Minor Musings and Other Thoughts for 9-29-09

September 29, 2009 BY Alex Eisenberg 2 Comments

Edited on 11-9-09 – There is supposed to be a link for an interview with Jordan Walden, but it was found out the interview was a hoax by somebody who hacked into Walden’s facebook account or something to that affect. Click here for what happened. I still stand by my thoughts on Walden, which I state below:

Walden’s got excellent stuff when healthy, but he has some red flags. First, he dealt with two separate arm injuries last year…one to his elbow and one to his forearm. Second, there has been a couple instances where his velocity dropped though to be fair, on one those occasions, it was suspected that a groin injury contributed to his drop. Third, he does have a violent delivery…there is definitely a lot of effort to it.

And then you look at the fact that his command is a little erratic, he’s always been better against righties (not by a huge amount, but definitely better), his change-up is still very much a work in progress, and he’s never been known as a guy that can go deep into ball games. When you take all that into account, it looks like he’s much better suited to become a reliever. I’m not saying to give up on him as a starter now, but I think it will soon get to that point. He looks like he can be a very productive member of the bullpen with a mid – high 90′s fastball and a tight breaking slider. He also won’t have to pace himself as much out of the bullpen. Instead, he’ll be more at liberty to let if fly. BTW, even though the Walden interview ended up being pulled, there are still many good interviews over at Angels Win.

Pondering over who might be Boston’s top prospect, I’m leaning toward Casey Kelley, the pitcher. The hitter experiment should end after this season. I haven’t been able to see much of Kelly this year, but I did see his Future’s Game appearance and came away very impressed. His delivery is simple and very repeatable. His mechanics aren’t geared toward power, but he generates above average velocity in part due to a short arm action without any noticeable hitches. His athleticism helps him repeat his mechanics consistently. Because of his ability to consistently repeat his mechanics, Kelly is able to command his pitches extremely well. He looks like a potential No. 2 starter.

A couple of links to pass along…

An interesting read from the Rockies site Purple Row, which attempts to quantify the greatest Rockies pitchers ever through 2008…

Also, Crawfish Boxes looks at the future of Felipe Paulino…from my view, he’s somebody that should see a major ERA correction next season. His ERA is 6.51, but he misses bats and has shown decent command despite a relatively high walk rate. The problem comes from a HR-rate of 1.95, but based on other data, that figure should fall. He’ll still give up his fair share of home runs, unless something goes seriously haywire (a complete loss of command, a complete loss of confidence, or a physical injury), that rate should come down.