In today's NY Post, Joel Sherman comments on the Mets' inclination to call up Mike Pelfrey, and that is arrival with the big club in 2006 is a matter of "when", not "if".
Minaya said "not at all" when asked if Hamels' ascension impacted Pelfrey's timetable. But Minaya added, "The Phillies didn't start the year with Hamels in mind. Hamels forced his way up. Michael Pelfrey will probably do the same with us."Sherman is referring to the recent promotion of Phillies' top pitching prospect Cole Hamels, who was dominantly wild in his debut against the Reds on Friday. Hamels was also destroying AAA prior to his callup, to the tune of a 36-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio and a 0.39 ERA in 23.0 innings.
Here are Pelfrey's numbers this season from High-A St. Lucie and AA Binghamton:
ERA IP H R ER HR BB SO
St. Lucie 1.64 22.0 17 5 4 1 2 26
Binghamton 4.15 21.2 30 11 10 0 9 24
He has been hit pretty hard at AA, but you can't tell from the boxscore whether those hits were liners, squibs, bleeders, etc. However, thanks to Jeffrey Sackmann's glorious Minor League Splits over at SBNation affiliate Brew Crew Ball, we know what Pelfrey's hit distribution looks like:
GB FB LD P B 18 9 12 3 0(GB = groundball; FB = flyball; LD = line drive; P = popup; B = bunt)
A fair number of line drives (12), but also a huge number of groundballs through the infield.
Pelfrey has been impressive, but he has a ways to go before he has mastered minor league hitters to the extent that Hamels has. If anything, it's good that Pelfrey is struggling a bit right now, because a lot of these phenom pitchers never learn what it's like to lose and bounce back, so we have an opportunity here to see how Pelfrey acquits himself of that. If he rebounds to pitch in AA as he had in High-A, then maybe we'll see him on the Mets this season. Bringing him up before then would be a big mistake.