All us prospect geeks are pumped over Webb's performance in the AFl this year. He leads the league in strikeouts and has had two outings where he gave up only 1 hit in 4.1 innings. In his outing yesterday he threw 4 shutout, hitless innings before he gave up an infield hit and a walk in the 5th, both runners being allowed to score by the pitcher who replaced him.
My guess is that he has one more start this fall and, given that, let's look at how his strikeout totals compare with past participants in the AFL looking back to 2005.
49 - Tommy Hansen - 2008
40 - Miguel De Los Santos - 2011
39 - Glenn Perkins - 2005
38 - Phil Hughes - 2008
36 - Forrest Whitley - 2018
36 - Scott Mathieson - 2005
35 - Jerad Weaver - 2005
34 - Connor Thomas - 2022
33 - Boone Whiting -2012
33 - Sean Manea - 2015
33 - Wilie Eyres - 2008
33 - Alex Hinshaw - 2008
33 - Austin Gomber - 2016
33 - Ryan Webb - 2023
The cautionary tale here is that high strikeout totals in the AFL have very little to do with future success. Just look at Connor Thomas from St. Louis, last year's K leader in the AFL. He also had only 5 walks. On the strength of his pedigree (5th round college pick) and his AFL showing he started the year as the Cardinals 19th ranked prospect. He has now fallen out of their top 30 entirely after having a mediocre year in his 3rd season in AAA. His stuff seems to be similar to that of Webb and his draft pedigree was similar, as well. In addition you could look at Evan Reifert who had 25 Ks in the 2022 AFL season in 11.2 innings with only 4 BB but, like Thomas, is not one of the top 30 prospects in his organization in 2023. Looking at the rest of list some of the guys became good ML pitchers and others did not. Time will tell with Webb but the Guardians are good at developing pitchers and if his 91-92 FB average could get bumped up to 93 mph touching 94, I think we could be looking at the next Aaron Civale.
No comments:
Post a Comment