There has been a lot of debate around here the past few days about the role of some of the younger players on the 25 man roster. The inspiration for this came from a few comments I saw today, for example-

agreed. love Gallagher’s’s numbers down in AAA, but he’s shown us less than nothing so far. maybe a few starts will get him turned around, but can we afford it at this point with STL looking playoff-caliber? marshall is hill/lilly redux. who else is out there? kevin hart again? where’s ryan o’malley when you need him? let F7 try it out? veal?

Now this isn’t an attempt to embarrass or attack a poster, but what is happening here I think is severe sample size misjudgement and a fundamental misunderstanding of how to judge a minor league track record in general.

What I aim to do is examine what role Gallagher is in and what role I feel he should be in and why. Also, to look at the veterans vs rookies/younger players POV in regards to the makeup of this team.

First up, the newest guy called up Mr. Sean Gallagher. Gallagher was our 12th round pick out of HS in the 2004 draft and since then has carved out an impressive minor league track record. He started out in rookie ball as an 18 year old and struck out 44 batters in 34.2 IP.

The next year at age 19 and in Peoria A ball Gallagher broke out. In 149 innings he posted a 2.71 ERA with 14 wins on his way to becoming the Cubs Minor League Pitcher of the Year. His peripheral stats were good as well with a K/9 rate of 8.57 and a BB/9 of 3.39. In 2006 Gallagher split time between High A and AA ball. He had a sub 3 ERA at both places and his K/9 Rate remained great at 9.19 and 9.49 respectively. His main trouble came in his stint at AA where his BB/9 rate skyrocketed from 2.41 at High A to 5.73 at AA. However, its important to note that this blip is the only time Gallagher’s walk rate was near that high in the minors and it was only over the course of 86 IP. At every stop other than that half season Gallagher’s walks are in the 3.5 BB/9 level which isn’t outstanding but its not poor either. As a point of reference at the same age Zambrano had a very similar jump between AA and AAA. In fact Zambrano and Gallagher’s total minor league workload is within 20 IP’s of each other and overall Gallagher’s K/9 and BB/9 rate are noticeably better than Z’s. Now, #‘s aren’t everything and Z was facing higher levels of competition in the minors and also made it to the majors faster than Gallagher did, but its worth nothing that Z make it to the bigs at age 20 while Gallagher came up last year at 21.

Last year Gallagher started again at AA and this time his walk rate was back to his career norms. He won 7 games at AA before moving up to Iowa and posting a 2.66 ERA in 40 IP. He had sporadic action with the Cubs in June, July, August and September totaling 14.2 IP. It was tough going as he gave up 14 ER but we are all smart enough to know that most 21 year olds don’t light up the majors in their first go round.

Now Gallagher is back up with the club in the bullpen. The other night in StL he opened some eyes by hitting the mid 90’s on the gun with his fastball in 2 innings of work. Today the results weren’t as solid with Sean giving up 2 ER in 2 innings of work, including a HR to Joey Votto. Lets take a look using Gameday to see what was working and what wasn’t.

As we can see, Gallagher came in in the top of the 5th with Dunn at 1B. His first pitch was a 92 MPH fastball slightly elevated that Encarnacion popped up to mound. Good start, nothing really to make any kind of judgement off of. The next batter he faced was Cub Killer Paul “Human HGH” Bako. Gallagher starts the sequence off with a 73 MPH Curveball with a 16’’ break on it. He misses up and out with a 92 MPH fastball before improving the count to 1-2 on a fastball clocked at 94. He misses badly with his slider at 84 MPH and an 8’’ break to go to 2-2. He then just misses outside with another fastball before throwing 2 more fastballs- one which was fouled off and the other bako blooped into LF. I picked this AB out because it’s an extended sequence where we see 3 of Gallagher’s pitches. His fastball velocity is consistent between 92-94 and he threw a good curve. What also nice is that 5 of the 7 pitches thrown were near the zone. During the entire inning 11 of his 15 pitches thrown are in or around the zone which means he was able to put the ball where he wanted. He also threw the fastball almost exclusively with all but 2 pitches being the heater. This was especially effective vs. Korey Patterson who was beat down by three fastballs painted on the outside part of the zone to end the inning.

The 6th is where Gallagher runs into trouble. He gets Hariston Jr to fly out throwing nothing but fastballs. Sadly, after that Gameday is missing some data on pitches vs the next few hitters but the home run to Votto came on a 92 MPH fastball that was located poorly. He gave up a single before being talked to at the mound and then striking out Bako on 3 pitches with the curve finishing the job.

