Cleveland Indians’ T.J. House: An up and coming star?

Articulate and amiable, T.J. House of the Cleveland Indians could be a key part of a team which, after making a pretty decent run at postseason play in 2014, shoots to return to the playoffs in 2015. They last accomplished that with a late 2013 surge, when they won their final 10 contests to secure a wild-card spot.

Make no mistake, though, predicting the fortunes of a young pitcher is as dicey as investing in the futures market. House, a 16th Round draft pick in 2008 after spending his senior year in high school in Picayune, Mississippi, will enter 2015 as a 25-year-old whose minor league statistics were far from stellar.  Still, as a southpaw, and with a more than decent rookie year behind him, the Indians see him as a valuable commodity.

Over 144 minor league games, batters posted a .261 batting average against House and he walked one batter for every two strikeouts. His WHIP stood at 1.37 and his ERA nudged 4.00 (at 3.95).

His major league debut was unusual because all his life he had been a starter, but on May 17th he found himself trotting in from the bullpen to face his first big league batter. Up from Triple-A Columbus, he worked a perfect ninth inning, getting three ground outs.

House related how he basically had one thing on his mind during that outing:

"Throw strikes. I think that’s the key, just showing them that I was able to stay in the zone in that situation.Obviously, it’s not something that I prefer to do, but like I told them, ‘I’ll do whatever.’ As long as I’m here and I can help the team and be successful at it, I’ll do whatever they want me to do. But going in there and making sure you attack the zone and proving that you can throw stuff over the plate is going to be the greatest thing."

Down the stretch House came up big, winning his last three starts of the season on the 11th, 20th, and 28th of September.  His September 11th showing versus the Twins – seven shutout innings, eight Ks, no walks, and just four hits surrendered – really impressed the Indians brass. In the next two starts he lasted five innings each time, giving up three runs. He also fanned seven and walked just one batter.

He finished the season at 5-3 with an ERA of 3.35, and the Indians had a record of 13-5 over his 18 starts. In addition, he greatly improved his control in 2014 with 80 strikeouts versus 22 walks, a ratio of nearly 4-to-1. One publication said those stats translated into his being in the running to secure a starting spot in next year’s rotation, and his manager, Terry Francona, said House always seemed to give his team a good opportunity to win games.

House is a thinker and is quite methodical in his preparation. He spoke of the warming up process, beginning by contrasting pre-game sessions to what happens when the game begins.

"I used to tell my pitching coach if I look really bad in the bullpen it’s going to be a nice day. I think a lot of the time you have to take the bullpen [warm up] as just preparing yourself for the game— you don’t have to be perfect, and that’s OK. That’s the time to get loose, feeling yourself out, and then when it’s game time, I think a lot of times when the hitters get in the box it’s like a light switch switches on. It’s like, ‘OK, if I leave this pitch in the middle here, they’re going to drive it over the wall.’ If I do it in the bullpen, it doesn’t matter. So I think that having that effect changes things a little bit, knowing that it only matters in the game, it doesn’t matter in that bullpen. You can be as bad as you want there as long as you’re good in the game."

In some respects, the pre-game bullpen work is like batting practice— get loose, work on some things, but if you’re not stinging the ball or placing it where you want, it’s not going to be marked against you in the scorebook.  “Exactly,” said House. “My first couple of pitches I’m just trying to feel it out on the top of my fingers, get extended real well, and not necessarily try to paint the corners.”

Another matter: if a given pitch is really working in the bullpen, will that continue to be the case in the game?  House says yes.

"A majority of the time, for me, it does. I don’t know how other people feel, but if I have a pitch that’s really, really on in the bullpen, it’s usually really, really on in the game. There are very few times where my fastball command is phenomenal in the bullpen and I have trouble in the game. It has happened before, but I think that’s more of a mental kind of thing, saying, ’Oh, it’s so good,’ so in the game I feel like it’s going to be that good instead of focusing on making it that good. That, to me, is more of the mental part of the game."

As for the warming up between innings, there are many ways to approach that. One pitcher tended to throw pretty easy on his first seven tosses then blazed one to wrap things up while another big leaguer had the habit of lobbing his final pitch to his catcher.  House said, “My first seven pitches I throw are good, but I’m just trying to make sure I get spin.  The last one I’m throwing as hard as I can. I go fastball, fastball, fastball out of the windup. Fastball out of the stretch. Change up. Slider. Curveball and then the fastball.  Always. Every time.”

As mentioned, it’s impossible to predict what the future holds for House or any young player.  Who knew that an erratic Brooklyn left-hander who went 2-2 with 28 walks versus 30 K’s in 41 2/3 innings in his first big league season would go on to epitomize superb pitching (Sandy Koufax). On the other hand, the kid labeled as the “next Sandy Koufax,” southpaw David Clyde, was a “can’t miss prospect” who made his first big league start right out of high school where he had posted an impossible ERA of 0.06— not 0.60, but 0.06! In 148 innings he whiffed 328 batters while racking up nine no-hitters without ever losing a game. Highly touted, yes, but he would stick around the majors only long enough to go 18-33, winning a mere 35% of his decisions.

The Cleveland Indians and the fans of the affable House are naturally pulling for him to put up numbers which lean a lot more toward those of Koufax.  The “next Koufax?” Of course not, but they’ll settle for a man who can help them make it back to postseason play. How about maybe another Corey Kluber? They’d sure go for that.