>>>Rick Porcello News<<<

Subject: >>>Rick Porcello News<<< Sun Jun 01, 2008 4:49 am

The $10 Million Arm
The Detroit Tigers paid a record price for high-school pitcher Rick Porcello.
Now he is making baseball rethink the way teams acquire talent.
By MATTHEW FUTTERMAN
May 30, 2008; Page W1

Last June, the Detroit Tigers made an enormous gamble. They used their first pick in baseball's amateur draft to choose Rick Porcello, an 18-year-old kid from suburban New Jersey. Then, to the shock of many in baseball, they offered him a $10 million contract -- a draft record for a high-school pitcher.

Major League Baseball's draft, which starts next week, is a famously treacherous enterprise where teams throw millions of dollars at a few dozen players in the hopes that one or two of them will someday make the big club. Betting top dollar on a right-handed high-school pitcher -- the most unpredictable breed of ballplayer -- is the equivalent of doubling down on a long shot.

One year later, Mr. Porcello is off to such a promising start in the minor leagues that the Tigers' investment might actually pay off. But even if he doesn't become a star, Mr. Porcello may long be remembered for another reason -- as the walking symbol of a baseball draft system some say is hopelessly broken.

"Rick Porcello is a problem," says Rob Manfred, baseball's executive vice president for labor relations.

Like any pitching prospect, Mr. Porcello is no sure thing. Injury is the most common killer of precocious talent, followed by a lack of toughness or a destruction of confidence. But so far this season Mr. Porcello, who is pitching for the Lakeland Flying Tigers, a team on the lower rungs of the Tigers' minor-league system, is proving to be the kind of player teams dream about.

He can throw five pitches, including two separate fastballs -- a 97-mile-per-hour version that seems to defy the laws of physics by rising on its way to the plate, and another, thrown with a different grip, that dives down to the corner of the strike zone toward a right-handed batter's thighs. He has a change-up that, while thrown with the same calm, fluid motion as his fastball, wreaks havoc on a hitter's timing by crossing the plate as much as 20 mph slower.

At an imposing 6 feet 5 inches tall, Mr. Porcello looms over hitters on the mound and strides so far during his pitching motion that hitters say the ball appears to be falling directly down from the sky -- and seems to be halfway to home plate by the time it leaves his fingers. "All you can see is the top half of the ball," said Joe Coleman, Mr. Porcello's pitching coach. "Try hitting that."
----------

The Detroit Tigers signed pitching phenomenon Rick Porcello for $10
million. And just two months into his pro career, the 18-year-old
flamethrower is looking like money well spent. WSJ's Matt Futterman
reports.
----------
This season, pitching against players with college and pro experience, Mr. Porcello has an excellent 2.48 earned-run average -- the sixth-lowest in the Class A Florida State League (no other first-year pitcher cracked the top 20). Even more impressive is his 1.14 ratio of walks and hits to innings pitched, which is fourth among pitchers with at least 58 innings. Mr. Coleman says Mr. Porcello is a rare combination of supreme talent (he compared him to a young Mark Fidrych, a Tigers phenom from the '70s) and a level of composure more typical in veterans. Andy Barkett, the Flying Tigers' manager, says Mr. Porcello's maturity level is "way beyond" that of New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez at the same age. "This kid's got it," he said.

Any outsider looking at the 2006 baseball-draft results might be shocked to see that 26 players were taken before the Tigers chose Mr. Porcello. But this wasn't a case of one team outsmarting the others.

In football and basketball, a player's draft position dictates how much he will be paid by the team that picks him. In baseball, there are only guidelines. The suggested bonus for the 27th pick last season was $1.7 million but Mr. Porcello was free to ask the Tigers for whatever he wanted. Under this system, teams with smaller budgets often pass on the best prospects because they know they will have trouble offering them enough money.

The result, critics say, is that rather than creating parity by giving the teams with the worst records the first crack at the best players, the draft has become another tool for wealthy teams to hoard the top talents. The Tigers weren't the only team that thought Mr. Porcello might be a great player -- he was widely considered by scouts to be the second-best amateur in the country. They were just the first team with the means, and the nerve, to make the bet.

"It's not that we didn't like him, sure we did," said Grady Fuson, director of scouting for the San Diego Padres. "It's just that we didn't know if he was going to be worth the money."