So what do we take from this info? First, Gallagher has good velocity on that fastball. Its consistent and he has shown the arm power to really ratchet it up a few MPH when he needs it. Second, his curve showed good break. Also for the most part he was in or around the zone, the walk to Dunn in the 6th came on a call he probably should have got according to Gameday. The reason I even brought this info out was to give a “face” so to speak to his abilities beyond just presenting you his stats from the minors.

Now we have a glimpse at a performance and we have a better idea of his statistical pedigree, we come to the million dollar question, what role should Gallagher have? At the moment both our rotation and bullpen are a mess. A RP throwing 92-95 would bring another power arm to a pen that is fast becoming full of velocity + relievers that Lou craves. Fox, Marmol, Wood, Gallagher and Howry when the weather warms can all bring the heat, and maybe Gallagher could give Lou another option to solidify the pen at least until Howry wakes up from his early season hibernation. OR- The Cubs could really be bold and give Gallagher Marquis or Lieber’s spot in rotation. Guys with Gallagher’s numbers are not common. His hits per 9, K’s per 9, BB’s per 9 and more traditional stats like ERA all point to a plus starter in the wings. The fact that he made the majors at such a young age is another plus for him and that his minor numbers hold water to the Cubs best pitcher doesn’t hurt either. Granted, he hasn’t come in Scherzer style and mowed them down in his first appearances but even Scherzer got rocked the other day. Its important to realize the importance of sample size cannot be understated. It’s very foolish to write off a guy with hundreds of + IP because he hasn’t set the world on fire in less than 20 IP in the bigs. Last year the main problem for Gallagher was control, and over 450 IP suggest that can’t continue. There isn’t a single pitcher major league ready with this kind of upside outside of Hill and Gallagher is 5 1/2 years younger than Rich is. With vets like Marquis deciding to suck ass earlier than usual and Hill trying to get back on track in AAA I dont see many reasons not to give Gallagher at least a 3 start rental spot in the rotation. He might bomb and give those who don’t trust anyone under 30 in the rotation more reason to complain, but all the hard evidence we have suggests it’s more likely he will give us better results than what we can expect from Marquis or Lieber or even the suddenly much maligned Sean Marshall.

What I would do is slate Gallagher to get his first start at home vs either the Padres or the Pirates both of whom will be in town in the upcoming homestand. Give the kid team that isn’t that good to get his feet wet. For far too long the Cubs haven’t set up their best prospects in positions to succeed. Hendry had a great quote today about Pie when he said to effect its hard to be up here thinking you have to do something big in every AB. Lou’s willingness to play the hot hand works well to motivate vets but it might be counter-productive to younger players who know if they dont come flying out of the gate that they will be sent to the bench or back down quick. Forcing your talent to press is never the best way to approach things and using a 1 size fits all approach to our players in regardless of age/experiance isn’t best way to do things.

Finally, I would like to point out that all of this is part of a much larger issue of playing youth over established veterans. Many people prefer to go with the devil they know than one they aren’t familiar with. Marquis is going to go 5 IP with 7 ER at times but a few times he will give a quality start. He isn’t going to suddenly forget how to be at least somewhat effective ( Unless its 2006 ;-) ) Whereas with a younger pitcher you could worry that everything could fall apart with no baseline of expected production to fall back on. I would counter this by stating that as of RIGHT NOW Sean Gallagher is most likely better than Marquis given the chance to show it, and given his age and upside has the potential to improve as the season goes on. The fact that we know Marquis wont post a 10 ERA is diminished because we also know (at least I hope we do) he isnt going to become a good SP at the age of 28. Going with youth on a veteran team geared to win now may make some of you uneasy but given the status of the trade market and the early state of the season, any trade we make will cost alot when we could have a equally good or better option sitting in our pen right now. Additionally, to make any trade for an established SP you can bet Gallagher + a lot of others are in the deal. If Gallagher isn’t ready then so be it, but give him more than a spot start before making any kind of long term judgement. The vets have had their chance and failed this team in a big way, giving Gallagher a shot is as low risk as continuing to trod Marquis out there and comes with significantly more high reward potential. In baseball like in life, low risk-high reward is generally a good way to go about things.

Post Script- I know I didn’t adress other players like Marshall in detail but I’m taking the wife to see that new Tina Fey movie so we can bring it up in the comments, or not, it’s whatev.