbers. 

Stacking them with another such guy would be an attempt to mitigate the damage done to the scoreboard and bullpen on the bad days, while still allowing the good days to play out. Having a piggyback lined up behind the SP affords the manager the luxury of yanking him when it becomes clear he doesn’t have it. Such as last night, when Povich was at 72 pitches through 3 innings and plainly just hanging on by a thread.

Akin is a good option for what I’m discussing as well. In a couple weeks, knock on wood, we might have 3 other viable lefties in the bullpen. A designated Akin/Suarez stack in the SP5 slot could be a nice way to simulate a solid innings-eater starter without actually having one.

[ChuckS]

He needs to improve his command.  I don't think the guy is going to all of a sudden start pitching better and find consistency.  This is who he is at this point in his career. 

More development is needed. Maybe that means another half season in Norfolk in 2025. 

Edited August 30 by ChuckS

[CaptainRedbeard]

Only 4 whiffs last night. Throwing a ton of sinkers again.

Povich’s fastball, and especially sinker, are not going to generate enough whiffs on their own. He needs to be throwing his curve/sweeper/change often and locating them effectively. Looks like he didn’t do either last night, as he didn’t throw many sweepers or changeups and the only two whiffs he got from his offspeed were two on curves. 

I appreciate that it looks like he’s reigned in the high walk rates recently. But that’s not enough on its own. 

[LookitsPuck]

1 minute ago, CaptainRedbeard said:

Only 4 whiffs last night. Throwing a ton of sinkers again.

Povich’s fastball, and especially sinker, are not going to generate enough whiffs on their own. He needs to be throwing his curve/sweeper/change often and locating them effectively. Looks like he didn’t do either last night, as he didn’t throw many sweepers or changeups and the only two whiffs he got from his offspeed were two on curves. 

I appreciate that it looks like he’s reigned in the high walk rates recently. But that’s not enough on its own. 

Yeah, his control is a lot better. Still need to work on pitch mix and command.

His fastball, believe it or not, is his most effective pitch in terms of outcome, i.e. lowest batting average (214) and lowest slugging (314). It does have a low strikeout rate, though.

His biggest growth needs to come from his curveball and cutter, to be honest. They're getting hit the hardest, by far. They also, when on, get the most whiffs and strikeouts. So this is probably both a command and pitch mix thing. 

He has a pretty large arsenal: 4 seamer, curve, sweeper, cutter, changeup, sinker. 

I'm very curious what his pitch mix is going to shape up as. It's encouraging to me that his 4 seamer is effective even with the velocity he has. Probably means he's got some good spin on it. 

But right now, his curveball and cutter are getting crushed. And that's not great because he's throwing his curveball the second most (behind the 4 seamer).