It’s a reality Pittsburgh Pirate fans are becoming all too familiar with over the last couple seasons – a top pitching prospect needs Tommy John Surgery.
This time, it’s Nick Kingham.
Kingham is considered by pundits as the third-best pitching prospect in the Pirates system, and a guy that was expected to make the majors at some point in 2015. Now his big league debut is going to have until late 2016, or maybe even 2017.
The surgery obviously gives the Bucs one less depth option this season if someone in the rotation gets hurt or struggles and needs replaced. This also comes on the heels of losing Brandon Cumpton, who had Tommy John Surgery as well in Spring Training. The good news, though, is that they have enough pitching depth in AAA Indianapolis to help minimize the impact of losing Kingham for the year.
The first man up right now would be Casey Sadler. The right-hander has already made one spot start in the majors this year, a very encouraging win over the Milwaukee Brewers. Sadler struck out five Brewers over five innings en route to his first major league win, while only giving up two runs.
Sadler’s ceiling is a bullpen arm that can be used as a spot starter when needed, since he is not someone that will overpower hitters with his stuff – he is only averaging about six strikeouts per nine innings in his minor league career. He will give up his fair share of hits too, as opposing teams have averaged about eight hits per nine innings against him during his time in the minors. However, he has very good command and while he won’t win many games on his own, he won’t lose many games by himself either.
Pretty good for a 25th round pick out from Western Oklahoma State College.
The next option in AAA after Sadler is Adrian Sampson, who is 4-3 with a 3.15 ERA in 10 starts for the Indians, while averaging eight strikeouts per nine innings. The right-hander projects as a quality middle-of-the-rotation to strong-back-end-of-the-rotation innings-eating starter (he pitched 167 innings last season between Indianapolis and AA Altoona). Most importantly, he’s consistently stayed healthy since the Pirates drafted him in the fifth round of the 2012 amateur draft.
Knock on wood for that last statement.
Past Sampson are a couple options at Indianapolis that have major league experience in Clayton Richard and Chris Volstad.
Richard’s two best years were in 2010 and 2012 with the San Diego Padres. In both years he won 14 games, had an ERA under four and pitched over 200 innings. He currently is 1-1 with a 2.78 ERA in four games with the Indians, holding opposing batters to a .213 average.
Volstad isn’t as accomplished as Richard in the major leagues. He has a career 4.94 ERA in six seasons with three teams, and opposing hitters averaged an astonishing 10 hits per nine innings against him in that time. The right-hander’s stats in AAA aren’t blowing anyone away, and as a result it would take quite a few injuries for him to see time in the big league rotation.
Top prospect Jameson Taillon has not pitched in a live game in over a year as he also is recovering from Tommy John Surgery, and won’t be an option to help the majors until August at the absolute earliest. Fellow top prospect Tyler Glasnow is not an option this year, period.
The best case scenario for the Pirates right now is for Gerrit Cole, AJ Burnett and Francisco Liriano to not sustain an injury that would cause them to miss significant time, for Charlie Morton to keep pitching the way he as to start the year and for Adrian Sampson to take Jeff Locke’s spot in the rotation if the latter continues to struggle. If not, things may go downhill fast.
But it could be worse. Even though the club has lost two of their top pitching depth options for the year they still have very capable players waiting in the wings if needed. Just remember, it wasn’t that long that guys like Brian Burres, Daniel McCutchen and Kevin Hart were considered the next man up for the rotation.
Ouch.
