Rick Porcello may be the next Boston Red Sox ace
By Jon Flint
The Boston Red Sox have pieced together solid pitching depth, but so far are headed to Spring Training without a true ace. While he may not seem like “the guy” right now, Rick Porcello may become the next big time starting pitcher within Red Sox Nation.
What would you say about a pitcher who managed to drop his ERA from 4.59 to 3.43 in two years? How about a guy who won 15 games on more than 204 innings in 2014?
This is the evolution of Rick Porcello, a guy drafted out of high school in 2007 and paid $7.28 million from the start. The Detroit Tigers drafted the New Jersey native 27th overall and immediately handed him a $3.5 million signing bonus because Porcello was set to become a number one starting pitcher in an MLB rotation. Not much has changed, except Porcello will now wear Red Sox across his chest.
Finally out from underneath the shadow of Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, and (a year of) David Price, Porcello now has every opportunity to reach the potential that saw him once be compared to the likes of Josh Beckett, Roy Halladay, and Roy Oswalt. All were big game pitchers during their time and yet none can match the hype Porcello received as a prospect six seasons ago.
As summed up by one particular scouting report:
"“You can see why teams loved [Porcello] in the draft — he has all the elements you look for in a young pitcher. I am confident he could pitch in the big leagues right now as a back-end starter, but allowing him to improve in the minors for a bit is the more savvy move.”"
The Tigers were far from savvy and after his one season of dominating High-A ball, Porcello was on Detroit’s 25-man roster. Despite his two-seam and four-seam fastball reaching the mid-90’s, he struggled to strike out batters at the MLB level. Perhaps he relied too much on his sinking fastball or maybe he didn’t use his slider enough. Either way, Porcello was not instantly the effective starter most had hoped he would be. The hype quickly died and some immediately penned him as, “a solid middle-of-the-rotation innings eater.”
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Wanting to be more than a back-end starter, Porcello worked with Detroit pitching coach Jeff Jones on pitch efficiency. Command had never really been a problem for him, but his overuse of fastballs and lack of utilizing breaking pitches made him one of the more predicable starters in the league.
Instead of forcing his hand at flame-throwing, Porcello better developed his four pitch arsenal to induce ground balls. The maturation has carried with him through each offseason where he continues to work more and more on mechanics. Porcello’s hard work and attention to detail has paid off. The .769 average OPS hitters put up against him in the first four years of his career dropped to .712 in 2014.
Porcello is never going to be the guy who will headline the rotation with league-leading metrics. He may never see a Cy Young awarded to him. But in Boston, he doesn’t have to.
Statistically speaking, Jon Lester was hardly a top 10 starter throughout much of his Red Sox tenure, but he solidified his role as Boston’s ace because he won enough big games. He may get the job done differently, but at 26-years old, Rick Porcello has the command, confidence, and work ethic to follow in a similar path.