TD Top Prospects: #2 Stephen Gonsalves

Any reports on how his shoulder is doing this spring? Hopefully he has no lingering issues with it.

He says it's doing fine when I talked to him, just tried doing too much were his words.

Some of you might hate this but I see a Brian Matusz comp for Gonsalves.

Gonsalves's fastball is 88-91 usually.  It might drop to 86, it might hit 92.  That's about it.  The problems I have with Gonsalves are:

 

1. He has maybe one plus pitch (his changeup), the rest are average/below average

2. His command is problematic.  12.5 BB% in AA is worrisome 

3. He has survived by generating bad contact because of his FB "high spin rate".  This translates to BABIPs in .250s and very low HR/9 (0.12 in AA last season.)   When those numbers go back to reality/league average in the majors, his WHIP will jump to 1.400ish and FIP to 4ish.

 

He is a back to rotation starter in a competitive team maybe.  A step above the Alberses and the Deans of the world.  Think Scott Diamond's career season or Glen Perkins as a starter.  Not bad, but not that great.

Scott Diamond's career season was middle of rotation on most playoff teams and if you told me that is what Gonsalves would give us every season I would run to the bank with it.

 

He is a back to rotation starter in a competitive team maybe.  A step above the Alberses and the Deans of the world.  Think Scott Diamond's career season or Glen Perkins as a starter.  Not bad, but not that great.

I dunno.  I guess they are all lefities but I am not sure those are good comps

Their first taste of AA compared:

Gonsalves 21, WHIP  1.07, SO/9 - 10.8, w/9 - 4.5, ERA 1.82,  IP 74

Perkins  22, WHIP  1.46, SO/9 - 7.6, w/9 - 4,, ERA 4.90,  IP, 79

Diamond 22,  WHIP  1.565, SO/- 7.6 -  w/9 - 3.6 ERA 3.50  IP 131

I don't think Gonsalves will a be #1 starter and his walks are a caution flag, but he has better comparable numbers than Perk and Diamond. 

Man, Matusz.  Remember when he was an absolutely untouchable pitching prospect?  He followed that up with a solid but unspectacular rookie season and then kind of stumbled.  

Sadly, I do remember Matusz being one of the games' top prospects (believe he was the top college arm the year he was drafted behind David Price), he just could never put it all together.  The two just have alot of similarities: physique, clean delivery, handedness, stuff, repertoire, makeup, etcetera.  Brian had a great fastball-changeup mix with a plus curveball, but as is the game of baseball everything did not click.  Now Matusz is on his third team looking to stick as a longman/mop up guy/loogy whatever he can take.

you missed the parts where I said that his WHIP is BABIP-driven (which is now at .250) and his FIP is driven by his ridiculous 0.22 HR/9 IP.  When those regress to the MLB norm, his WHIP will be in the 1.400s and FIP in the 4s, just like Perkins and Diamond...  

Again, the only comparable thing between Gonsalves, Perkins and Diamond is their throwing arm. Otherwise their numbers & career paths are so just...incomparable

That being said if he can be "career year" Diamond over a 10 year career I'd take that.  

The spin rate, to me is why Gonsalves is such an intriguing prospect. The backspin on his fastball has induced some incredibly weak contact. For example he allowed 190 fly ball outs last year, of which 42 were pop ups (22.1%). Compared to just 3 homers. He must have crazy rise on the pitch.

 

How much batted ball regression can you expect from a guy like that? If anything, with our outfield defense, maybe it goes the other way once he reaches MLB (at least the WHIP portion).

It's really tough to say until he reproduces those results while staying in the zone. As he tones it down or lives in the zone more he may not get so much poor contact and we'll see those numbers rise considerably. That's the hurdle he needs to climb to get to the majors.