Gibson sent down to AAA Rochester.

[Kwak]

+1.

 

We all want Gibson to end up a good major league starter. But, while SSS, fatigue, jitters, etc etc etc could certainly be part of the explanation, IMO he displayed nothing to get one's hopes up. He didn't throw hard, didn't display much in the way of breaking stuff, and didn't miss bats. He might have been the single biggest disappointment of 2013.

 

May I introduce you to Aaron Hicks and Scott Diamond?

 

edited to add

Vance Worley

[Guest USAFChief]

May I introduce you to Aaron Hicks and Scott Diamond?

Diamond is a disappointment, but since I had zero expectations or hopes of him being a very good pitcher, the disappointment isn't that great.

 

Hicks showed a lot of talent IMO, just not results.

 

Gibson showed neither.

[stringer bell]

So many disappointments: Hicks, Diamond, Gibson, Plouffe, Morneau, Doumit, Willingham, Parmelee, Worley, Hendriks. Well, basically everybody but the bullpen. I guess Mauer has been pretty good, Arcia's had his moments, and much wasn't expected of Correia, Pelfrey, and Florimon.

[Ultima Ratio]

Mets' announcers today felt bad for Gibson, hoping he'd get pulled because he was only throwing "lollypops" according to them.

 

Ouch.

[nicksaviking]

Most likely Gibson was going to get shut down soon because of the innings limit. I would have to say they don't want him to gain any more service time. Just watch they will let him pitch 1 or 2 more times at Rochester and then he will be done for the year.

 

This was my thought. While he already missed any service time plateaus this year, who knows if he spends more time in the minors next year. If the Twins were going to shut him down for the year, clearly they would prefer to do it at the AAA level.

 

Additionally, what else were they going to do with him if they decided to shut him down now? Create a bogus injury reason to place him on the DL or run a 24-man roster for two more weeks until you can expand the roster?

[cmb0252]

Yeah, those stupid prospects messing up their time lines!

 

Gibson has pitched almost 150 innings this year after only throwing 28.1 last year while recovering from TJs. Hicks, a historically slow starter/slow developer, didn't set the world ablaze after a massive ~300 ABs. Bunch of bums! World is going to end!

[Kwak]

Why does Gibson get a pass because "he's only in his second year after TJ surgery", yet Pelfrey motors on as if he never had surgery, but is simply "ineffective"?

[Danchat]

All we can do at this point is hope and pray that Gibson will be better next year. Maybe his arm will be more fresh/healthy next year. But the outlook is looking dim once again.

[Mr. Brooks]

Why does Gibson get a pass because "he's only in his second year after TJ surgery", yet Pelfrey motors on as if he never had surgery, but is simply "ineffective"?

 

Because Gibson is not only possibly gassed coming off TJ, but he's also facing MLB hitters for the first time in his life.

One or the other is difficult enough, let alone both at the same time.

 

Also, I'm not really giving Gibson "a pass" and not Pelfrey.

It's very likely that much of Pelfrey's struggles are due to fatigue as well. However, he's not a part of our future, like Gibson is, so I don't really care as much.

[cmb0252]

Why does Gibson get a pass because "he's only in his second year after TJ surgery", yet Pelfrey motors on as if he never had surgery, but is simply "ineffective"?

 

Oh I don't know....maybe because while they both are coming back from TJs one had pitched ~900 innings in the bigs while the other hadn't even had a cup of coffee. I know Machado, Trout, and Harper made the transition to the bigs look easy, but it's not. After two 90+ lose seasons and a chance to have our third I understand why people lack patients. Doesn't change the fact the we should have it when it comes to these prospects.

[Oxtung]

+1.

 

We all want Gibson to end up a good major league starter. But, while SSS, fatigue, jitters, etc etc etc could certainly be part of the explanation, IMO he displayed nothing to get one's hopes up. He didn't throw hard, didn't display much in the way of breaking stuff, and didn't miss bats. He might have been the single biggest disappointment of 2013.

 

Like the lifeline tossed to a man who fell overboard during a raging storm perhaps this will provide a glimmer of hope.

 

Gibson's fastball averaged 92.3 mph this season. If he qualified that would place him with the 28th fastest in MLB. Only 11 players averaged >93.3 mph. Only 6 players averaged >94 mph.

