Anthopoulos: Laffey, Drabek Still In Mix For Blue Jays’ 5th Rotation Spot
Options or no, it seems as though the underdogs in the Toronto Blue Jays‘ search for their 5th starter – Aaron Laffey and Kyle Drabek – aren’t quite ready to go away yet.
At least, that was the impression given by Alex Anthopoulos, who suggested to media yesterday that despite McGowan having been the clear favourite in the competition to round out the rotation, Laffey and Drabek “both deserve to be here,” and that the team’s final decision is likely “going to go down to the wire.”
That’s perhaps as indicative of McGowan’s overall readiness for a starter’s role, as much as how both Drabek and Laffey have impressed the team’s coaches, I think. McGowan has looked good in his 5 innings thus far, allowing just an unearned run on 3 hits and a walk. He hasn’t pitched in a spring game since the 15th, however, and his workload is still about half that of both Laffey and Drabek’s. Instead, he was struggling in a class-A game on Tuesday, failing to get out of the 3rd inning after throwing 68 pitches. That normally would not be cause concern…had it been 3 weeks ago. But the regular season is set to start in a little over a week, and McGowan still has not thrown over 3 innings in any of his outings yet.
Not that Kyle Drabek has been setting the world on fire, either. The 24-year old has gone into the 4th inning just once, but “has made tremendous strides,” according to the Blue Jays GM. Laffey, on the other hand, has been rather successful so far this spring. Upside probably isn’t on his side though, and you could make a case for putting someone like a McGowan or Drabek over Laffey, keeping him as a long reliever in the ‘pen for spot starts. There are question marks attached to each player, and I still think McGowan’s lack of options is the thing that’s keeping him in the frontrunner’s spot for now.
If he just isn’t going to be ready to throw 90+ pitches each time out though, could there be a scenario where McGowan ends up working out of the bullpen, I wonder? Even if it’s only to buy him time to get ready for a 150+ IP workload, it seems to be a way to keep both Laffey and McGowan working on the team to start the season, without exposing the latter to waivers the risk losing him for nothing. Someone else (Perez, probably) will likely have to be the odd man out there, so it’s probably not a feasible scenario…but it’s something to think about while we wait on a final decision, I suppose.
Buy Toronto Blue Jays Tickets | Buy Toronto Blue Jays Apparel
Leave a Rant
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!
FEATURED PARTNERS
- How To Make Enemies (On Facebook)
- The Complete Collection Of "Mad Men" Premiere Gifs
- Smug Raccoon
- Tim Tebow -- Exploring NYC in a Pimped Out Limo Van
- NFL Star Michael Turner to Baby Mama -- Keep Our Kid Off Reality TV ... UNLESS
- Kobe Bryant -- Drops $329,000 on a New Ferrari
- The 10 Most ENVY-ous Moments of the NCAA Tournament’s Second Weekend
- Weekend Buzz, Presented By the Greatest Ashley Tisdale Photo Ever
- Deadmau5’s Epic Facebook Rant Hating on Madonna’s ‘Has Anyone Seen Molly?’ Intro to Avicii at Ultra