Jesse Litsch

[Bwanna]

Thoughts on Litsch for next year?

He pitched very well from August 14th on, vs some good teams...

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Date    Opponent Score   Dec IP  H  R ER HR BB K IP    ERA     
Sep 28  @ BAL    W 10-1  W   7.0 3  1 1  0  1  5 176.0 3.58     
Sep 23  NYY      L 1-3   L   7.0 5  3 2  1  1  8 169.0 3.67     
Sep 18  BAL      W 3-2   W   6.0 4  2 2  0  4  6 162.0 3.72     
Sep 13  @ BOS    L 5-7   -   5.1 5  3 3  0  5  3 156.0 3.75     
Sep 9   @ CHW    W 8-2   W   7.0 6  2 2  0  2  6 150.2 3.70     
Sep 4   MIN      W 9-0   W   9.0 4  0 0  0  2  3 143.2 3.76     
Aug 28  @ TAM    L 2-3   L   6.2 10 3 3  2  0  2 134.2 4.01     
Aug 23  BOS      W 11-0  W   6.0 3  0 0  0  3  4 128.0 4.01     
Aug 14  @ DET    L 1-5   -   7.0 4  0 0  0  2  3 122.0 4.20

[RedSoxNation04]

He seems to have good stuff and put up strong numbers in the second half of the season when Toronto decided to start playing. If they can hit next year and if he continues to get better, he could be a nice pick up late in the draft and possibly has a 15-17 win season??

As for the draft, maybe somewhere around rounds 12-15 is where I would look for him. Guys like Billingsley, Hughes, Harden, Buchholz and Cain went around that time in my draft this year. I would be willing, at this time, to include him on that list of guys who could go out there next year and have a solid year start to finish. I'll have more of an opinion once I get a chance to sober up from this season and take a look at rankings for next year.

Something of note when I was just looking at his numbers is that he threw 65 more innings this year than last year but only walked three more batters. Nice progress for a young pitcher.

[J35J]

As far as I'm aware he's mostly a control guy with a handful of pitches he can throw all for strikes. Those types of guys go hot and cold as they have to have their full control or they will get lit up. mweir could probably fill us in a little more on what his stuff looks like though. Maybe similar to a Slowey....?

[mweir145]

Litsch is an interesting case. J35J is right in that he was primarily a control pitcher who has a number of pitches he throws for strikes (5 to be exact). In that form he had one of the lowest BB/9's in the league, but also gave up home runs at a pretty high clip. He was a decent major league pitcher in this form (mid 4 ERA, 1.30 WHIP type), but would have a lot of trouble with the good hitting teams who would crush his relatively weak stuff that he threw right over the plate.

He really reinvented himself as a pitcher after his trip down to AAA at the beginning of August. He started throwing his fastball more which can touch 92-93, and it made him a more effective pitcher down the stretch. In this form he had a bit less control, but his HR/9 went way down and his K/9 went up. The teams that he would usually have trouble with (NYY, BOS) were having problems with him. If he continues like this next year, his ceiling will probably be something near what Derek Lowe has done for the Dodgers the last 4 seasons. Not a huge amount of fantasy potential, IMO, primarily due to the division he pitches in, but maybe a good bargain later in the draft.

[mweir145]

And yeah, I'd probably call Litsch a worse version of Slowey, mostly because you can't expect him to K as often.

Litsch is a ground ball pitcher, though, which Slowey isn't.