Guardians Fans: Time To Get Excited About Ryan Webb!!!

 Well, maybe.  

Here's why:

This is the most Webb has pitched in a year since he was drafted in 2021 while dealing with TJ surgery.  

Webb spent the entire 2023 season (except for one ACL rehab start) with the Lake County Captains.   He spent most of 2022 at Lynchburg trying to get back into the swing of pitching after the TJ surgery.  

Ryan Webb was our 4th round pick in 2021, drafted the round before Tanner Bibee.  His 2023 season was more of the same as 2022, trying to get his feel for pitching back.  The stats were a mixed bag of some good starts and some clunkers but in his last 3 regular season starts he pitched 17 innings and gave up 3 ER, striking out 18 while walking 4 and giving up 12 hits and 1 HR. 

I suggested in my "Who Should we Send to the AFL?" post that Webb could use the extra innings in the AFL because of his lost time in 2021 and 2022 added to him starting 2023 on the IL.  

So Webb was indeed assigned to the AFL and that is when the magic REALLY started to happen.

Today he pitched 4 innings and gave up 1 ER on 5 singles (bunt, 3 ground balls up the middle and 1 line drive).  He walked 1 and struct out 6, his 4th consecutive start where he K'd more than 1 hitter per inning.

So now here we are, 4 starts into the AFL season that is quickly drawing to a close and, in 4 starts, Webb has pitched 14.1 innings, striking out 27 hitters to lead the AFL in that category.  He has walked 8 and allowed 13 hits, including 3 HRs for an ERA of 5.65.

To show you how rare what he is doing is, let's look at the last 2 AFL seasons:

• In the last 2 AFL seasons only 4 pitchers (Jeff Criswell, 32, Cole Henry, 30 and Owen White 29 in 2021 and Connor Thomas. 32 in 2022) have struck out more batters than Webb has and it is likely Webb has one more start before the AFL draws to a close in about a week.  If he just strikes out 6 in his last start  (he hasn't struck out less than 5 so far, and that was in his first, 2-inning, start, he would have the most Ks of any pitcher who has pitched in the AFL in those 3 years.  It should be known that Criswell, Henry and White were top 10 prospects in their organization in those years and Thomas was top 15 for the Cardinals last year.
• As it stands right now, Webb has the 2nd best K/IP rate of any pitcher in 2021, 2022 and 2023 in their AFL appearances, bested only by Evan Reifert's ridiculous 25 Ks in 12 innings (1 hit, 4 walks allowed) in 2022.  The next best K/IP rate in those 3 years was 1.5, if you don't count one pitcher from 2022 who walked 14 and K'd 11 in 6 innings.  
• This is being done by a guy who has never played above A+ ball whereas all the other names mentioned above had at least played in AA in the year of their AFL accomplishments, with Thomas having played a full year at AAA in 2022.  This makes his success this fall even more rare.

So, folks, while Ryan Webb is probably not a finished product yet, for him to have this type of success in the AFL, actually historic success after having never played about A+ in his life, is a really good and exciting thing when you consider that, at draft time, he was way more highly thought of than even Bibee as Webb's draft slot was discounted from his actual talent by having TJ surgery before the draft (I think!).  That pedigree means, to me, we are likely seeing a guy just growing into his professional career rather than a mirage in the desert.  Let's hope so as that would be great for the pitching depth in our organzation.

The words that ring in my mind from the MLB Trade Rumors off-season Guardians chat ring true.  When asked who the next great pitcher would be to come out of the Guardians farm system the writer said 'Probaby some guy still in A ball trying to figure it out' or something like that.  Hmmm, I am taking that guy to the track with me next time I go!