8 Comments
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WTM's avatar

Cherington said they’re gonna stretch out Ferguson as well as Mlod.

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Scott Kliesen's avatar

It’s good to have options. Better to have good options.

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Brian C. Bernard's avatar

It would be optimal if the starting 4 can get deeper and that role becomes a piggyback role for the 5 starter.

Ultimately I like Falter for the role as his velo May play up a bit along with his other positive metrics.

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CTBucco's avatar

The one issue with Mlod taking the Ortiz role is that he only had 50 IP last year. Baseball orthodoxy says you don’t increase load more than 20-30% from one season to the next. That would cap him in the 60-65 IP for ‘25. Ortiz threw 130+ IP last year coming off of 86 in ‘23. So that was a big 50% increase ‘23 to ‘24. Even at that level, Mlod only gets to 75 innings.

Burrows and Ashcraft (and Oviedo off TJ) have similar issues. It probably ends up taking two or more of them to fill that role this year.

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PirateRican21's avatar

Burrows has the arsenal to go through the line up more than once, so he’s my leading candidate if he misses out on starting.

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Anthony Murphy's avatar

So much of me wants him to win a rotation spot. Been a big Burrows fan for some time. He has the stuff. If it has to start as the Ortiz role to start so be it. He should be in the majors

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Mel Schuster - emjayinTN's avatar

Remember his 52 innings at AA as a 22 year old, and then missing almost all of 2023 and 2024. Those numbers were 4-2, 2.94 ERA, 52 IP, 38 H, 69 K/19 BB. He gets anywhere near those numbers, and we have a definite keeper.

11th Round pick in the 2018 Draft costing only $500K. This is his age 25 season.

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Anthony Murphy's avatar

Going into 2023 I had him as the best pitching prospect in the system. Obviously, a lot has changed since then, but I still think he can be a solid pitcher in the majors.

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