Clearly the team is trusting Lopez more than Giolito; are all the pundits wrong? Photo via wp.com/Mitchell Layton getty images
So, I’ll start off by saying this is absolutely a “short sample size” post. Reynaldo Lopez now has a grand total of four MLB starts (and just 4 AAA starts) and uber prospect Lucas Giolito himself now has the same number of total starts above AA as Lopez (3 in MLB, 5 for Syracuse). But after last night’s dominant performance in Atlanta (7ip, 4 hits, 11 Ks and 1 walk in 101 pitches), I’ll ask the question that a lot of commenters have already been saying here: are we looking at the wrong guy as the next Ace in waiting from our farm system?
Here’s what’s striking me about Lopez; check out his Pitch FX data from last night’s start. He threw 68 fastballs with an *average* velocity of 97.6mph, peaking at 99.5mph. Yes he tired a bit in the last couple of innings, but (per the graph of his pitch velocity at the BrooksBaseball link) he only “slowed” to the 96-97 range … his overall heat earlier in the game kept his average well into the 97mph range. That’s a very, very impressive velocity neighborhood, one where only two or three starters are living right now (amongst qualified starters … only Noah Snydergaard has kept a higher average fastball velocity this year than 97.6). But I also watched him absolutely blow balls by hitters; the most impressive of which was a 98mph fastball right by Atlanta’s best hitter Freddie Freeman to get a punch-out.
We’re not seeing that kind of velocity out of Giolito. And we didn’t see this kind of performance either.
Literally every scouting analyst out there thinks Giolito is “the best pitching prospect in the game.” Now, they’re not exactly light on Lopez; Lopez is routinely in the top 50 of all prospects in the minors, and generally listed #2 behind Giolito and Trea Turner on the 2016 lists. So it isn’t as if nobody knows who Lopez is. But results on the field at the MLB level in 2016 are hard to beat when it comes to doing comparisons.
Yes Atlanta is an awful team so perhaps over-reacting to 11 Ks is something to temper. And both guys are clearly up-and-down (Lopez’ last AAA start was 5 runs in 6ip; Giolito’s last AAA start was 10Ks and 1 run in 7ip). Two of Giolito’s three MLB starts were against the defending NL champ Mets (not exactly a pushover team offensively) while two of Lopez’s four MLB starts were against the trying-to-lose Mets (who might be starting one out-field player who would start on most other teams right now).
But what are you guys thinking? I mean, clearly to me Lopez is staying in the rotation until he falters, so it may be a moot point for Giolito anyway (who is quickly running out of innings in 2016; he’s sitting at 117 1/3 right now, which is almost precisely what he threw in 2015, so factoring in a 20% increase he may only have 4 more starts in him). Does Lopez have innings limit concerns too? He’s never even thrown 100 innings and is already well past that in 2016…). In fact, are we looking at an imminent shutdown of *both* prospects in the next couple of weeks?
I know how some of you are going to react to this post … cough cough MartyC and forensicane cough cough. But how about the rest of you? Is this heresy? Is this a changing of the guard-type opinion? Or is this just all SSS-driven nonsense that’ll be thrown out the window when Lopez gets pounded the next time he faces a half-way decent offensive lineup?