With spring training officially just under a month away, we continue with a series of projections on what the 2012 Toronto Blue Jays might look like. Each day (don’t hold me to this), I will profile a 2012 Blue Jays starter, closing with a set of numbers based on my (usually positive) expectations. We move on to the mound today with a look at the youngest member of the projected starting five, Henderson Alvarez.
Headed into the 2011 off-season, Alex Anthopoulos identified holes in both the starting rotation and bullpen – and while he’s rebuilt the latter with a series of moves, the team will go into the 2012 season with the same personnel that they finished 2011 with. Volatility, then, is probably something to be expected from the Blue Jays starting staff in the coming season, as only the #1 and #2 spots are truly set headed into spring, barring an acquisition in the coming days.
On a young staff that’s full of question marks, none is younger than 21-year old righty Henderson Alvarez. Ranked outside of the top 15 among Blue Jays prospects by Baseball Prospectus in 2011, Alvarez’s rapid ascent to the big leagues last season was an unlikely scenario, to put it lightly. He’d always shown season-to-season improvements since he first starting playing pro ball, and scouting reports on his stuff have always been glowing, even if the results haven’t always matched. That being said, this was a 21-year old who threw all of 4 innings during spring training, was sidelined by arm soreness, then started the season in High-A with Dunedin by getting hammered for 2 starts before being promoted to AA with the Fisher Cats. The major leagues were still some ways away.
By late June, however, something was clearly a bit different with Alvarez’s progression curve. We’d started hearing about the velocity on his sinking fastball, and how it’d jumped from the low 90s to a remarkable high-90s, even touching 101 according to Fisher Cats pitching coach Pete Walker. Armed along with a plus-change, Alvarez’s aggressive strike zone approach was finally yielding results that matched his stuff; by July, he was named to the Eastern League all-star game, having held his opponents to a .232 batting average with a 3.25 ERA.
Alvarez only got better from there, going 4-0 over his next 5 starts in New Hempshire, posting a career-high 7.56 K/9 during that stretch while giving up just 8 earned runs over 32.2 IP for a sparkling 2.20 ERA. With the Blue Jays rotation a bit of a patchwork mess by August whose the back end being filled up by Luis Perez and Carlos Villanueva (not to mention a largely ineffective Brett Cecil and Brandon Morrow), the unlikely opportunity was created for Alvarez to come up. After all, we’d tried just about everyone else, from Jo-Jo Reyes to Brad Mills – why not?
Personally, I wasn’t exactly a fan of the move, especially not after the team learned a little bit about the perils of youth with Drabek early in the season. Alvarez was only 21, and had thrown less than 100 innings in AA; bringing him up then seemed like giving a guy an opportunity to get a taste of what it’s like to get hammered in the bigs before an inevitable demotion – and what would be the point in that?
Unlike the line of starting pitchers that the Blue Jays had tried to stabilize the rotation, however, Alvarez more than held his own. There were some expected dips in a few statistical categories, of course: his K/9 dropped to 5.63, and the HR/9 went up to 1.13. Alvarez’s control of the strike zone, however, negated most of the significant damage. Faced with the toughest competition he’d seen thus far, Alvarez actually improved his strike zone control, posting a career-best 1.13 BB/9 over 10 starts with the Blue jays – an impressive display of hit-it-hard-if-you-can poise on the mound for a pitcher his age.
Not that there aren’t question marks surrounding him, of course: Alvarez’s repertoire is still quite raw headed into 2012, relying almost exclusively on his sinker and change-up to generate weak ground balls. He does have a work-in-progress slider which he used about 10% of the time in 2011, but the lack of a true 3rd pitch is definitely a concern, especially after hitters have seen his stuff a few times. As pitch-to-contact types tend to do, Alvarez also gives up a fair number of hits – with a H/9 just on the north side of 9, his 3.53 ERA in 2011 is likely to come up a bit, although it’ll still be heavily BABIP-influcenced (see: Trevor Cahill’s 2010 vs 2011). The lack of true strikeout stuff (6.4 swinging strike %) is something that’s going to test Alvarez’s ability to get out of high-leverage situations, and going to your best pitch 71.8% of the time isn’t exactly a recipe for continued success in that regard.
With that said, it was the impeccable control that got Alvarez to the Blue Jays in 2011, and I think it’s ultimately what’s going to keep him in the rotation to start 2012. If he can replicate even close to his 1.13 BB/9 in 2011 – league best among all pitchers with at least 60 IP – he’ll already be an elite arm in that regard. If getting a hit is the only way a runner is going to get on base against him, things are probably not going to get too far out of hand, even if Alvarez ends up giving up a couple of extra hits. And, of course, there’s the age thing. Alvarez will be entering his age-22 season this year, and we’ll probably see more than a fair share of rough patches as he continues to round out his secondary pitches, and continue to mature from a 2-pitch groundballer to…well, who knows?
Assuming he’ll get the starts, I think Alvarez is capable of being a reasonable 5th starter in 2012 with these numbers:
150 IP, 4.25 ERA / 1.28 WHIP, 5.7 K/9, 1.85 BB/9
It’s hard to really put numbers based on 60 innings of major league ball, knowing that Alvarez will go into 2012 with future developments. That being said, his bread-and-butter pitch will still be the heavy sinker, a pitch that I’m fairly certain AL East hitters will adjust to quite quickly should Alvarez continue to throw it over over 65% of the time – which will in turn affect his willingness to pound the strike zone with it. Pitcher development is a volatile thing, and I wouldn’t call Alvarez anywhere close to a sure thing so early into his career; we do know, however, that he’s at least got enough stuff to get by in the American League over 10 starts last season – how well he can build off that should be interesting to watch in 2012.
I figure there’s probably a pretty wide range of opinions out there on the subject of Blue Jays starting pitching, so your thoughts and comments are welcomed. Personally, I think I’m pretty bear-ish when it comes to young pitchers – anyone have opposite thoughts about Alvarez? Is he already ready to break out in 2012 at just 22? Has he already earned a spot on the 2012 rotation with the 10 starts in ’11?
———————————————
Previous 2012 Blue Jays forecasts:
Part 1: J.P. Arencibia - 510 PA, .255/.315/.450, 26 HR
Part 2: Adam Lind – 600 PA, .260/.320/.445, 26 HR
Part 3: Kelly Johnson – 580 PA, .270/.350/.430, 16 HR, 11 SB
Part 4: Brett Lawrie – 610 PA, .280/.340/.490, 20 HR, 22 SB
Part 5: Yunel Escobar – 605 PA, .285/.365/.405, 10 HR, 5 SB
Part 6: Edwin Encarnacion – 580PA, .270/.330/.465, 23 HR, 6 SB
Part 7: Eric Thames – 300 PA, .270/.315/.455, 8 HR, 3 SB
Part 8: Travis Snider – 300 PA, .265/.315/.450, 9 HR, 5 SB
Part 9: Colby Rasmus – 590 PA, .260/.325/.445, 19 HR, 14 SB
Part 10: Jose Bautista – 650 PA, .295/.415/.595, 40 HR, 11 SB
I know it’s against popular opinion, but I’d like to see Alvarez start in AAA this year. It’s not that he didn’t show he has the stuff to be a great MLB pitcher, it’s just that he needs time. This is a guy with really only two pitches (could be a damn good closer, but not important now that Santos is in the picture). He needs time to develop a third pitch. Of course his fastball, and change up are always going to be his bread and butter, but he needs at least one more pitch, and that’s the kind of thing that should be developed in the minors.
Personally I’d like to see Drabek make the rotation, but his performance will dictate if that’s going to happen or not.