One Major League general manager, who asked not to be named, said the size of Mr. Porcello's contract, and his performance so far, has increased talk within baseball about changing the draft system. Jack Zduriencik, who oversees amateur scouting for the Milwaukee Brewers, said there are two sets of teams at the draft now -- those that can pick any player they want because they know they have enough money to sign them and those that keep to a modest budget. Last year, the small-market Brewers spent $3.2 million on singing bonuses for players taken in the first 10 rounds -- less than the Tigers paid Mr. Porcello.

When the owners and the Major League Baseball Players Association meet for their next round of collective bargaining, Mr. Manfred, baseball's chief labor lawyer, says he plans to ask for a fundamental change to the compensation system for drafted players -- a scale that limits how much drafted players can make depending on where they are picked.

While he believes the problem is bigger than any one player, Mr. Manfred said Mr. Porcello's case demonstrates the extent of the problem. "It's hard enough [for a team] to know who the second-best player in the country is," he said. "To then have to factor in whether you can afford to sign him just makes it that much more difficult." Greg Bouris, a union spokesman, said the players rejected a mandatory cap on draft compensation in the last bargaining round but expect to revisit the issue.

A top athlete who grew up playing basketball and attended Seton Hall Prep in West Orange, N.J., Mr. Porcello is an unassuming kid from the suburbs who talks to his mother on the phone every day. Even in the Florida State League, where about 800 fans show up to watch his games, he wears his stirrups high and pitches with an almost robotic calm. "I'm no different than any other guy in the locker room," he said. "I'm honored and blessed to be pitching anywhere in professional baseball."

In the fifth inning of a recent game against the Palm Beach Cardinals, Mr. Porcello settled in to face Donovan Solano, a second baseman with a .308 batting average. The pitcher wasn't having his best night -- in fact, it was his worst outing so far this year. He had allowed four runs, including a 390-foot home run off a curveball that didn't curve.

Most young pitchers, faced with an outing like this, will toss their glove and knock over a water cooler. But with Mr. Solano at the plate, Mr. Porcello rocked back and threw a diving 92-mph fastball that the batter missed by a foot. Next came a curveball that grabbed the corner of the plate. With two strikes, Mr. Porcello turned to the next pitch in his repertoire -- his devastating change-up. It fooled Mr. Solano so badly he nearly fell over backwards.

After inducing a double play, Mr. Porcello sauntered off the field without so much as a pumped fist. "There's been days when I don't have my best stuff and I just battle," Mr. Porcello said before boarding the team bus the next morning. "You never really know what you have until you're out there."

In the best case, Mr. Porcello will follow the path of Josh Beckett, the Boston Red Sox ace who was chosen with the second pick of the 1999 draft out of Spring High School in Spring, Texas. Mr. Beckett has won the World Series with the Marlins and the Red Sox.

Or maybe he ends up being Colt Griffin. In 2001, the Kansas City Royals chose Mr. Griffin, a high-school pitcher from Marshall, Texas, with the ninth pick and gave him a $2.4 million signing bonus -- largely because his pitches had reportedly touched 100 mph. His problem was an inability to throw strikes. Mr. Griffin's five-year minor-league career included 82 wild pitches, 278 walks, 44 batters hit and shoulder surgery.

"Just because you spend the most money on the players you draft doesn't mean you get the most Major League stars," Mr. Fuson said.

Write to Matthew Futterman at matthew.futterman@wsj.com

Subject: Re: >>>Rick Porcello News<<< Sun Jun 01, 2008 5:20 am

(This is part of the same Porcello WSW article)

HITS AND MISSES

High-school pitchers are the riskiest breed of ballplayer
in the baseball draft. Here are six examples.
Mark Fidrych
Detroit Tigers
1974 draft/1976 debut
"The Bird" was the eccentric rookie of the year who won 19 games with a
2.34 ERA -- while talking to the ball. Later blew out his arm.
Dwight Gooden
New York Mets
1982 draft/1984 debut
Won 24 games in his second season before drugs derailed him.
Todd Van Poppel
Oakland Athletics
1990 draft/1991 debut
Struggled after being rushed to the majors at 19. Retired in 2005 with a 40-52 lifetime record.
Kerry Wood
Chicago Cubs
1995 draft/1998 debut
Struck out 266 batters in 2003. Then came arm trouble. Now a reliever.
Josh Beckett
Florida Marlins
1999 draft/2001 debut
The golden boy. Former Texas high school draftee has won World Series titles with two teams.
Colt Griffin
Kansas City Royals
2001 draft/No debut
Texas kid could throw close to 100 miles per hour -- but often several
feet off target. Had 82 wild pitches in the minors and never made it to
the majors.

