Posted June 17, 200915 yr Dennis Eckersley on the NESN broadcast of the game yesterday, said Chris Voltad is too young to be pitching in the ML, and the implication was that the Marlins in general call up pitchers too soon. I personally didn't hear the comments but was talking to some guys up here who watched the game on NESN. Just thought it was a good topic of discussion. Personally I think Volstad has alot of maturity for a young pitcher and I expect he will be ok.
June 17, 200915 yr LOL. So his first 20+ starts where he never gave up more then 4 runs in any of them mean nothing? He has 2 bad starts in a row and he's not ready for the Majors? Makes perfect sense to me...
June 17, 200915 yr Well up untill his last few starts he's pitched great. I guess eck is basing this off this year so far. I think voly is pretty mature for his age.
June 17, 200915 yr Well up untill his last few starts he's pitched great. I guess eck is basing this off this year so far. I think voly is pretty mature for his age.  I agree. Volstad was pitching great, this guy watches one start and makes this judgement? Being called up young seems to have really hurt Josh Beckett.....gimme a break.
June 17, 200915 yr How many great players have we produced that were brought up in their very early 20s or late teens? It's a pretty big list.
June 17, 200915 yr What does Eckersley know? Is he a coach? Marlins have the best scouts in all of baseball- scouts and front office the Red Sox would dream about. Â Our success of young pitcher's are fine. Beckett, Burnett, Dempster, Looper, etc...all good careers.
June 17, 200915 yr Volstad rocked in ST last year and did the same thing when he was called up to the majors. What's happening now, the sophomore slump, probably would have happened no matter when he was called up as hitters have finally gotten a good read on him. Extra minor league time wouldn't have really taught him to deal with that.
June 17, 200915 yr He must really hate the Rick Porcello situation then.  Or Andrew Miller. Either way, he might be on to something.
June 17, 200915 yr Unless you're one of the elite pitchers in this league, inconsistency is common to all. I mean look at Nolasco this year. Look at Anibal Sanchez last year. Even Dontrelle Willis. Pitching is also a mind game, so your stuff alone is not going to get it done all the time. All of these pitchers struggled or are struggling currently b/c the experience is lacking. They were all sent to the minors and if Volstad can't turn it around in his next 2 starts, he'll also be sent down. The fact is though all these pitchers have proven they can pitch in the major leagues, it's just a matter of adjusting.
June 17, 200915 yr Marlins have the best scouts in all of baseball- scouts and front office the Red Sox would dream about. Â Not at all.
June 17, 200915 yr haaaa, pretty funny. He didn't say that after he had a great rookie year. Pretty easy to say something like that during the worst stretch of Volstad's career
June 17, 200915 yr What does Eckersley know? Is he a coach? Marlins have the best scouts in all of baseball- scouts and front office the Red Sox would dream about.  Our success of young pitcher's are fine. Beckett, Burnett, Dempster, Looper, etc...all good careers.  Just because our organization drafted some good players doesn't mean that our scouts are the best in baseball. And it's ironic that you bring up the Red Sox considering our best player came from their system. And while they could have made a mistake in trading him, acquiring Beckett and Lowell worked out just fine for them and it was well know that they felt Dustin Pedroia was a much better fit for their team, which also has worked out extremely well.  I think that you are forgetting that between 2006 and now our system had a complete absence of legitimate hitting prospects. And while Logan Morrison did emerge from that fog, practically nobody else has. Only now are we seeing some guys look promising in our system but even though we had a highly ranked system at the beginning of the year only Stanton and Coghlan have come close to meeting expectations.
June 17, 200915 yr Marlins have the best scouts in all of baseball- scouts and front office the Red Sox would dream about. Â Not at all. Thanks. I didnt want to be the one to call BS.
June 17, 200915 yr Unless you're one of the elite pitchers in this league, inconsistency is common to all. I mean look at Nolasco this year. Look at Anibal Sanchez last year. Even Dontrelle Willis. Pitching is also a mind game, so your stuff alone is not going to get it done all the time. All of these pitchers struggled or are struggling currently b/c the experience is lacking. They were all sent to the minors and if Volstad can't turn it around in his next 2 starts, he'll also be sent down. The fact is though all these pitchers have proven they can pitch in the major leagues, it's just a matter of adjusting.  Hell even being elite doesn't make a pitcher immune to inconsistency, as demonstrated by Johan Santana. Yes he of the numerous Cy Young awards and All Star appearances who currently has a 9.56 ERA in 3 June starts.
June 17, 200915 yr Author What does Eckersley know? Is he a coach? Marlins have the best scouts in all of baseball- scouts and front office the Red Sox would dream about.  Our success of young pitcher's are fine. Beckett, Burnett, Dempster, Looper, etc...all good careers.  Well I don't agree with Eck on this one but I'm willing to bet Dennis Eckersley knows a little about baseball. And as for the FO and the scouts... I'm sure the RedSox are quite happy with theirs...LOL. By the way...Eck had one of the best all-time baseball hairstyles.
June 17, 200915 yr He was absolutely ready and has shown he belongs in the majors. He's had a few hiccups lately, but nothing really awful yet. He's certainly had a far better success record than the overhyped Andrew Miller.
June 17, 200915 yr Yes he was brought up too early to become an alcoholic, piss away his talent then get found on the scrap heap and get cheap one inning saves, Yes the man Eck has spoken lets all listen to what the man says
June 17, 200915 yr By the way, Volstad's next two starts are against the fifth and sixth best offenses in the league so I wouldn't be surprised if he continues to give up runs.
June 18, 200915 yr There are some analysts that predicted his numbers would drop-off from last season. I didn't want to believe them, but I've been wrong many times so we'll wait & see how it looks at the end of the year. I'm not great at digging deep into the stats... although he's right at the same # of innings pitched as he did in his rookie season last year so it would be a good time to compare with 2008. His K's are actually up and walks are down a little. His WHIP is the same as last year.  So the home runs seem to account for most of the difference. Went from 3 to 14. Volstad mentioned after the Boston loss that he hasn't been keeping the ball down as well as he did last season. He never really seems to get wild, just missing his spots a bit. Still, we're talking about a pitcher in his first full season, and aside from these last 2 starts (mostly) we've had little to complain about.
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