More On Drabek

Yesterday I said that the Blue Jays have some reason for optimism because of their awesome rotation and the last guy I mentioned in their rotation was Kyle Drabek, figuring they have 4 starters ahead of him.  Well, according to Bryan Smith on Fangraphs, not so fast mister:

Kyle Drabek threw about 20% of the time last night: a cutter. You can’t blame BA or Law, because a second-inning booth interview of his father Doug Drabek revealed that Dad taught him the pitch in the offseason, and that it’s still coming along. 

But wow, does the pitch have potential. A second-inning strikeout of Adam Jones showed off the pitch in all its glory: he commanded a 90 mph pitch with slider movement with two strikes. In fact, at times, he shows great confidence in the pitch: throwing it on three balls at least three times last night. However, the confidence is still not in all the right places. His Dad, in the booth interview, said the pitch was implemented as a way to jam left-handed hitters. But like a college pitcher afraid to throw his change-up against aluminum bats, Drabek wouldn’t use it in that fashion last night: back-dooring it to left-handed hitters and using it a chase pitch against right-handers.

With another winter spent between the Blue Jays underrated pitching development team, and working with a former All-Star father, it’s not hard to imagine Drabek arriving to Spring Training next year with some new weapons in tow: better command of the fastball, control of the curveball, faith in the cutter. Not one of those offerings is far away, and if he succeeds in all three areas, he might just be Toronto’s best starter. And, with this group, that’s saying something.  

Drabek has a Fastball topping out at 97, a "70" grade curveball, and now a 90 MPH cutter/slider, and Bryan Smith suggests that he can get better.  There were a lot of upset fans in Toronto after they traded Roy Halladay, but it looks like they might end up getting a pretty good deal.  The Jays acquired Drabek, Michael Taylor and Travis d'Arnaud for Halladay, then swappedTaylor for Brett Wallace and finally settled on Anthony Gose in a deal for Wallace with Houston.  Gose and d'Arnaud may become nothing, but with Drabek they may not need any production from the other guys to make out on top.

If  Drabek becomes Toronto's best starter like Smith suggests he can, the Blue Jays will be looking at one of the best rotations in baseball, arguably the best.  While they won't have a top caliber guy along the likes of Sabathia or Liriano or Lee, they would have 5 above average starters, with 4 capable of being all-star caliber (Romero/Morrow/Marum/Drabek). If we assume Jose Bautista isn't a fluke (which we should), and if the Adams (Hill and Lind) perform somewhere between what they did in the breakouts last year and what they are doing this year, the Blue Jays will be a surprise team next year, even considering their division.

Now I'm not trying to pencil in the 2011 Toronto Blue Jays in the Wild Card or anything like that.  However, if they finish this year with around 80 wins it's plausible to say that with an uptick on Hill and Lind's production coupled with a full year with that rotation that they're talent level would be around 85 wins.  And at that point you only need a little bit of luck to be a contender.