Per the early results, the recent trade between the Houston Astros and Philadelphia Phillies should be referred to not as “the Ken Giles trade,” but as “the Vince Velasquez trade.”
At least on a knee-jerk level, that’s just sound logic. While Giles sits there with an ERA over 12.00 through four appearances out of Houston’s bullpen, Velasquez looks like a man on a mission in the Phillies rotation.
His latest target: the San Diego Padres. They had no answer for Velasquez in a 3-0 loss at Citizens Bank Park on Thursday afternoon, as the 23-year-old used blistering fastballs and biting hooks to strike out 16 while allowing three hits and no walks in a complete-game shutout.
This is one of those tidbit starts. Joel Sherman of the New York Post notes that Velasquez is the youngest pitcher to strike out 16 batters since Mark Prior in 2003. And as Jayson Stark of ESPN.com notes, the only other active pitcher with a 16-strikeout, zero-walk game to his name is Max Scherzer. And so on.
Velasquez’s shutout is coming on the heels of a 2016 debut that was also eye-opening. He shut out the New York Mets for six innings last Saturday, striking out nine and allowing three hits and three walks.
All told, the right-hander’s numbers through his first two starts boggle the mind. He has yet to allow a run in 15 innings, allowing only six hits and three walks. He’s struck out 25 of the 54 batters he’s faced.
The only nit to pick is with his competition. The Padres definitely aren’t a good offensive team, as they’ve already been shut out five times in 10 games. The Mets should be a lot better, but their slow start put them at last in the National League in runs and OPS at the start of play on Thursday.
Even still, there’s no harm in wondering if the Phillies have something special in Velasquez. Because it sure seems like they do.
When the Phillies landed Velasquez from the Astros last December, he arguably wasn’t the centerpiece of the trade.
He was coming to Philadelphia alongside four other players, including former No. 1 overall pick Mark Appel. Velasquez was also coming off an unspectacular breakthrough with the Astros in 2014, in which he posted a 4.37 ERA in seven starts and 12 relief appearances. Before that, he had a minor league track record that was largely marred by a Tommy John operation in 2010 and a significant groin injury in 2014.
However, there was no denying Velasquez’s appeal as a building block for the Phillies’ rebuild. At a sturdy 6’3″ and armed with a mid-to-upper-90s fastball, Christopher Crawford of Baseball Prospectus wrote that Velasquez could either step into Giles’ shoes or fit into Philly’s rotation in the long run: “At worst Velasquez marks a strong central piece as a potential high-leverage reliever in his own right, and the potential to groom him into a long-term rotation staple remains alive and well if the Phillies choose to do so.”
In spring training, Velasquez made no secret about which he preferred.
“I’d like to help the team out in the rotation,” he told Jim Salisbury of CSN Philly. “That’s where I want to be. I’m not really favoring that relieving half, to be honest with you.”
Velasquez got his wish, as Phillies manager Pete Mackanin named him the club’s No. 5 starter in late March. And in two starts since then, he’s shown just what he’s capable of as a starter.
Notably, he’s shown he can maintain his fastball deep into games. Per Brooks Baseball, he was actually throwing harder in the sixth inning than he was in the first inning of his debut. And against the Padres, Velasquez was still touching 98 even after he crossed the 100-pitch threshold.
To boot, Velasquez’s fastball is one of those where velocity doesn’t tell the whole story.
It also has tremendous life on it, which helps explain how he could pull off the baffling feat of getting 20 swings and misses on the 76 fastballs he threw against the Padres. According to Mike Petriello of MLB.com, the only guy who’s done that in recent history is, once again, Scherzer.
If Velasquez’s arsenal had a weakness in his prospect days, it was his lack of a consistent breaking ball. As Nick J. Faleris wrote at Baseball Prospectus in 2015, it could “come soft, lacking bite.”
It looked pretty good against the Padres, though. Velasquez threw 30 curveballs, collecting five whiffs and giving up one hit. Courtesy of The Pitcher List, at least one was a knee-buckler:
What Velasquez hasn’t shown as much in his 2016 workload, such as it is, is a changeup. But he does have one, and a good one at that. Both Faleris and Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com considered it to be a second above-average pitch alongside his curveball when Velasquez was still a prospect.
Even if Velasquez doesn’t break out his changeup more often, his fastball-curveball combination and his ability to throw strikes (146 out of 212 pitches) could be good enough to keep his breakout going. If such an approach worked for Shelby Miller in 2013, it can work for Velasquez in 2016.
That would continue the narrative that getting Velasquez alone is enough to make the Giles trade (excuse me, the Velasquez trade) lopsided in their favor. Just don’t ask Velasquez himself about it, as he’ll swear that he’s not succeeding because of a chip on his shoulder.
“I’m beyond that. I don’t even think of that,” he told Ryan Lawrence of the Philly Voice. “My job is to pitch for the Phillies and the Phillies only. [The Astros] traded me, so my job is here. This is home for me, this is my home.”
The Phillies should have no problem with an attitude like that. Especially not when it’s coming from a guy who’s turning into a steal.
Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.
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