Subject: Re: >>>Rick Porcello News<<< Sun Jun 01, 2008 8:50 am

That's a good article and I liked the video Nod

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Subject: Re: >>>Rick Porcello News<<< Sun Jun 01, 2008 8:50 am

Thanks for the post and video

Subject: Re: >>>Rick Porcello News<<< Wed Jun 04, 2008 6:58 pm

Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Minor league report
Porcello's progression is hitting a slight snag
Coaches attribute recent starts to fatigue typical for young pros
Lynn Henning / The Detroit News

Saturday is the first anniversary of a day the Tigers still are celebrating. It was the afternoon during which high school pitcher Rick Porcello was plucked by Detroit with the 27th overall selection in the 2007 amateur baseball draft.

Porcello had talent sufficient to be among the first two or three players drafted, but for reasons that can be explained by one word -- money -- he fell to the Tigers, who have been delighted to nurture him along a minor league path that has both confirmed Porcello's talent and, at the same time, revealed why it is that 19-year-olds rarely get to the big leagues.

Porcello has been good, very good, for much of the season at Class A Lakeland. He also has been rather ordinary in his last couple of starts, at least relative to his talent.

He's 3-6 with a 2.87 ERA. Opposing batters are hitting .255 against him. He has struck out 36 and walked 17 in 62 2/3 innings, all of which seems to prove that the biggest adjustment a high school player has to professional baseball is the grind of the pitching-every-five-days routine.

"There may be a little physical fatigue and a little mental fatigue," said Jon Matlack, the Tigers' roving pitching instructor who has been monitoring Porcello since he signed last August. "Being exposed to this system of going out there every five days is rough, and the other part of it is, when he played in high school, he was playing other positions when he wasn't pitching.

"He was able to deal with any pent-up anxiety he had from a particular performance by having other avenues. That's not the case now. It's an adjustment and something he's having to deal with.

"But we're not unhappy with his numbers. Up until the last two starts, with the most recent one being the most out of character, he's been just fine."

Porcello allowed nine hits and four runs in 4 2/3 innings Sunday at Dunedin. He allowed 10 hits in six innings in his previous start and nine hits in five innings the start before that. But in his seven starts prior, Porcello never gave up more than five hits.

"I don't think this is going to be an issue," Matlack said of Porcello, regarded as the top Tigers prospect. "I think it's a bump in the road that should be expected from any first-year guy. We may alter a few of his workouts. But he'll be fine."

Porcello lately has been having trouble commanding his two breaking pitches, a slider and a curveball. It has left him with just a fastball and a change-up, neither of which is good enough to vanquish hitters at the so-called "high A" minor league rung.

Porcello's fastball, somewhat surprisingly, is not the heater that has consistently been described as a 94-97-mph fastball.

"This isn't a flame-throwing, 95(-mph) kid," Matlack said. "He'll touch 95 and touch 96, and most of those are thrown when he's behind in the count, which I find interesting. He's more of a sinker-ball guy at 91-92, and that's not bad.

"I'm not so sure that the world hasn't had a misconception about this kid. He was touted as this flame-thrower, but he told me in Oneonta when I first met him last summer, 'I need you to understand that they think I throw harder than I throw.' I said, 'What?' He said, 'Yeah, I can throw hard, but it's usually pretty straight. I don't always get favorable results. I'm a sinker-ball thrower.'"

Matlack is satisfied that Porcello, just 12 months after being handed his high school diploma, is coming along nicely.

"He's a 19-year-old going through an adjustment to professional baseball at high-A and we've got a hiccup," Matlack said. "He's going to be OK, because of his maturity and tenacity to compete. I'm not worried about him in the least."

You can reach Lynn Henning at lynn.henning@detnews.com.

