Pelfrey Has the Tools, but How Soon Should He Use Them?

What to make of Mike Pelfrey? After he won his first two starts as a Met, he was all but anointed by an uneasy fanbase as the third starter the team needs for the playoffs. Yesterday, in giving up five runs to the Astros in 4 1/3 innings, he looked like what he is — a talented prospect with a great fastball who signed his first professional contract in January.The issue with Pelfrey isn’t whether he’s all hype — clearly he’s not. Rather, it’s whether he’s ready to do something more than just take up a rotation slot. It’s hard to tell right now, but I think so.The most important thing about Pelfrey is that he has all the tools for success. His reputation coming out of college was for having one great pitch — a live, moving two-seam fastball that he could throw consistently at 95 — and the kind of frame and delivery that can handle 200 innings a year.The fastball is certainly the real deal, and he has an easy delivery that he repeats fairly well.Along with a willingness to throw strikes (no problems here) and a good work ethic (no one makes it to the majors three months into his first professional season without one), they’re the essential preconditions for success as a starter. Secondary pitches can be taught, and a hurler without a knack for pitch sequences and reading hitters can be paired with a smart catcher, but without a good fastball and delivery, no one succeeds for long in the majors. So these things are good.The next most important thing is that, so far as one can tell, his flaws are correctable.There are two big ones: His secondary pitches, and his control.Even here, to tell the truth, there’s good news. Pelfrey throws five pitches: A two-seam and a four-seam fastball (the two-seam is the one that breaks in on the hands of right-handed hitters and tops off at 95); an over-the-top curveball that comes in at 81; a changeup that varies from 81 to 85, and a slider at 81. Uncharitably, you might call the barely-breaking slurve he threw yesterday a pitch (it’s more like a badly thrown curve that ends up tumbling like a flat slider, and came in anywhere from 84 to 67, the latter being a monstrosity Pelfrey threw in the fourth), but we won’t.That’s not really a bad arsenal. The sinking fastball is a great pitch, and while he doesn’t have great control over the break of the curve or slider, he gets them over the plate, and his lack of control over their break is more a matter of consistency than of being able to do it, which is a good thing.You’d probably like to see either one of the breaking pitches or the change-up thrown in the mid-70s to give him more ability to change speeds, but this is his first professional season, and there’s time for those kinds of refinements.The second problem is control. Here again, there’s good news. Of Pelfrey’s 85 pitches yesterday, 65 were fastballs, and of those, 29 were inside strikes, 16 were strikes away, 13 were balls inside, and seven were balls away.This breakdown is good in its own right ( a trusty pitching maxim is to always miss inside), but it also points to a specific weakness, which is hitting the inside corner.You have to do that a bit better than Pelfrey is doing it if half your pitches are inside fastballs. Again, though, this is something that can be worked on — with more experience, Pelfrey will be able to consistently aim the ball halfway between the middle of the plate and the outer half and watch it tail back with natural movement.Here we come to the problem with expecting Pelfrey to start in the playoffs — his long-term development and the short-term needs of the team are somewhat at odds. Ideally, you’d like to see Pelfrey working on locating all his pitches properly and on throwing them well; mastering them early will, in the long run, allow him to better compensate when he starts to lose a bit of his stuff.The Mets can afford to let him do that because of their big lead in the NL East, but that wouldn’t necessarily lead to him being as effective as possible right now.For him to do that, the best thing would be to focus on throwing one offspeed pitch to one location for strikes; with his fastball, an effective curve, or change-up or slider should be enough for him to work five or six solid innings and get the ball to the bullpen against any lineup.We’ll see what happens. Pelfrey’s shown a lot, both in terms of raw stuff and approach. Yesterday, I was most impressed by the way he pitched to Houston’s Chris Burke in the first inning: After getting ahead 0–2 with a high 90 mph fastball and a 94 mph one inside, he threw an 81 mph curveball for a ball, then came back with the exact same pitch in the exact same spot for the strikeout.A lot of veteran pitchers couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do that. Pelfrey didn’t have perfect results, but he had a heck of a game. The idea of him doing better in October isn’t wishful thinking.tmarchman@nysun.com

Pelfrey Has the Tools, but How Soon Should He Use Them?

More from the New York Sun

Israel and Lebanon Coordinate Aid Convoy to Christian Villages in Combat Zone

Emerging Claim That Targeting Civilian Infrastructure Is a War Crime Proves a Bridge Too Far

Stanford Calls Bluff on Students Using Jain Faith To Dodge Meal Plan

South Florida GOP Congresswoman’s Immigration Reform Bill Sparks Backlash From Colleagues, Conservative Commentariat

Middle-Class Americans Prove the Biggest Winners From Trump’s Tax Cuts in the Big Beautiful Bill

In a Funeral for Economic Liberty, the Casket Cartel Seeks To Bury the Competition

The Double Tragedy of the Jewish Bund

Borrowing a Page From El Salvador’s Bukele, Ecuadoran President Welcomes American Troops To Assist With His Drug Gang Crackdown