 

Batter's swung at 32.4% of Gibson's pitches outside the strike zone which would have ranked him 23. They made contact with his out of zone(OOZ) pitches 68.8% of the time which is average. Lohse, Cliff Lee, Gio Gonzalez, Greinke all have similar OOZ swing and miss rates.

 

Where Gibson especially struggled was with In Zone Contact rate (91%) and First Pitch Strikes (50.9%), and Strike % of all pitches thrown (39.9%) all of which would be bottom 5 in the league.

 

It seems to me that his IZC% could be driven by his poor FPS% which is in turn driven by his poor ability to actually throw strikes. If you're frequently starting behind hitters that is a problem. Poor command is a commonly stated side effect of TJ surgery; combined with only throwing 40ish innings last year I hope this will right itself next season. He is fooling batters into swinging and missing many of his pitches out of the zone so his stuff can't be that terrible. He won't become an Ace but a mid rotation pitcher still seems possible if he can improve his command.

[Mr. Brooks]

Like the lifeline tossed to a man who fell overboard during a raging storm perhaps this will provide a glimmer of hope.

 

Gibson's fastball averaged 92.3 mph this season. If he qualified that would place him with the 28th fastest in MLB. Only 11 players averaged >93.3 mph. Only 6 players averaged >94 mph.

 

Batter's swung at 32.4% of Gibson's pitches outside the strike zone which would have ranked him 23. They made contact with his out of zone(OOZ) pitches 68.8% of the time which is average. Lohse, Cliff Lee, Gio Gonzalez, Greinke all have similar OOZ swing and miss rates.

 

Where Gibson especially struggled was with In Zone Contact rate (91%) and First Pitch Strikes (50.9%), and Strike % of all pitches thrown (39.9%) all of which would be bottom 5 in the league.

 

It seems to me that his IZC% could be driven by his poor FPS% which is in turn driven by his poor ability to actually throw strikes. If you're frequently starting behind hitters that is a problem. Poor command is a commonly stated side effect of TJ surgery; combined with only throwing 40ish innings last year I hope this will right itself next season. He is fooling batters into swinging and missing many of his pitches out of the zone so his stuff can't be that terrible. He won't become an Ace but a mid rotation pitcher still seems possible if he can improve his command.

 

Good stuff, thanks.

[cmb0252]

Like the lifeline tossed to a man who fell overboard during a raging storm perhaps this will provide a glimmer of hope.

 

Gibson's fastball averaged 92.3 mph this season. If he qualified that would place him with the 28th fastest in MLB. Only 11 players averaged >93.3 mph. Only 6 players averaged >94 mph.

 

Batter's swung at 32.4% of Gibson's pitches outside the strike zone which would have ranked him 23. They made contact with his out of zone(OOZ) pitches 68.8% of the time which is average. Lohse, Cliff Lee, Gio Gonzalez, Greinke all have similar OOZ swing and miss rates.

 

Where Gibson especially struggled was with In Zone Contact rate (91%) and First Pitch Strikes (50.9%), and Strike % of all pitches thrown (39.9%) all of which would be bottom 5 in the league.

 

It seems to me that his IZC% could be driven by his poor FPS% which is in turn driven by his poor ability to actually throw strikes. If you're frequently starting behind hitters that is a problem. Poor command is a commonly stated side effect of TJ surgery; combined with only throwing 40ish innings last year I hope this will right itself next season. He is fooling batters into swinging and missing many of his pitches out of the zone so his stuff can't be that terrible. He won't become an Ace but a mid rotation pitcher still seems possible if he can improve his command.

 

Great read. Real informative. Thanks for posting.

[drjim]

Good stuff Oxtung. Hopefully he rests up this offseason and comes back strong with improved control.

[stringer bell]

Good stuff Oxtung. Hopefully he rests up this offseason and comes back strong with improved control.

The command has been the surprising thing for me. Gibson has walked a high number of guys, but beyond that seems to be going 2-0, 3-1 to just about every batter. At Rochester, he threw a lot of strikes and got a lot of ground balls. I figured, at worst, he could come up and be a (good) Silva-Blackburn type who didn't miss many bats, but generated a goodly number of grounders. At best, I was thinking about good pitchers who generate a high percentage of grounders, but still get their 7+ Ks per nine innings. It just hasn't happened this year.

