Cade Povich 2024

[Otter]

As everyone noticed, both the control and command were spotty and the stuff was underwhelming.  However, I'm wondering if he's the type of pitcher who is effectively wild and that's where some of his success comes from.  If he throws more strikes with his mediocre stuff, would he get hit harder?  I have no idea, but I'd like to see him get at least a couple more starts.

[Since1984]

2 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

Agreed, that was my concern in many of his starts this year, even the ones that were good in the minors.

The question I have after finally seeing him, is the stuff good enough at this level that if he throws more strikes, it won’t get hit hard?

I didn’t see much.  Decent curveball at times but the fastball is pretty underwhelming.  Seems to be a pitch they will get hammered in the zone the more people see him.

It was his first start and he had some bad luck, so I’m not writing him off or anything but this start didn’t give me some immense hope that he can step into the rotation and be an answer.  Maybe his next start will make me feel that way.

 

I remember ME talking CP up when they traded for him. Specifically, his jump in velocity and potential to be a #1/2 SP.

Although the radar gun didn’t light up, he was throwing it with ease. I could see an easy increase with 20 lbs more weight and believe his poise is mlb caliber. Just needs to improve command and he is making strides, significant if you compare him to a year before the trade.

Edited June 6 by Since1984

[Frobby]

4 minutes ago, bpilktree67 said:

Mixed bag, but enough to get him another outing.  He was having trouble landing his breaking stuff in the early innings, but landed some nice ones later.   Got behind a bit too much but at least a lot of his misses were close.  Frobby

"Nibbling" would be an improvement for Povich. So many of his pitches are so far out of the zone, they are nowhere close to competitive. Dirtybird

I didn't get to see the game but reading the reports he either was missing close or they were nowhere close.  I guess they both watched two different games.  

I thought he did better as the game progressed.  I’ve seen Fuji and Vieira pitch, so maybe my standard for close misses is low.  

[baltfan]

2 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

I said it in the game thread, but he reminded me of the way Bedard was before Bedard trusted his stuff and just started attacking.  Bedard had better overall stuff, to be certain.

Nibbled, threw too many balls.  But did enough for the team to have a chance to win.

This is a really good take. Bedard had more velocity though.  His commend was lacking.  He was slow to the plate.  He also would have been much different if he could have shown the ability to get his offspeed pitches over better.  He seemed to slow his arm on the change that Vlad hit out.  Maybe because he kept missing outside with it.  Also, did I miss something or does he not have a slider?  Most lefties have sliders. 
 

Only Vlad really hit the ball hard and the 4th inning was just bad luck.  I am very hopeful 

Edited June 6 by baltfan

[Moose Milligan]

Better be hopeful. When Bradish hits the IL soon you’re looking at his replacement. 

[sportsfan8703]

1 hour ago, baltfan said:

This is a really good take. Bedard had more velocity though.  His commend was lacking.  He was slow to the plate.  He also would have been much different if he could have shown the ability to get his offspeed pitches over better.  He seemed to slow his arm on the change that Vlad hit out.  Maybe because he kept missing outside with it.  Also, did I miss something or does he not have a slider?  Most lefties have sliders. 
 

Only Vlad really hit the ball hard and the 4th inning was just bad luck.  I am very hopeful 

The Vlad homer was a bit of bad luck. We have Povich for 6+ years if we want. I have a feeling that he’d learn to pitch in OPACY with the Wall. He’ll be alright. 

[Emory Eagle]

Seems like a 4/5 type guy.  Valuable enough if he can eat innings.  Being a lefty in OPACY is a nice little plus.

[baltfan]

6 hours ago, Emory Eagle said:

Seems like a 4/5 type guy.  Valuable enough if he can eat innings.  Being a lefty in OPACY is a nice little plus.

Disagree.  He could be a solid 2.  He was missing and still getting bad contact.  When the command comes, the results will be better. 