Subject: Re: >>>Rick Porcello News<<< Thu Jun 05, 2008 12:32 am

but it sure beats shelling out $60K for college!
_________________
There are three things in my life which I really love: God, my family, and baseball. The only problem - once baseball season starts, I change the order around a bit. ~Al Gallagher, 1971

Subject: Re: >>>Rick Porcello News<<< Thu Aug 28, 2008 8:54 pm

Rick Porcello likely to win Florida State ERA title
2007 top pick finishes season with six shutout innings

By JON PAUL MOROSI • FREE PRESS SPORTS WRITER • August 28, 2008

Rick Porcello completed his first professional season Wednesday with an outing that recalled his impressive stint with the Tigers during spring training.

Porcello threw six shutout innings and earned the victory in the Lakeland Flying Tigers’ 1-0 win at Ft. Myers. He allowed only three hits, walked one batter and improved to 8-6.

Of the 14 outs that came in play, 13 were ground balls – thanks in large part to a hard sinker that averaged 92 m.p.h. and reached 95.

“He was outstanding,” said Jon Matlack, Detroit’s minor league pitching coordinator. “He ended like he started: throwing the ball extremely well.”

Porcello, the 19-year-old right-hander, is the second-youngest starter in the Florida State League, according to research through Retrosheet.org. Remarkably, though, his 2.66 ERA is the league’s best. He compiled that mark while on a 75-pitch limit in each start.

Wednesday’s start was Porcello’s first since Aug. 12. (He had been sidelined in the interim because of an illness.) He threw exactly 125 innings during the regular season, and Matlack expects him to pitch for the Tigers’ instructional league team this fall.

Porcello did not use his slider for most of the season, which enabled him to focus on his curveball and changeup. Matlack said he has seen progress with both pitches – particularly the changeup.

“From a developmental standpoint, this young man did everything he was asked to do this year,” Matlack said. “I’m extremely pleased with the results.”

Subject: Re: >>>Rick Porcello News<<< Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:21 pm

Subject: Re: >>>Rick Porcello News<<< Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:23 pm

75 pitch limit confused

ERA title works for me though applaud

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Subject: Re: >>>Rick Porcello News<<< Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:28 pm

Only 12 pitches fewer than Miner threw in his last start

Let's hope Jimbo is gone soon

Subject: Re: >>>Rick Porcello News<<< Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:29 pm

Eventually 75 pitches is going to be the new 100 rant

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Subject: Re: >>>Rick Porcello News<<< Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:29 pm

Sure looks that way

Subject: Re: >>>Rick Porcello News<<< Fri Aug 29, 2008 2:27 am

Whhoo
Go Porcello!
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"We only work three hours a day, so the least we can do is give 100 percent."

Todd Jones

Subject: Re: >>>Rick Porcello News<<< Sun Oct 26, 2008 12:28 pm

Note to Tigers:

DO NOT TRADE PORCELLO!!

Subject: Re: >>>Rick Porcello News<<< Sun Oct 26, 2008 12:32 pm

BIG note to the Tigers.
He's our only hope! (ala Star Wars)
_________________
There are three things in my life which I really love: God, my family, and baseball. The only problem - once baseball season starts, I change the order around a bit. ~Al Gallagher, 1971

Subject: Re: >>>Rick Porcello News<<< Sun Dec 21, 2008 5:32 am

I think the day will come soon when starters will only be allowed to pitch 3 innings..... Stunned

Subject: Re: >>>Rick Porcello News<<< Sun Dec 21, 2008 7:13 am

a Revolving Door Rotation!
_________________
There are three things in my life which I really love: God, my family, and baseball. The only problem - once baseball season starts, I change the order around a bit. ~Al Gallagher, 1971

Subject: Re: >>>Rick Porcello News<<< Sun Dec 21, 2008 10:48 am

That gets expensive, stupid managers!

Subject: Re: >>>Rick Porcello News<<< Sun Dec 21, 2008 10:49 am

I sure don't know many guys who want to pitch!
_________________
There are three things in my life which I really love: God, my family, and baseball. The only problem - once baseball season starts, I change the order around a bit. ~Al Gallagher, 1971

Subject: Re: >>>Rick Porcello News<<< Sun Dec 21, 2008 1:45 pm

I would pitch for $10 Million a year.....

...but not a penny less!! 2 cents

Subject: Re: >>>Rick Porcello News<<< Sun Dec 21, 2008 2:05 pm

Me too!
_________________
There are three things in my life which I really love: God, my family, and baseball. The only problem - once baseball season starts, I change the order around a bit. ~Al Gallagher, 1971