[Mike Sixel]

Yeah, those stupid prospects messing up their time lines!

 

Gibson has pitched almost 150 innings this year after only throwing 28.1 last year while recovering from TJs. Hicks, a historically slow starter/slow developer, didn't set the world ablaze after a massive ~300 ABs. Bunch of bums! World is going to end!

 

Wow, that totally ignored everything I said about not giving up on them.....but the sarcarsm was dripping, so I won't go thirsty at work today I guess.

[Guest USAFChief]

 

Gibson's fastball averaged 92.3 mph this season. If he qualified that would place him with the 28th fastest in MLB.

I think you meant to say "28th among those who qualified," right?

[Shane Wahl]

Like the lifeline tossed to a man who fell overboard during a raging storm perhaps this will provide a glimmer of hope.

 

Gibson's fastball averaged 92.3 mph this season. If he qualified that would place him with the 28th fastest in MLB. Only 11 players averaged >93.3 mph. Only 6 players averaged >94 mph.

 

Batter's swung at 32.4% of Gibson's pitches outside the strike zone which would have ranked him 23. They made contact with his out of zone(OOZ) pitches 68.8% of the time which is average. Lohse, Cliff Lee, Gio Gonzalez, Greinke all have similar OOZ swing and miss rates.

 

Where Gibson especially struggled was with In Zone Contact rate (91%) and First Pitch Strikes (50.9%), and Strike % of all pitches thrown (39.9%) all of which would be bottom 5 in the league.

 

It seems to me that his IZC% could be driven by his poor FPS% which is in turn driven by his poor ability to actually throw strikes. If you're frequently starting behind hitters that is a problem. Poor command is a commonly stated side effect of TJ surgery; combined with only throwing 40ish innings last year I hope this will right itself next season. He is fooling batters into swinging and missing many of his pitches out of the zone so his stuff can't be that terrible. He won't become an Ace but a mid rotation pitcher still seems possible if he can improve his command.

 

I really believe that this is the only post in this whole discussion that needs to be read. Nice job!

[Brock Beauchamp]

This is a lame excuse. It would have a little validity if he as good for the first 4-5 starts and then started to fade, but he has been pretty poor from the time he came up. He got a decent amount of innings in last year so he shouldn't have been so toast after less than 100 minor league innings.

 

I like Gibson and hope he does well, and the Twins surely need him, but we might want to start preparing for the fact that his stuff just might not be good enough.

 

Actually, I don't think Gibson has been that bad. He has disintegrated in two games and suffers from control issues, which is common after TJS. Other than that, he looks like a guy entering MLB games for the first time. Not great appearances but not horrible, either... Usually 5-6 IP, 3-4 ER, too many walks. Gets behind batters, gets hit too hard.

 

I'm not sure what people expected from him. He's coming off TJS and is likely facing dead arm. Sure, it'd be nice to see better performances from him but I'm not going to get too worked up about it yet. If he starts off 2014 this way, I'll be much more concerned.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Like the lifeline tossed to a man who fell overboard during a raging storm perhaps this will provide a glimmer of hope.

 

Gibson's fastball averaged 92.3 mph this season. If he qualified that would place him with the 28th fastest in MLB. Only 11 players averaged >93.3 mph. Only 6 players averaged >94 mph.

 

Batter's swung at 32.4% of Gibson's pitches outside the strike zone which would have ranked him 23. They made contact with his out of zone(OOZ) pitches 68.8% of the time which is average. Lohse, Cliff Lee, Gio Gonzalez, Greinke all have similar OOZ swing and miss rates.

 

Where Gibson especially struggled was with In Zone Contact rate (91%) and First Pitch Strikes (50.9%), and Strike % of all pitches thrown (39.9%) all of which would be bottom 5 in the league.

 

It seems to me that his IZC% could be driven by his poor FPS% which is in turn driven by his poor ability to actually throw strikes. If you're frequently starting behind hitters that is a problem. Poor command is a commonly stated side effect of TJ surgery; combined with only throwing 40ish innings last year I hope this will right itself next season. He is fooling batters into swinging and missing many of his pitches out of the zone so his stuff can't be that terrible. He won't become an Ace but a mid rotation pitcher still seems possible if he can improve his command.