[Tony-OH]

Of the five hits he allowed, only two were in the middle of the plate. He'd been trying to backdoor cutter guys up and away a lot, but Vlad was probably looking for that and was able to take it the other way. Sometime you have to tip the cap to the hitter. 

The other hits he allowed were on a curveball and sweeper down and away that look like just nice pieces of hitting as well

He didn't get a lot of swing and miss, but also did get a lot of hard contact getting an outstanding 76.5 EV against in his first start.

His numbers look much worse because of a terrible, terrible 1-2 pitch by Dillon Tate to give up the two inherited runners, but I was already a bit surprised they were pushing Povich to 100 pitches in his debut when they psychologically allow 3 runs in 5 innings would have been a nice starts for him.

Now Povich has thrown more than 90 pitches in five of his minor league starts this year, so he can get up there, but I probably would not have had him start the 6th anyways just to make sure he had a nice first start vs now carrying a 10.13 ERA.

 

[Sports Guy]

1 minute ago, Tony-OH said:

Of the five hits he allowed, only two were in the middle of the plate. He'd been trying to backdoor cutter guys up and away a lot, but Vlad was probably looking for that and was able to take it the other way. Sometime you have to tip the cap to the hitter. 

The other hits he allowed were on a curveball and sweeper down and away that look like just nice pieces of hitting as well

He didn't get a lot of swing and miss, but also did get a lot of hard contact getting an outstanding 76.5 EV against in his first start.

His numbers look much worse because of a terrible, terrible 1-2 pitch by Dillon Tate to give up the two inherited runners, but I was already a bit surprised they were pushing Povich to 100 pitches in his debut when they psychologically allow 3 runs in 5 innings would have been a nice starts for him.

Now Povich has thrown more than 90 pitches in five of his minor league starts this year, so he can get up there, but I probably would not have had him start the 6th anyways just to make sure he had a nice first start vs now carrying a 10.13 ERA.

 

I’m not even looking at the runs allowed and I agree that he didn’t give up much hard contact. There is a lot of noise in that stat, even over larger sample sizes but it’s fair to say the contact he gave up didn’t warrant 4, much less 6 runs.

That being said, the command and control were poor, he didn’t miss many bats and I just didn’t see stuff that makes me believe he’s a ML starter.

Again, it’s one start and not only is it one start, it’s his first start..nerves, etc…so I’m not trying to take too much from it but if this is who he is, I don’t have a lot of faith that he will be even an average ML starter.

His advanced stats in the minors were very good, even last year so I’m guessing there is more there than what we saw yesterday but my biggest worry about him has always been the command and control and that the idea MiL hitters may go after bad pitches that MLers won’t. If he had to come in to hitters more at the majors, is the stuff good enough to beat them?  Based solely off of yesterday, I would say the answer is no…but it’s also not fair to base something like that solely on one start.

I still feel McDermott is the higher upside play but he has his own command/control issues right now.

[sportsfan8703]

9 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Of the five hits he allowed, only two were in the middle of the plate. He'd been trying to backdoor cutter guys up and away a lot, but Vlad was probably looking for that and was able to take it the other way. Sometime you have to tip the cap to the hitter. 

The other hits he allowed were on a curveball and sweeper down and away that look like just nice pieces of hitting as well

He didn't get a lot of swing and miss, but also did get a lot of hard contact getting an outstanding 76.5 EV against in his first start.

His numbers look much worse because of a terrible, terrible 1-2 pitch by Dillon Tate to give up the two inherited runners, but I was already a bit surprised they were pushing Povich to 100 pitches in his debut when they psychologically allow 3 runs in 5 innings would have been a nice starts for him.

Now Povich has thrown more than 90 pitches in five of his minor league starts this year, so he can get up there, but I probably would not have had him start the 6th anyways just to make sure he had a nice first start vs now carrying a 10.13 ERA.

