Whip it!! Great potential here, the sound guys at the stadium should crack the whip immediately after each strikeout. If executed well, in the words of Blummer, "that'd be some kind of special."
He could, but his season would have to be historically epic and the Astros would most likely need to win 95 games or so. He would continually need to do things that gets the media's attention.
Not to quibble, but he was actually 4th. Just shows how hard it is for a reliever to win. Too many voters think the award should not go to a reliever. Also, a starter with eye-opening stats will overshadow a reliever. At least the work that Andrew Miller did in the post-season is showing how important those guys can be. But, last year's Cy Young voting did bring forth an epic tweet from Kate Upton after 2 writers left Verlander completely off their ballot: "I thought I was the only one allowed to <censored> Justin Verlander"
I kind of like the idea of Plan A for every game is starter for 6, then finish with Harris/Gregerson/Giles Plan B if starter is struggling or pitch count is too high, go to Devo Plan C if it's a blowout for or against, go to Feliz/Sipp/etc
And know that Devo (or Feliz as a 2nd option) can fill in for any of the trio--or multiple of them--when they've worked too much in recent days.
Nice little article in Fangraphs: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/finding-and-building-a-devenski/#more-252413 "Will Harris came to me two days ago and said ‘Devenski is available. Do I even need to put my spikes on?’ He meant it. That’s the sort of respect [Devenksi] has garnered through his performance. I have told them all since spring training, this is possible since we’ve taken him out of the rotation competition.”
Solid article. For the non-Astros fangraphs readers if it would be probably even more striking if he said "[2016 all-star reliever] Will Harris came to me...."
http://www.espn.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/19288828/a-lineup-fix-all-30-teams ESPN thinks Devo with a 3.60 ERA would be more valuable than Devo in the pen. While I get that it's because Fiers is sucking, it flies in the face of the fangraphs article above. I'm definitely all for keeping Devo where he is
I generally agree here. But, if our #5 guy, whoever that is, becomes so bad that every 5th game becomes a near automatic loss, then I would revisit the idea of Devo as a starter.
I think Astros will keep him in pen for this year. Next year, I don't know as it has to be tempting to see if he could be an ace or a No. 2.
Part of this depends on how many innings he's really going to pitch in the bullpen, and if it's going to be a problem later in the season. His usage is really erratic. If they really get 100 high leverage innings out of him and he holds up, he's crazy valuable there. But if they have to back off or he loses effectiveness later in the season, then he'd probably have been better getting 150 innings as a plus-starter (if he can go 6 or 7 innings and be effective).
As shaky as Fiers looks, I have to think that the Astros brass is hoping to get enough mileage out of him at least until we see how the McHugh situation develops. But if Fiers cant handle the #5 spot AND McHugh cant come back, something has to give. A trade, a callup, or Devo or Peacock.