 

Great post.

[drjim]

Actually, I don't think Gibson has been that bad. He has disintegrated in two games and suffers from control issues, which is common after TJS. Other than that, he looks like a guy entering MLB games for the first time. Not great appearances but not horrible, either... Usually 5-6 IP, 3-4 ER, too many walks. Gets behind batters, gets hit too hard.

 

I'm not sure what people expected from him. He's coming off TJS and is likely facing dead arm. Sure, it'd be nice to see better performances from him but I'm not going to get too worked up about it yet. If he starts off 2014 this way, I'll be much more concerned.

 

I hope you're right.

[Brock Beauchamp]

I hope you're right.

 

Well, he's throwing hard and that's a good sign. He's generating swings and misses, another good sign.

 

I think this can be chalked up to watching a guy learn how to pitch while simultaneously recovering from surgery and possibly facing a bit of dead arm.

 

Let's not forget that this kind of performance isn't uncommon and Gibson has a lot working against him right now. Matt Garza came into the league late in the season, pitched the same number of starts, posted a 5.5 ERA, struck out 6 per 9, and walked 4 per 9. He turned out fine and while he was younger than Gibson, he wasn't coming off surgery at the time, either.

[E. Andrew]

Where Gibson especially struggled was with In Zone Contact rate (91%) and First Pitch Strikes (50.9%), and Strike % of all pitches thrown (39.9%) all of which would be bottom 5 in the league.

 

That was the worst part. When he though strikes it looked like BP, unfortunately.

 

Have to give him props for facing the camera.

 

"In 75 or 78 pitches [72, actually] I hit my spot on 27 of them. So, obviously, that's not good enough."

[Kwak]

I thank those that answered why Gibson "gets a Pass" and Pelfrey "gets the lash"--basically "we need Gibson to succeed" but "Pelfrey is just a placeholder". OK, I understand. But if Gibson's 2014 is a repeat of 2013--then what?

[Oxtung]

I think you meant to say "28th among those who qualified," right?

 

Yes. That is out of 90 qualified pitchers.

[jokin]

But if Gibson's 2014 is a repeat of 2013--then what?

 

Cole DeVries on line 2....

[jokin]

Well, he's throwing hard and that's a good sign. He's generating swings and misses, another good sign.

 

I think this can be chalked up to watching a guy learn how to pitch while simultaneously recovering from surgery and possibly facing a bit of dead arm.

 

Let's not forget that this kind of performance isn't uncommon and Gibson has a lot working against him right now. Matt Garza came into the league late in the season, pitched the same number of starts, posted a 5.5 ERA, struck out 6 per 9, and walked 4 per 9. He turned out fine and while he was younger than Gibson, he wasn't coming off surgery at the time, either.

 

Thanks alot for throwing cold water on the "All Hope is Lost" vibe coursing through this thread- way too overboard on the negativity.

 

I fully expect (and the underlying facts support the expectation) Gibson in 2014 to resemble more closely the semi-consistently lights-out pitcher in Rochester in May and June..... than his July and June dead-arm, steep learning curve pitcher.

[Mike Sixel]

Agreed, I still expect a number 3 type pitcher going forward....

[Brock Beauchamp]

Thanks alot for throwing cold water on the "All Hope is Lost" vibe coursing through this thread- way too overboard on the negativity.

 

I fully expect (and the underlying facts support the expectation) Gibson in 2014 to resemble more closely the semi-consistently lights-out pitcher in Rochester in May and June..... than his July and June dead-arm, steep learning curve pitcher.

 

Yep. Give him an offseason to rest, get ready for MLB pitching in 2014, and then reserve judgment for May/June of that season. If he continues to struggle through the first half of 2014, then we should be concerned.

[ashbury]

Yes. That is out of 90 qualified pitchers.

 

I think Chief's point, which I agree with, is that if you include a guy like Gibbie who doesn't qualify then you need to expand the list in some appropriate way to really judge where he ranks as a fireballer. There could be a lot of guys not quite qualifying for innings who have live fastballs but aren't actually good enough to earn those innings.