 

Good take. Povich definitely ran into just some good pieces of hitting, but also with only 90 pitches we needed him to go back out there. I think the FO isn’t judging him off that. He’s our #7 SP right now.  #6 with Kremer out. Next year he competes for a spot in the rotation. He may have to be in an Akin/Irvin role next year though if we keep Burnes. We’ll see. He might not even be here. 

I liked what I saw. He has a plan up there. He’ll only get better with planning and executing. 

[Tony-OH]

1 minute ago, Sports Guy said:

I’m not even looking at the runs allowed and I agree that he didn’t give up much hard contact. There is a lot of noise in that stat, even over larger sample sizes but it’s fair to say the contact he gave up didn’t warrant 4, much less 6 runs.

That being said, the command and control were poor, he didn’t miss many bats and I just didn’t see stuff that makes me believe he’s a ML starter.

Again, it’s one start and not only is it one start, it’s his first start..nerves, etc…so I’m not trying to take too much from it but if this is who he is, I don’t have a lot of faith that he will be even an average ML starter.

His advanced stats in the minors were very good, even last year so I’m guessing there is more there than what we saw yesterday but my biggest worry about him has always been the command and control and that the idea MiL hitters may go after bad pitches that MLers won’t. If he had to come in to hitters more at the majors, is the stuff good enough to beat them?  Based solely off of yesterday, I would say the answer is no…but it’s also not fair to base something like that solely on one start.

I still feel McDermott is the higher upside play but he has his own command/control issues right now.

From what I've seen from Povich in the minors and have been saying pretty consistently, is that he's not a command and control guy. The guy I saw yesterday is pretty much the guy is was in the minors. He does throw a lot of uncompetitive pitches that typically gets his pitch count up, but he also garners a lot o soft contact as an effectively wild kind of pitcher.

His cutter and curveball yesterday had above average movement, giving up a bloop hit on the curveball and of course the home run to Vlad on the high outside cutter.

The Blue Jays have a quality lineup, and he gave up some real soft contact. I think that's the most important thing to take out of this. We'd all like to see him throw more strikes, and definitely less uncompetitive pitches, but he's throwing 5 pitches up there (mostly 4) and clearly keeping batters off balanced.

If Povich can improve his command a bit, he definitely has #3 type stuff even without the impressive fastball. Right now he's a #4/#5 type but that's ok. 

As for McDermott, he's a very similar guy but right-handed. I still think he might be a guy who could help in the pen this year. I'd love to see what he looks like in that role. Now he also is more of a mid 90-s guy vs upper 90s guy, but he has some wicked movement on his two breaking balls.

 

[Tony-OH]

3 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

Good take. Povich definitely ran into just some good pieces of hitting, but also with only 90 pitches we needed him to go back out there. I think the FO isn’t judging him off that. He’s our #7 SP right now.  #6 with Kremer out. Next year he competes for a spot in the rotation. He may have to be in an Akin/Irvin role next year though if we keep Burnes. We’ll see. He might not even be here. 

I liked what I saw. He has a plan up there. He’ll only get better with planning and executing. 

He very well may have to wait for an opportunity or he may get one and not let it go. The Orioles know that lefties play well in Camden Yards, though the Vlad homer would have been deep out of Camden as well, so that helps him as well.

The way pitchers break, I have zero issues with Povich being the #6 or #7 starting candidate. He may have be like Irvin where he spends a year going back and forth between starting and relieving, but I do think he's eventually settle into a rotation spot.

[Just Regular]

Pitch data readouts, the PitchingBot ERA estimator pegged it about 5.20, about the same as Pablo Lopez on a Yankees beat me up bad day yesterday.    Povich/Pablo were 16th and 17th out of yesterday's 20 SP by that measurement.

Velocity - 92.1 on the heater was about half a tick better than JP Sears and Bailey Falter.

 

[Just Regular]

Anecdotally a greenhorn walking two weak hitters and giving up a Weaver special to Vlad is about as cliche as it gets.

Hey, I'd forgotten Jon Miller's voice was in Summer Catch.