One of the big headlines of Spring Training 2011 is the Rangers’ decision to give Rookie of the Year Neftali Feliz at least a cursory glance in the rotation during the preseason.
Plenty of people, many smarter than I, have tackled the issue at length. There’s certainly an argument to be had here–Feliz clearly is a shutdown reliever, and moving him to the rotation may produce less than optimal results (see Chamberlain, Joba…and yes, I know there are plenty of side-tangents with him).
A lot of the debate has centered on Feliz’s offspeed pitches, which drew praise in the minors but, especially his changeup, have seen little use in the big leagues. Both Eno Sarris and Albert Lyu over at Fangraphs have done extensive analysis in this regard.
I’d like to get away from some of the really hardcore stats, at least largely, for the purposes of this piece, mainly because Sarris, Lyu, and others have said plenty about them, and simply going down that road wouldn’t add much to the discussion.
Rather, I’d like to briefly make three simple points about Feliz that I feel often go overlooked. Maybe other evidence trumps these points; maybe we all already know about them, because they aren’t exactly rocket science. But for just a moment here, allow me to steer the Feliz debate back to basics.
1.) Feliz’s breaking ball is a great second pitch.
If you’re a baseball fan who’s heard of Neftali Feliz, you know he has a great fastball, so I don’t need to prove that. But what’s overlooked about him is that his curveball has been just as effective, rating 2.40 runs above average per 100 pitches in his career (the fastball is 2.45 above). In all this talk of advanced stats, that’s one that doesn’t get much play in this discussion.
What does it mean? Well, if the debate really does center on “Can the curve and change work?”, then the answer, at least with the curve, is a resounding yes. Obviously, a lot of the reason for the curve’s success can be attributed to hitters having to worry about the fastball, but that’s not going to go away as a starter, and plenty of starters use their breaking pitches under 16% of the time, which is Feliz’s career rate. You really don’t think that a 5% uptick there would render the pitch average or worse, do you?
2.) Feliz’s changeup earned praise in the minors.
The first time I ever remember really putting Feliz on my radar was reading a Kevin Goldstein report about him back in 2007 or so. I remember that report specifically singling out Feliz’s changeup as a major part of his arsenal, not unlike a later Braves fast-rising prospect, Julio Teheran. And it’s not like that disappeared later on: the 2010 Baseball America Prospect Handbook said it “can be a plus pitch, even though it comes in as hard as some pitchers’ fastballs.” Note the present tense there–this wasn’t a projection, this was a reflection of reality.
Do scouting reports mean all that much here? No, of course not. My point in bringing this up is simply to reinforce the idea that we shouldn’t assume the changeup is bad just because we don’t see it much. The easy response to that is “That doesn’t make it good, either,” of course, which is true, but you don’t really know unless you give it a shot. Obviously, Feliz doesn’t throw the pitch much, which could be interpreted as a lack of trust in it, but let’s think about it–given the success of the fastball and curve that I mentioned in my first point, it’d have to be one hell of a pitch to merit being thrown often. It’s not like he needed a third pitch in relief, given how well the other two were working. If the dude doesn’t need to throw the changeup as a reliever, why should he? For what it’s worth, the changeup was a poor-but-playable .65 runs below average per 100 pitches when he did throw it, but the sample is so small I’d consider it insignificant–pitch f/x has only recorded 73 changeups in his career.
But perhaps the most important argument, and the one I think we tend to lose sight of in the midst of all the nitty-gritty pitch analyses, is:
3.) He’s succeeded as a starter at every level of the minors.
Most starters are moved to relief because they struggle at some point, or perhaps for durability reasons. The lack of a third pitch that dooms one to a relief career typically does so because, at some point, the stats plunge.
But the last time we saw the starting pitcher version of Neftali Feliz, he struck out seven batters, walked one, and allowed one earned run in five innings on June 21, 2009. In 13 starts and 60 2/3 innings in AAA in 2009, he struck out 55, walked 27, allowed just one home run (in the hitter-friendly PCL, too), and posted a 3.86 ERA. Nine of those 13 starts saw him allow zero, one, or two earned runs. And, of course, he turned 21 about midway through that stint, and he was facing lineups composed largely of players 5-10 years older.
Were his numbers dominant? Not quite. But compare them to another AL West closer and Rookie of the Year, Andrew Bailey. Bailey was floundering with an ERA among the Double-A Texas League’s worst, at age 24, before the A’s pulled the plug on his starting gig because he didn’t have much of a changeup and they wanted him to work with a cutter rather than a two-seamer. Obviously, not every starter-to-reliever conversion gets results as immediate or pronounced as Bailey’s, but his situation is a classic example of a prospect pitching his way out of the rotation and into the bullpen.
Feliz’s isn’t. Nobody can say what he did in Triple-A as a 20/21 year-old starter was disastrous. About the worst one can say to describe his performance would be “merely above-average.” And, of course, Feliz was dominant as a starting pitcher prior to that Triple-A stint.
In sum, with a proven breaking ball, a changeup that has garnered mixed-but-not-terrible reviews when he’s actually thrown it, and a track record of success as a starter, there’s really no reason why Neftali Feliz shouldn’t be given a try in the Rangers rotation.