Who Will Be the #1 Overall Pick?

I think the biggest concern about Rodon right now is wear and tear . He has a track record of dominance and wipeout MLB stuff. I'm shocked that His college coaches are wearing him out so much and potentially ruining his career / future earnings. It's almost criminal. On the other hand , if he cannot make it through a college season the likelihood of him making through a MLB season is slim and in that way I guess you would rather know about his durability before drafting him . Rodon doesn't have the biggest body and perhaps he naturally wore down.

I don't have all the information about his number of pitches and innings etc , but I would be willing to guess that they are excessive and if he had been drafted out of high school then a careful farm director would have limited his work much more carefully. College teams have to know MLB standards for workloads and if Rodon is being overworked and his draft stock drops then it will be a cautionary tale for both college teams and for pitchers who forgoe being drafted out of highschool.

Of course he could just not be in midsession form yet and could very easily reclaim his number one overall pick stock.

 

Every pitcher's arms have a finite number of "elite" pitches in them before they wear out.

Some wear out faster than others... regardless of "work-load".

I still think its too early to declare him a bust, just like it was too early to declare him the next David Price. Even Strassburg required surgery for a wear/tear type injury early on in his career... I'm sure teams will further do their homework when investing this much money on unproven arms.

 

Being "cursed" would be having selected him, and he's a total bust. The fact that he is regressing now is totally a "blessing" if he is indeed not the slam-dunk pitcher he was supposed to be (not saying he isn't, and not saying he can't turn it around... but better to find out now rather than 4 months from now).

 

can somebody show that his college coaches are wearing him out? What have his pitch counts been like?

or is this just idle speculation with no evidence?

 

are you really too lazy to look up his pitch counts?

 

foolishly.. yes.

appel is no more than a #2, but probably a #3.

 

Just off a google search i found http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/carlos-rodon-clay-holmes-and-pitcher-efficiency/

not gonna recap the whole thing, but there are a couple really exhausting looking outings
4 and 1/3 and 108 pitches
5 and 2/3 and 123 pitches
6 and 2/3 and 129 pitches

Those outings are more the norm than the outliers too out of the ones listed. College coaches are definitely a lot less restrictive on pitch counts when it comes to protecting young arms. Those three i listed made me cringe and reek of burning out a young guy. A 21 year old in MLB would never be allowed to approach those kinds of pitch counts.

 

if that's all the evidence you have, then that's not convincing. Remember in college they only pitch once every 7 days (did you know that? lol). College is also a much shorter season than MLB, although there is some length added to it by him playing with Team USA.

based on your data alone, he hasn't been over worked

 

From that link:
Average innings: 6 2/3
Average pitch count: 107.7

He had one bad outing where he threw 62 pitches in 2 innings, which I sure hope was not in relief. If Rodon is not making relief appearances in the regular season, I don't think you can make the over-worked argument.

 

I'm not trying to make the argument that he is overworked.. I just said it was a concern and I'm sure scouts and general managers will study his outings to make sure he was not being overused.

 

134 ****ing pitches. Geez

 

Kolek is really making this a difficult decision.

 

Great, and i mean GREAT news.

He's back on track, folks.

 

Scary thing is that some people have Aiken ahead of him (Kolek being RHP vs. Aiken being LHP and Kolek playing weaker competition make the difference).

If I'm willing to gamble on a HS pitcher, I'm taking the hometown kid who throws triple digits.